A belated Happy New Year to ALL of you, your families and friends. May the year be filled with peace, happiness, good health & great lawn bowling! Stay safe, warm & dry this season ❤️
Photo taken Oct. 2022
Happy New Year 2023
BLBC 2022 4-Bowl Singles
The 2022 4-Bowl Singles Tournament was a split affair, with the first stage being a round robin of four groups of three played over the course of September, and the winner of each game being the first to reach 16 points. The top two players in each group proceeded to the playoff round on Saturday, September 24.
Based on their performances in the round robin phase, the eight remaining contestants were seeded for the quarter-final round with 1 v 8, 2 v 7, and so on, resulting in a match up of Cris Benton v Phil Grattan, Sal Garcia-Lemus v Jim Corr, Rob Hoey v Cathy Dinnean, and Gary “Bing” Burns v Tom Birt. Those games, like the semis, were also played on the basis of first to reach 16 points. From the quarters, Phil, Jim, Rob, and Bing emerged to duke it out in the semis. The Jim v Bing match-up was close fought, tying at 12-12 before Bing gained one point on the 15th end, followed by a game-winning three on the next one. In the other semi, Phil led from the outset, and, while Rob sought valiantly to fight back, Phil ran out on top by 16-6.
The final was set up on the classic format of first to 21 points for singles events. Phil once again dominated. But Bing was determined to make it a real contest and came back from what could have been a spirit-sapping position of down 18-1 after seven ends to bring it to 19-12 by the 15th. However, with a couple of 1-pointers on the next two ends, Phil showed his determination not to let victory slip from his grasp and prevailed as the 2022 4-Bowl Singles Champion.
Congratulations to Phil and thanks to all who took part in the event including the early contenders. As always thanks to our hospitality crew for sustenance and to our greenskeeper for the quality of the green.
Bay Bridge Challenge
The 2022 Bay Bridge Challenge, the annual “friendly rivalry” event between BLBC and our colleagues of
the San Francisco BLC was held at the Berkeley green on Saturday, September 17. Cutting to the chase,
Berkeley won a hard-fought and close match-up by 6 ½ games to 5 ½.
Six triples teams from both clubs competed for the honors, with Berkeley taking the morning round by 4
games to 2. But San Francisco did not give up the shield easily, coming back to take the afternoon 3 ½ to
2 ½. Close, but not quite enough to prevent the trophy returning to its rightful home.
There was good bowling all round and one is loathe to single out particular individuals or teams, but
special mention must go to the afternoon trio of Sal Garcia-Lemus, Gary Burns (actually a dual SF-
Berkeley member who was “lent” to us by SF for the occasion), and Stephen Ng. Down by 10 points to 2
by the 4 th end, they clawed their way back, with one-point wins on 9 of the next 10 ends, to bring about
an 11-11 tie. That half point meant that we did not need go to overall differential points to decide the
final outcome. Well done to them and to all Berkeley bowlers whose overall performance won the day.
Thanks, as always, to our hospitality crew for refreshments, to everyone who helped with green set up,
and to Greenskeeper Ann Brillhart for ensuring a good, fast-running surface.
Berkeleyside, 7/24/2022
Berkeley lawn bowlers have been rolling bowls in Poet’s Corner since 1928
By Joanne Furio, Berkeleyside, 7/24/2022
Photo Credits: Ximena Natera
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.
Berkeleyside at BLBC, 7/6/2022
Berkeleyside (the leading local news source) interviewed President Ethan Bortman and club members during our July 6th Wednesday draw game. Here are some photos by a club member, including photos of Sal Garcia-Lemus teaching Ximena Natera (Berkeleyside photographer) how to lawn bowl. We expect to see Berkeleyside’s published story towards the end of the week. 😊
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.
Farewell Party, Dave Laile 6/17/2022
Less than a month ago, on June 17th, we held a farewell party for Laile Giansetto and Dave McMullen to show our appreciation for their contributions to the Club and wish them peace and happiness at their new location. We extend our love and look forward to seeing them back on the green at BLBC in the near future.
Berkeley Duo Wins Pairs Championship, 5/21/2022
Report by Jim Corr
The 2022 PIMD (All Gender) Pairs Tournament featured several “firsts.” It was the first in two years due to the COVID pandemic ruling out this competition for 2021, and was the first ever to be held in two stages at two different greens. It was also, as far as anyone could recall, the first in PIMD to feature the “strength-to-strength” format in the final round. As far as the two-greens element is concerned, the thinking behind the PIMD Tournament Committee’s decision was that prowess at two different venues would be a good indicator of the worthiness of the champions.
