Photographs courtesy of Bernadette Chan
PIMD 2022 McLaren Rotational Triples, 8/27/2022
Category Archives: PIMD
Pacific Inter-Mountain Division of Bowls USA
PIMD 2022 Singles, 7/9/2022, 7/16/2022
PIMD 2022 Singles—Dual Venue Tests the Field
The PIMD Singles Tournament was held over two Saturdays (July 9 and July 16) at two clubs: first, at San Francisco LBC, followed by the final rounds at Berkeley.
Twenty-four competitors, both men and women, started out at SF, and after three matches played to 16 points, a top 12 emerged, three players having three wins: Chris Davies (Berkeley), Jim Corr (Berkeley) and Scottie Marzonie (Palo Alto,) and nine having a record of two wins, one loss.
On the succeeding Saturday, with all games played to 18 points, the top six bowlers from the SF rounds were first randomly matched against the bottom six. The two later rounds were played on a “winner v winner” basis. After two matches, the final contests were set with Jim Corr facing Andrew Keeler (San Francisco) for top spot and Jesse May (Santa Cruz) against Chris Davies at that point in third and fourth place. In the Corr-Keeler matchup, Andrew jumped into an early lead to go up 10-3 at one point, but, mainly through getting hold of the jack more often, Jim managed to switch play to a short jack game and dominated the second half. Four points for Jim on the 16th end tied the game at 15-15, and in the next end he took another three to snatch victory and the 2022 Singles title.
The other top match was equally hard fought, with Jesse overcoming Chris by 18-14, which vaulted Jess to second place overall in the standings. Andrew finished third, edging out Aumao To’alepaialii (Santa Cruz) by a single differential point over the three matches of the day.
Congratulations to all who were “in the money” (a total of eight players) and thanks, as always, to PIMD Tournament Director Bud Birkenseer for the hours he put in to overseeing the tourney. And a big shout out to the Berkeley hospitality crew as well as to newly (re)-appointed greenskeeper, Annie Brillhart for producing a fine playing surface at short notice.
BLBC Fives Tournament in SF, 6/25/2022
Two teams represented BLBC at the Fives tournament in San Francisco on June 25. Bernie, Tom, Joseph, Sarah and Sal composed one team. The other team, the Gimels, included Ginger and Ian Harris from Palo Alto, Mo, Ethan and Leslie. They succeeded in taking third place. It was a beautiful cool day in Golden Gate Park.
With thanks to Leslie Engler for the write-up and Bernadette Chan for the photos.
Berkeley Jamboree, 5/7/2022
Happy Mother’s Day from BLBC and the participants at yesterday’s Berkeley Jamboree! Kudos to Hugo Deaux, the awesome Tournament Director!
BLBC at the 2022 Aussie Pairs
Here is the Aussie Pairs Report with photographs credited to Jeff Schaper.
Bowlers:
This year’s PIMD Aussie Pairs[1] Tournament was held at Rossmoor LBC on Saturday April 23, with a full field of 84 hopefuls forming 42 teams on Rossmoor’s three beautiful rinks. A fun variation on the standard pairs format, the Aussie game tends to favor teams that show strength in both positions, allowing the traditional Lead to demonstrate their “skip shots” and testing the usual Skip player on the value of strong opening play. As usual for this event, a strong contingent of Berkeley bowlers was among the competitors. The BLBC players also turned out to be prominent among the winners.
After the day’s three 10-end games, at the top of the list was Jim Corr, bowling with Micheal McClintock (Santa Clara) in resplendent “Jackson Pollok” shirts. Berkeley dual member, Ian Cameron with partner Tom Burnoski (San Jose) took 4th place, while in 6th and 7th place respectively were the Berkeley duos of Nick Christensen/Daniel Gorelick and Leslie Engler/Sara Allday (the highest placed all-women team). Prize money went down to the 14th position, which was held by Glenn Nunez and Liz Halton (San Francisco) who gallantly stepped up at the last moment to fill in for Berkeley’s Phil Grattan who had to drop out due to illness.
A long day of bowls—but, as always, better than a short day at the office. Congratulations to all the BLBC winning players!
[1] Australian, or more informally, Aussie Pairs is a bowls format that allows both team members to alternate between bowling as Skip and Lead. Sometimes referred to as “2-4-2 bowls,” it encompasses one team member bowling two bowls, followed by the other bowling four, and finally the first team member playing his or her remaining two bowls. Team members then reverse their positions.
Aussie Pairs, Rossmoor 4/23/2022
BLBC team members:
Good luck today in Rossmoor at the Aussie Pairs Tournament. May your jacks be centered and your aim be true. ❤️
That’s a Wrap for Winter League 2020
The annual PIMD Winter League finished up its last week on Saturday January 25th and Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club members did exceptionally well. The competition is a Pairs tournament and teams from most of the Bay Areas bowling clubs participated in the three week competition.
Each team played a total of nine games over the course of three consecutive Saturdays. After the first two weeks of competition, only a point separated the the top three teams. Berkeley’s defending champions from last year — Andy Vevers and Gareth Cole — held a slim lead of one point over Palo Alto’s team of Rose Selby and Mike McNorton. Berkeley’s other team of Shawn Roney and Jerry Knott and Jim Corr tied with for second. Berkeley’s Rob Hoey and his partner Tim Christie from Palo Alto stood within striking distance at fourth place.
