Tight contests in bowls tournament

THE Zululand Senior Fours tournament which was played at the Empangeni Bowling Club last weekend, attracted a extremely disappointing number of entries.

Despite this, however, the bowls on display was of an extremely competitive nature as can be seen by the fact that in the men’s section, six out of the ten games played showed results of two shots or less separating the combatants.

Although Barry Mutlow, Grant Walters, Brian Scott and Cyril Reed were beaten 21-15 by Vlekkie Visser, F Hughes, Hans van Koert and D

McFerren, they booked their place in the final by virtue of a 26-10 victory over Byron Mathias, Japie van Staden, Luiz de Vasconselas and Tony Hardcastle, and followed this up with a single shot (14-13) win against Alan Lovell, Brian Edwards, Ginger Bezuidenhout and Theo Gerettsen.

Lovell then peeled 14-14 against Visser and 13-13 against Mathias, while the final game in section one went the way of Mathias, who beat Visser by a single shot (17-16).

In section two, Mike Butler, Erroll Watkins, Brian Sugden and Daryth McIntyre made it to the final when, despite losing to Aggie Aggenbach, A Beukes, C Pieters and Dirk Norval by 13 shots to 11, they recorded a comprehensive 28-5 victory over Pierre Cito and his team, who finished by beating Aggenbach 14-13.

The final bucked the day’s trend of close finishes when Mutlow led from the start to totally outplay Butler to the tune of 24 shots to 6.

The women’s final between Janet Hardcastle, Sue Mathias, Shelagh White and Lyn Coetzer and Yvonne Steenkamp, Joey Evans, Gloria Garbutt and Anita Scott was yet another cliffhanger, with the result in doubt until the last bowl.

Although Hardcastle led 8-1 after seven ends, a six on end eight put Steenkamp back in the mix and by the thirteenth end she had her nose in front 13-12.

A single to Hardcastle on the penultimate end made it peels 13 with one end to go.

There could only be one winner and it was Hardcastle, who picked up the single shot to give her the game and title for 2015 by 14 shots to 13.

Owing to the Easter weekend, there will be no competitive bowls, but players will be back in action on 11 and 12 April when rounds 3, 4 and 5 of the Haigs Mowers Zululand League will be played.