No stranger to the higher levels of sport, Louw (46), a Dunedin operations manager, drew from his experience as Otago's cricket umpire of the year and member of the national umpires development panel to hold a steady nerve and cool head to score off every end to soundly defeat Phil Austin (Halswell) and Dave Robinson (Taieri) 31-17-11.
Added to his impressive sporting resume is his handicap of four in golf.
"I drew on this experience to focus on every shot and make it count," he said of his cricket and golfing affiliations.
"Also, every time I looked up I could see my family looking back at me from the other side of the glass and I just didn't want to let them down."
Louw was engulfed by his family rink-side as soon as they realised he had won, and on his entry back to the lounge afterwards was greeted with rousing applause.
Louw made his way into the final scoring the maximum 31 points in every round with some outstanding shots.
His ability to draw in on the head will make him a sought-after player in team competition as he heads into his second season of interclub bowls later this year.
Dunedin regional PBA co-ordinator Ken Walker was quick to praise Louw's victory, announcing at the presentations last evening that "we have witnessed something very special from a novice bowler taking on the big guns in top-flight competition".
The competition was kicked into action on Friday evening by Blackjacks squad member Sheldon Bagrie-Howley with a display of quality bowls, going on to overcome tough opposition to take first blood in the first round of the Dunedin Regional PBA ranking singles.
Bagrie-Howley continued his superb form when play restarted on Saturday morning as he continued to cruise through early rounds, before dispatching the reputations of Dunedin Sevens player Oliver Mason in the quarterfinal, 9-1, 16-0 and then Mason's twin brother and 2020 transtasman representative Elliot in the semifinal 12-6, 9-4.
He then met Southland champion Bryan Harvey in the final, who had been in a rich vein of form on the other side of the draw.
Bagrie-Howley took a 10-6 victory in the first set, but Harvey was quick to hit back to win 10-8 in the second set and force a tie-break.
Bagrie-Howley duly won that 2-0 to win the first round of the Dunedin Regional rankings.
PBA competition then continued with the Dunedin regional qualification rounds for the Scottish International Singles in which Bagrie-Howley again dominated the early rounds.
But the long day of intense competition may have played a part when his winning run ended at the quarterfinal stage late on Saturday evening.
Going down 6-8 to Bill Hinton in the first set, Bagrie-Howley bounced back to win the second set 10-6 and force a tie-break, in which Hinton won a cliff-hanger 2-1.
Despite taking the scalp of Bagrie-Howley, a ticket to the final will not be an easy task for Hinton, as he will now face either Elliot Mason or Tom Taiaroa who will play at the Bowls Stadium on Friday to decide the fourth semifinalist. The semifinals and final will be played on August 22
But for Bagrie-Howley (26), an aircraft engineer at Mandeville, the weekend's competition served as ideal preparation for the UBC world tournament in Melbourne later this year, for which he qualified alongside two of New Zealand's next generation of international bowlers, Keanu Darby (North East Valley) and Finbar McGuigan (Stokes Valley).