As it should in any closely contested and well played tournament, it all came down to the final day of play. The final day of play confirmed the 2020 contest to be closely contested with very good play on offer from all the team. Jerry and Jim and Andy and Gareth played each other in the first game. Jerry and Jim came to play, and they took the win despite the efforts of Andy and Gareth to rally. Jerry and Jim’s win put them in the driver’s seat for the First place tournament finish.
Alas, it was not to be. They lost their next game against a team from San Francisco that put a dent in their title aspirations. Meanwhile, the Palo Alto team of Rose and Mike quietly and convincingly won all their games and gained advantage of the Berkeley pairs first game slip up to take the top position. Andy & Gareth did all they could by winning their other two games of the day, but it all came down to the last couple of bowls of the tournament. Fortunately for the Berkeley lads, Rose and Mike could not take the maximum points on their final game, which left the field with a tie for 1st place. In view of the high levels of skill and grit on display, many may consider this a fair outcome.
The final results were as follows:
Tie 1st – Andy Vevers & Gareth Cole (Berkeley)
Tie 1st – Rose Selby & Mike McNorton (Palo Alto)
3rd – Shawn Roney/Jerry Knott & Jim Corr (Berkeley)
4th – Tim Christie (Palo Alto) & Robin Hoey (Berkeley)
As the reader can see, a really good result for the Berkeley teams that further cements our reputation as one of the most competitive clubs in the greater Bay Area. Many thanks to the San Jose Lawn Bowling Club for hosting a well run and genuinely fun event.
2019 Closing Day & Novice Recognition Day
On Saturday, November 2nd, the Rossmoor Lawn Bowling Club hosted the 2019 PIMD Closing Day and Novice Recognition Day.
It was chilly in the morning but quickly warmed up to a comfortable 75°. Ninty-nine bowlers from around the Bay Area and beyond were on hand to visit with old friends and meet new bowlers. Zarka Popovic, our PIMD president, provided a slide show featuring photos from the National Championships played at San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club in September. Thanks to donations (raffles, etc.) from so many PIMD members toward hosting the National Championships, there was money to spare. All PIMD clubs that provided meals–that included BLBC, were reimbursed. In addition, the remainder of the overage was returned to the PIMD coffers.
Zarka also recognized all the PIMD novices and presented a trophy to this year’s Novice Champion: Michael McLintock. There were three novices from our club: Susan Carlson, Mary Collins and John Watson. (We’re looking for one of them to win the trophy next year.)
Berkeley Lawn bowling Club was well represented by 12 full members (Sarah Allday, Cris Benton, Annie Brillhart, Susan Carlson, Hugo Deaux, Cathy Dinnean, Phil Grattan, Susan Jamart, Cindy Moss, Glenn Nunez, and John Watson) and four dual members (Mary Collins, Sebastian Sciacca and Lydia and Luis Zapata). Happily, five BLBC members were on teams that won money: Sarah Allday, Cindy Moss, Sebastian Sciacca, and Lydia and Luis Zapata. Well done!
Berkeley Invitational 3-Bowls Singles
Warm temperatures and blue skies made for a beautiful day at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club green. The invitational attracted some high quality players from the Bay Area, making up some very strong mixed pairs teams. The level of bowling on display was a credit to the PIMD and to Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, who hosted this new event on the calendar. There were some really close games and some very tight results. As you’d expect in a tournament with this many quality players, no one ran away with it and the final results came down to the last couple of bowls being rolled on the day.
Taking first prize and drawing the tournament winning shot with his last bowl:
Gareth Cole & Giulia Gallo
A very creditable second place went to the very strong team of:
Russell Leonard & Janice Bell (good luck to Janice in the upcoming Nationals!)
And third place went to the extremely consistent pair of:
Jim Corr & Annie Brillhart Many thanks to everyone that came from near and far to participate and to everyone at the club that helped make the day run so smoothly.
PIMD Pairs Competition
This past week end at San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club, six women’s pairs teams battled for the right to represent the PIMD at the National Championships in September. They played three 18 end games on Saturday and two 18 end games on Sunday. Despite the freezing cold wind on Saturday, BLBC’s own Cathy Dinnean and Sarah Allday won two games and lost their third game by only one point. They were tied on the 16th end in games one and two and went on to win. They were tied in the 17th end of their third game; Cathy missed making the winning shot by a hair. All three games were exciting to watch. (Two teams didn’t finish until 7:30; they played their last end in the dark. Happily, we three ladies arrived at our club about then.) Cathy and Sarah weren’t as successful on Sunday. Despite some fine bowling by both ladies, they lost both games by six points. However, they ended up in third place. Not too shabby for their first time at the play-downs! The winning team: Angie Peet and Rose Selby–the only team to win all their games. Team Ginger Harris and Janice Bell (also a BLBC dual member) are the first alternates.
Eleven men’s pairs teams also played. The top six teams will compete again next weekend. Sadly, BLBC team Jim Corr and Bob Schwartz just missed the cut. However, BLBC dual members Daniel Gorelick, Mo Shooer, Frankie Napoli and Russ Leonard advanced. Good luck going forward, guys!