Sprightly Berkeley Teams Carry the 2025 Tunnel Challenge Trophy Back Over the Hill
The Tunnel Challenge is the annual “home and home” tournament between Berkeley and our colleagues of the Rossmoor Lawn Bowling Club out in the hinterland near Walnut Creek. Atop the trophy for this fiercely friendly contest sits the Spanish phrase “Allende El Cerrito” which can be translated as “beyond” or “over” the hill—the latter an arch witticism, clever, yes, but feeding the myth that lawn bowling is the preserve of the gerontocracy. That doesn’t mean, however, we will not deign to display it proudly in our clubhouse, as we retained the shield for the third year in a row (and seventh of the last eight).
From the upper left clockwise: Glenn, Hugo, Ashok, and Claudia; James, Glenn, HC, and Claudia; bowlers at work; and Chris delivering a bowl.
This year’s matchup was held on Saturday, April 12, which started out on the chilly side, but being literally over the hill and thus protected from the ocean breezes, the temperature warmed up quickly for a lovely bowling day.
Each club put forth eight triples teams who played a 12-end game in the morning and the afternoon. Berkeley started out on the front foot, winning five and tying two of the morning games for a commanding lead of 12 points to 4 at lunchtime. And the foot remained pedal to the metal in the afternoon with a further 6 wins, 1 tie, and 1 loss. There were a number of quite close games (in addition to the ties) and a few “blowouts”—our team of Hugo, Ginger, and Ashok were in danger of falling afoul of the Constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause with their 25-2 victory in the afternoon. Here’s a link to the game scores.
Ethan makes a point.
Our Rossmoor hosts took the outcome with graciousness and humor and we thank them for their hospitality and camaraderie. Thanks also to all the Berkeley players who made it “beyond the hill” and back with the plaque in good hands for another year.
Trees on the verge.
Rossmoor is a lovely place to bowl not only for the warmth and camaraderie of the Rossmoor club members but also the handsome setting of their three bowling greens. The greens are well tended and surrounded by a lovely set of trees, reminiscent of English arborial splendor. Each visit features a subtle soundtrack provided by Rossmoor’s abundant, natural life – hawks and turkeys come immediately to mind. It is a most pleasant place to visit.
Congratulations are due to BLBC bowlers Janie Hillyer (Skip) and Luis Zapata (Lead) who won the first official PIMD tournament of the 2025 season, the PIMD Mixed Pairs.
Played at San Jose LBC on Saturday, March 22, the event involved 14 teams playing four 12-end games. Going into the last round, only two teams had won their first three games–Janie and Luis, and Jesse May and Rachel Marcuson of Santa Cruz LBC. By the chance of the random draw, these two teams faced each other in the final matchup, ensuring that only one would end the day undefeated. (Excluding the possibility of a tie, which would then have thrown victory to the one with the better differential.) Playing with the assurance and consistency they had shown all day, Janie and Luis got out in front in the early stages and never looked back.
San Jose’s synthetic green requires Berkeley bowlers to make skillful adjustments.
In addition to the prize money, Janie and Luis go home as the front runners in PIMD’s first Bowler of the Year contest. This award will go to the Man and Woman Bowler who accumulate the most points in the course of the seven PIMD Tournaments open equally to all PIMD bowlers in 2025. For tournaments using a round robin format, 10 points are awarded for each win, 7 points for second place, 5 points for third place, with fewer points awarded down to those in eighth place. (A slightly different points allocation will be used in tournaments based on an elimination format.) See the PIMD President’s January 2025 newsletter for further details.
The Bay Bridge Challenge is the annual contest between Berkeley and the San Francisco LBC, held at the respective venues on alternating years and thus sometimes referred to as a “home and home” match. This year’s contest, held on Saturday, March 15, took place on two of SF’s three greens in Golden Gate Park, a lovely setting but where the greens are notoriously heavy and slow—it’s an achievement to get the jack, never mind a bowl, past the hog line.
It also tends to be cold! And this year was no exception, although the downpours earlier in the week had dissipated and, by the afternoon, it was actually quite pleasant. By that time, too, Berkeley had asserted its strength, winning five of the eight Triples matches. But San Francisco wasn’t giving up and came back after lunch to win 4 ½ (one tied game) to 3 ½. A valiant effort—but not quite enough, with Berkeley scoring 8 ½ to 7 ½ on the day thereby retaining the shield, which will now be displayed in our clubhouse for another year.
BLBC President, Leslie Engler, (right) receives 2025 Bay Bridge Challenge Trophy from SFLBC President Sherie Koshover
Well done to all the Berkeley bowlers who made the trip across the Bay, most especially to the teams of Hugo, Judy, and Joann, and also HC, Glenn, and Bernadette, who won both their games, as well as Cris, Cindy, and Aika, whose afternoon tie prevented an even split in games won/lost, which would have required a three-end bowl off. Finally, many thanks to our SFLBC hosts, whose hospitality was excellent.