Sixteen teams signed up for the event, with the first round being held at Rossmoor LBC on Saturday, May 14, randomly assigned to four round robin sections of four teams. The two winners of each section, plus the next four best in the overall standings advanced to the final round, which was held at the Berkeley club a week later.
At the latter stage, teams were matched “strength-to-strength,” which meant the team ranked Number 1 from the preliminary round played Number 2, Number 3 played Number 4, and so on down the line. Following the results of the first game, teams were re-sorted according to their new position in the standings and again played 1 v 2, 3 v 4, etc. After the second game, the process was repeated once more. Two features of this format are notable: first, as the name implies, teams get matched against their close peers from the preliminaries and, second, a team in the lower reaches of the rankings can make considerable progress toward the top if they win all their second round games and depending on how other results fall out. This latter element proved to be quite relevant.
Coming into the finals, the husband and wife team of Larry Collaco and Gloria Rios (Rossmoor) led the way, but in the first game lost out to the Berkeley duo of Hugo Deaux and Jim Audas, the only other team to have won all three games in Round 1. Hugo and Jim A. followed that with an exceedingly close win over Jim Corr (Berkeley) and Micheal McClintock (Santa Clara) that saw one of those “turning point” shots that bowlers know only too well. Holding four in the head, which would have put them two up with two ends left, Jim C. decided to try for five but, narrowly missing the line, succeeded in hitting in one of the opponents’ bowls, thereby reducing the margin on that end to one. The three-point swing was more than enough to account for Hugo and Jim Audas’s victory by one point. In another narrow win, Hugo and Jim A. overcame Tom Burnoski and Ian Cameron (San Jose) in Match 3, thereby becoming the only team to go undefeated over the two rounds of the tournament and thus well-deserved champions.
Also impressive was the performance of David Eldred and Ron Esparaza (San Francisco). Starting off the final day in last (12th) place, they put together a string of three victories and marched through the rankings to end up in 4th—and right on the heels of Tom and Ian who took third place with a one-point better differential.
Congratulations to Hugo and Jim and thanks to all at both clubs who put in the time and effort to make the event a great success.
-Jim Corr
Thank you Bernie Birt for the great photos!
You can find more photos from the day on the PIMD website
Berkeley Jamboree–Better Late Than Never!
Here is Jim Corr’s 5/24/2022 report on the outcome of the 5/7/2022 Berkeley Jamboree
Berkeley Jamboree–Better Late Than Never!
Berkeley Bowlers:
It’s taken a while. So with apologies for the delay, here’s the outcome of the Jamboree.
While all lawn bowling is meant to be fun (a poor day bowling is better than a great day in front of the computer, as we like to say), the Berkeley Jamboree is one of the “funner” tournaments on the bowls calendar. Founded more years ago than most of us can remember by Howard Mackey, a longtime beloved BLBC bowler and holder of many positions of responsibility at the Club over the years, this three game triples tournament has an unusual format in which participants retain their position (Skip, Vice, or Lead) throughout, but change teams over the course of the day. All bowlers hand in a scorecard for each of their games and, at the end, when the numbers are totted up, prizes go to the three top performers in each position.
This year’s event, held on Saturday, May 2022 and overseen by Hugh Deaux, had its own mini-crisis as all nine would-be participants from the Leisure Town club had to call off near the last minute because of a COVID outbreak among its members. With some scrambling and arm-twisting, mainly of BLBC members, by Hugo, he still managed to field a force of 36 bowlers on the day. Perhaps the resulting over-preponderance of Berkeley bowlers in the numbers—or home green advantage—affected the results. (The only alternative explanation, of course, would be the undoubted skill of BLBC bowlers 😉)
When all was said and done: the winners were as follows:
Leads:
Rolayn Tauben (Berkeley)
Gary Samonsky (Berkeley)
Charles Russo (Berkeley)
Vices:
Jim Audas (Berkeley)
Glenn Nunez (Berkeley)
David Eldred (San Francisco)
Skips:
Sal Garcia (Berkeley)
Larry Murphy (San Francisco)
Fred Anast (Palo Alto)
Congrats to all the prize winners, and as always, a big shout out to our great hospitality team who prepared sustenance, to those who helped with green prep and takedown, and to Dave McMullen, Greenskeeper, who put in many hours to bring the green literally “up to speed.” Photo Credits to Rolayn Tauben (titling is mine).
Jim
PS: A report on the 2022 PIMD Pairs Tournament will be forthcoming shortly, either from me or PIMD President Arthur Stewart. Spoiler alert: this year’s champions are Berkeley’s own Hugo Deaux an Jim Audas.
