Magnificent weather heralded the opening of the 2024 lawn bowls season at YC&AC, Saturday, May 18.
Proceedings began, as always, with a Spider, the traditional “curtain raiser” to a lawn bowls season in which Club bowlers release their first wood of the new campaign simultaneously.
Closest to the jack on this occasion was Ishu (top center), who won the bottle of bubbly up for grabs thanks in no small part to a late bump from a wood belonging to either Tom or Ed (left of frame), probably Tom. The next closest bowlers won bags of Bombay Mix donated by the Spider Champ himself. The lawn works in mysterious ways.
After the Spider, the Opening Day Tournament proper.
Twenty-four bowlers in all participated. Eight triples teams were formed and drawn into two groups of four. At the end of the eight-end group round robin, the winners of Group A would play the winners of Group B for their names on the Don Helm Memorial Trophy.
To cut a long day short, the winners were…
Team Tom, Toshi and Wataru, who comfortably topped their group before …
… crushing Team Foster, Terry and Shige in the four-end final.
Third place went to the Committee Team of Alex, George and Kaz, who beat Team Hide, Paul and Yoko in the all-important bronze medal match for last pickings at the prize table.
Omega Walnut, simply the best!
All in all, this was a most pleasurable day of bowls.
Thanks on the record here to our Grounds Team for nurturing the green back to health over the winter and spring, for shed scrubbing, wall cleaning, jack polishing (!), and much more besides. Excellent work! Thanks also to our Sports Team for help on the day, including taking the video and photo at the top of this page.
Thanks also to our prize donors— Shige (bubbly), Ishu (Indian snacks), George (nuts and nutty caps!), Marcel (deluxe tea), and me (Kamakura craft beer). A small nod of appreciation also to our old friend Griz for taking the squinty shadowy team photos at the end of the day.
Fellow bowlers, we’re up and running!
Lawn Bowls 