The 2025 2-Bowl Singles Tournament was held on Saturday, March 8. On the fourth round of a (primarily) strength v strength format, Daniel Gorelick seized the crown, bettering his semi-final achievement of 2024.
The day was seasonably fresh, with a nippy breeze from time to time, but nothing to dampen the spirits and performance of the 12 players who eventually took to the field after several late dropouts, including one on the morning of the event. Ginger Chen graciously offered to withdraw to maintain an even number of players. Tournament Directors everywhere thank you, Ginger.
A random draw was used to determine the initial matchups for the games of first to reach 15 points, which resulted in a top six of Calvin Darling, Hugo Deaux, Chris Davis, Lennon Hamilton, Daniel Gorelick, and Art Kotoulas. After the second round, based on strength v strength, Chris, Daniel, and Hugo topped the table with two wins each, while Calvin was running close as the highest ranked of those on one win, one loss.
Only two players—Daniel and Hugo—were on an unblemished 3 wins at the end of Round 3, setting up a tasty final.Both players put in amazing shots in the final, but Daniel dominated from the outset and never looked back. It was not that Hugo played badly, drawing much applause from the peanut gallery, and losing five extremely close measures. But on this day, he was up against a finely tuned machine in the form of Daniel, who had set his eyes firmly on the prize and won the match 15-6.
Daniel triumphant
Congratulations to Daniel as this year’s 2-Bowl Champion! And thanks, as always to our hospitality crew, our great greenskeepers, and the markers who gave generously of their time.
Saturday, February 22, was, as the old folk song says, “a fair and a pleasant day,” but instead of us sailing out of Yarmouth harbor, the bowls were sailing, mostly gently, down the green as ten of Berkeley’s best competed in this year’s 4-3-2-1 Tournament.
Only in its second year for Berkeley, the 4-3-2-1 format is akin to “cutthroat” in that each of the four bowls nearest the jack is a scoring bowl, with the shot bowl awarded four points, the second bowl three points, and so on. With 10 points available on every end, scores can run up pretty fast to the target of 65 points.
As with many of our tournaments now, when demand exceeds the available supply of seven reasonably playable rinks, we held a preliminary stage in which 20 players were divided into five round robin groups of four. The top two players in each group made up the 10 finalists, consisting of: Tom Birt, Luis Zapata, Daniel Gorelick, Bing Burns, Andrew Keeler, Hugo Deaux, Mike Armstrong, Phil Grattan, Cris Benton, and Des Simpson.
A random draw determined the first round of a strength v strength format for the finals. Based on the first games’ results, the top five were, in order, Cris, Phil, Andrew, Daniel, and Louis. A second round left three players with two wins and no losses (Cris, Luis, and Andrew, and four on one win, one loss (Mike, Hugo, Phil, and Daniel). By the time round three was complete, only two players—Cris and Andrew had won all three of their games and they faced off in a fine bowling final. Andrew jumped into an early lead of 20-10 after three ends. But Cris had ably demonstrated his Comeback Kid skills in his preceding match against Luis, turning a deficit of 18 points at one stage into a win by 12. With steady bowling and many shots that drew “oohs” and applause from the gallery (to which Andrew added a good share, too, never getting out of sight) he drew level, pulled ahead, and maintained course to emerge victorious by 65-55.
Congratulations to Cris and thanks to our ever-wonderful hospitality team as well as to our great greenskeepers!
Despite the definite chill in the air on Saturday, Berkeley bowlers grew hot as the day wore on and came out triumphant in the annual Meat Axe tourney against the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club. We were down 3 ½ games to 2 ½ at lunchtime, but, duly fortified, stormed back to win 4 of the afternoon games for a 6 ½ to 5 ½ overall score, thereby retaining the Meat Axe trophy for yet another year. Which was just as well, since we had “forgotten” to bring the plaque with us to the southern climes.
Finalists for the BLBC 2021 Pair Tournament: Bob Schwarz & Ian Cameron (2nd Place) & Champions Cris Benton & Dan Gorelick
The finals of the BLBC 2021 Pairs Tournament were held on Saturday, June 19 involving the eight teams who had qualified from the preliminary round robin stage, seeded according to their overall results in round robin play. At the finals, the format consisted of elimination play in quarter-finals, semis, and the final game itself.
In the quarters, the teams of Jim Corr/Sal Garcia-Lemus, Daniel Gorelick/Cris Benton, Frankie Napoli/Russell (“Rolly”) Coe, and Ian Cameron/Bob Schwartz overcame their corresponding opponents: Hugo Deaux/Sarah Allday, Phil Grattan/Peter Martin, Ethan Bortman/Stephen Ng, and John Hooper/Lennon Hamilton.
Gorelick/Benton dispatched Corr/Garcia-Lemus 17-9 in the semis and Cameron/Schwartz defeated Napoli/Coe by a similar result of 15-7 to set up a strong final.
The Gorelick/Benton duo showed their intent by overcoming the handicap differential of 2 points in their first end out the gate and essentially never looked back, building up a substantial early lead. There was fine bowling all round, meriting constant applause by the “peanut gallery” of observers, and bit by bit, Cameron and Schwartz fought their way back into the game, narrowing their opponents’ lead to four points by the 13th end of the 18-end match. But Gorelick/Benton held on and surged further in front in the closing stages for a comfortable 21-12 victory, thus going one better than their second-place performance last year and claiming the 2021 Pairs crown. Congratulations to Dan and Cris!
And thanks to all participants as well as all those who helped in one way or another throughout the tournament, with a special shout out to Annie Brillhart, who rolled the green twice on the morning of finals play among many other forms of support.
Those who are interested can view the complete set of results from round robin to finals here.
On Saturday, May 8th, 2021, BLBC held what may not have been its first-ever Vet-Novice Tournament, but was the first in this writer’s memory covering 10+ years of membership.
The event was initiated by Club President, Ethan Bortman, who felt it would be an excellent way to start the 2021 Tournament season and get the newbies more wholly integrated into the Club and the sport of bowls. So, all current Novices (novice = less than two years membership in a recognized bowling club) were invited to sign up and six were able to do so on one of the date options available. Jim Corr, as acting Tournament Director, then found six of the Club’s leading Skips to join the fun—that offer was oversubscribed—and the teams were selected by random draw.
The format provided for each team to play three 12-end games, quite a demand on some of the newer bowlers who had not played more than one draw game in a day. Fortunately, the weather cooperated nicely and made for a very pleasant day of bowling throughout.
After two rounds, the teams of Ian Cameron/Jim Audas and Hugo Deaux/Sal Garcia were in contention for first place, being the only ones to have won both of their earlier games. In a hard-fought contest, Ian & Jim prevailed 13-8 over Hugo & Sal to “bear the gree,” as Robert Burns would have put it. Check it out. Congratulations to both and especially to novice Jim who literally “led the way,” and thanks to all participants as well as those other veterans who showed up to provide friendly but neutral advice and guidance to any Novice who might have been uncertain about a technical issue or some of the more obscure Laws of the Sport.
And to top it all, the day was kicked off with the ever-popular “Spider,” with Jim Audas winning that and its prize of a bottle of wine too. When you’re hot, you’re hot!
As MARCH 2022 of the club’s COVID protocols have been relaxed as the Omicron phase of the pandemic has waned.
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This has certainly been a year to remember—or forget. And it ain’t over yet. The country is still in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century, hurricanes and windstorms have pounded the Gulf coast and Iowa, and wildfires have laid deadly waste to vast swathes of the west, cloaking the skies with lung-threatening ash. And that’s just the natural disasters. Socially, our psyches have been shaken by the ongoing lockdowns and restrictions as well as the racial injustice exemplified in the shootings of Black Americans at the hands of the police. Some of the countervailing protests have also ended in violence. Not to mention the election, now finally underway, after more twists and turns than a Stephen King novel, but equally scary with the possibility of even further polarization of the nation as ballots are counted and recounted (if the Postal Service is even allowed to deliver them) and scenarios of armed “militias” disputing results they oppose.
Against that setting, organizing a lawn bowling tournament is either an act of trivialization or an attempt to find some minimal normalcy in a world gone astray. I’d prefer to think it was the latter.
A bit of background: with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club (BLBC) closed its green ahead of the official lockdown. Some weeks later, as a few outdoor activities were beginning to be allowed, we applied to the City’s Health Department for a limited re-opening, which they granted under the strict conditions laid out in Protocols developed by the Club’s Board (see box for examples of the restrictions).
The result was remarkably like lawn bowls. It was a definite boost to the psyche to be back in the open—prior to the choking air mentioned above. In fact, it was so like lawn bowls that before too long the cry went up: “Let’s have a tournament!” In the absence of our regular Tournament Director, Andy Vevers, who had withdrawn for personal and work-related reasons, yours truly offered to organize the 2020 Singles Tournament on a strictly one-off basis, having no desire to take on the job permanently. Spoiler alert—his rubber arm was soon twisted to set up a Pairs Tournament later.
Seventeen bowlers signed up for the event, which was organized into an initial round robin consisting of three groups of four players and one group with five. The winners of each group proceeded to an elimination round of semifinals and final, with a playoff for 3rd and 4th place. In the round robin phase, games were to 18 points or to 1 hour 50 minutes, so as to remain within the COVID protocol of a maximum of two hours on the green. And games were scheduled, over a roughly two-week period, in an ad hoc manner by the opponents themselves through the “master scheduler” rather than being stipulated by the TD. On the finals day, with the green being reserved for the tournament only, we were able to play to the traditional 21 points for singles. The end result? Gareth Cole, Frankie Napoli, Rob Hoey, and Hugo Deaux won their respective round robin sections. The semifinals matched Gareth against Hugo and Rob against Frankie, with Gareth and Frankie winning through to the final. In a spirited match of some really high-quality bowling, Frankie prevailed to become the BLBC 2020 Singles Champion. Overheard from Gareth at one point in the game: “It’s not that I’m playing badly—it’s that he’s playing better.” The playoff game saw Hugo defeat Rob to take 3rd place.
As hinted above, the event went so smoothly and was enjoyed by all participants, that the finals were not over before the idea of a Pairs Tournament was being spoken of.
With the experience of the Singles event behind us, the Pairs involved a broadly similar format. Twenty bowlers participated, allowing 10 teams, divided into two groups of five for the round robin phase. The top two teams in each section would proceed to the finals. The major difference was that since Skips and Leads were to be matched randomly—bowlers signed up individually, not as a pre-set team—an ad hoc six-person Handicap Committee was established to assign players to the Skip or Lead position and to set a handicap number that would, in principle, help level the playing field. The resulting handicap numbers were based on the average of the handicaps assigned by the six members of the committee.
For a change, fortune smiled on us and the air cleared, allowing the round robin phase to proceed with time to spare. Since matches were arranged ad hoc and not on a pre-established timetable, scheduling the times when four bowlers could get together proved trickier than the two-bowler set up for singles, but was managed with an extension of the originally planned date for the finals. The teams of Rob Hoey/Arthur Stuart and Daniel Gorelick/Cris Benton placed first and second in Group 1, with Hugo Deaux/Leslie Engler and Jim Corr/Ian Cameron likewise in Group 2, setting the stage for a very competitive final round.
The semifinals and finals were played to 18 ends with no time limit. After a runaway start by Hugo & Leslie in their match against Jim & Ian, the game tightened sharply. However, on the 16th end, ahead 19-17, but with Jim holding shot, Hugo came through with a wicking bowl that took out the shot bowl and rolled in for 4, putting the game not quite out of reach technically, but enough to ensure a final score of 23-20. The other semi was equally hard fought and was a one-point game with two ends left. Daniel & Cris took both the remaining ends for a 20-15 victory.
In the final, Hugo & Leslie were pretty dominant running up a win of 19-12 over Daniel and Cris. Jim & Ian won the 3rd/4th place playoff against Rob & Arthur, with Jim’s final bowl enough to ensure an 18-16 victory.
So, despite the social and environmental challenges of an unprecedented year, we pulled off the two events and 2020 will generate at least some positive memories for BLBC members. Congratulations to our 2020 Champions: Frankie Napoli in Singles and Hugo Deaux and Leslie Engler in Pairs. This is Hugo’s fourth Club pairs win in four years, with three different partners, quite a feat.
The PIMD Women’s Singles Championship is a chance for the
region’s women bowlers to show how it’s done and for three years in a row now,
one of BLBC’s own ladies has won the bragging rights.
The event was held at the BLBC on Saturday, May 11, and
Annie Brillhart regained the crown she had won in 2017 after ceding to another
Berkeley bowler, Cathy Dinnean, last year.
The weather cooperated for a lovely day on the green, at the
end of which Annie edged out a fine performance by novice bowler Elizabeth
Mulenga (Palo Alto). Both of whom were the only players to win all three of
their games, but Annie had a slightly better differential. Reggie Banares,
veteran bowler and winner of many past events in the Bay Area and beyond, came
in third.
The road to victory was not easy, however, as Annie had to
face her good friend and current title holder, Cathy, in the third match. Down 4-12 on the eighth end, Annie
told herself to slow down and just get the point. Which she did, so that by the
17th end, Cathy’s lead had been cut to 13 -12. With three points on the 18th
and final end, Annie showed the truth of that old saying: “It ain’t over till
it’s over.”
Congratulations
to Annie on her win (again) and thanks to all who laid on the hospitality and
volunteered as markers.
In
an added kudos—for both Annie and the Club—BLBC
garnered at least two new Dual Members! This couple felt our green was bowling
so well and looked to be in such good condition that they signed up on the spot.
Many compliments from others, accompanied by hints of potential membership, came
our way on the state of the green, which is mostly attributable to the efforts
and dedication of newly-retired previous Greenskeeper, Annie herself. The
challenge now is to keep up her good work going forward
PIMD 2019 Women’s Singles Championship: From l-r, Elizabeth Mulenga (Runner Up), Annie Brillhart (1st Place), and PIMD legend Reggie Baneres (3rd Place)
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