On Saturday, August 29th, eighteen teams from across the PIMD came to SFLBC on a warm, sunny (by San Francisco standards) to compete in the McLaren Mixed Rotational Triples Tournament.
In this unique format, team versatility is essential as the mixed sex teams played three 12-end games, with each team member playing four ends in each position in each game.
A random draw determined who one’s opponents were, with a maximum of 10 plus points set to counteract some of the randomness.
At the end of the day, first place went to the undefeated San Francisco team of Kevin Reynolds, Mei Chan, and Sebastian Sciacca, who also claimed the maximum 30 plus points.
Berkeley Retains Meat Axe for the Third Consecutive Year
The 2026 Meat Axe Tournament, a contest between the Palo Alto and Berkeley lawn bowling clubs, was held on Saturday, August 15th at the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club (PALBC) . Like the legendary trophy carried off by the winners of the Cal-Stanford “Big Game” — a lumberjack’s axe–a smaller butcher’s cleaver is shared between these longstanding bowling rivals.
This year, Berkeley retained their hold on the Meat Axe by the narrowest of margins, thanks to an unusual feature of the Conditions of Play (CoP).
Both clubs fielded six Triples teams, competing over 12 ends. When lunchtime arrived, Berkeley was in the lead, with 4 wins and 2 losses. But Palo Alto wasn’t going to let that stand, and after a fighting afternoon comeback, had leveled the score on the day to 6 matches apiece.
Now, normally, with a tie on wins/losses, one would either count up the differential of points gained to points conceded, or, perhaps play a best of three ends bowl-off. But Palo Alto had provided in the CoP (which, as hosts, they had written) that–in the event of a tie on game wins/losses–the trophy would be retained by its current holder. Thus, Berkeley will be keeping its hands on the Meat Axe for (at least) another year!
Congratulations and thank you to the Berkeley bowlers who participated in this year’s event, and a big round of appreciation to Palo Alto for their competitive spirit, outmatched only by their gracious hospitality.
We know they’ll be headed north next year with keen intent. We’ll be ready.
The PIMD’s Club Rinks Tournament was held on July 26 at Palo Alto Lawn Club. This tournament is the only PIMD tournament in which clubs compete against each other with the bowlers representing their ‘home clubs’. Berkeley fielded two teams this year, joining eight other teams from around PIMD. One team—which entered as the defending champions—was made up of Janice Bell, Jim Corr, Russ Leonard and Rob Hoey (above photo l-r), while the other consisted of Judy Hillyer, Janie Hillyer, Ethan Bortman and Patricia Erwin (below l-r).
All teams competed in four 12-end games and, after the two morning rounds, there were four lineups that stood out at the top, including the Berkeley team defenders. By the final game, two sides, San Francisco and Berkeley, were competing for the top place. Berkeley maintained its excellent bowling throughout the match and emerged with a strong win over San Francisco. In doing so, they also edged out the only other undefeated team, San Jose, on points differential to take the top spot for the second year in a row. Berkeley’s other contenders had a strong showing in the afternoon and ended the day with two wins and two losses. Congratulations to Rob, Jim, Russ, and Janice on a great repeat win on behalf of Berkeley!
SFLBC Remains as Cool as the Weather to Carry Off the Trophy
A cool, nay chilly, day—the kind that evokes the apocryphal Mark Twain quote about a summer in San Francisco—welcomed BLBC bowlers and their cousins from across the Bay to the 2026 Bay Bridge Challenge, the annual tourney between the Berkeley and San Francisco Lawn Bowing Clubs.
Chilly start for first game
Long story short, after two rounds of 12-end Triples matches, the San Francisco visitors prevailed with a total of 6 wins and 2 ties to Berkeley’s 4 wins and 2 ties. If just one bowl in each of those ties had gone Berkeley’s way, we’d have had an even split and a transition to a 3-end bowl off to determine the destiny of the trophy. Ah, the couldas wouldas, shouldas of lawn bowling!
But while the competition was fierce, the spirits were, as always, friendly. And, on a further positive note, teams from each club won ends qualifying for the Bowls USA Super Shot Club. This accolade is awarded for a significantly high score on an individual end (7 or 8 points in Pairs, and 7, 8, or 9 in Triples). In the morning, David Eldred, John Peet, and Juan Medrano of San Francisco scored 7 on one end of their winning match, but in the afternoon they felt what it was like to be on the other side of the ledger when Berkeley’s Jim Corr, Judy Hillyer, and Sal Garcia-Lemus managed to place all 9 bowls in scoring position.
The BLBC 2026 2-Bowl Singles Tournament took place on Saturday, March 7 under sunny skies. But despite the higher-than-average Bay Area temperatures for the time of year, there were no complaints from the 14 bowlers who had signed up for the competition—although maybe a few were left wondering if the late morning gusts of 25+ mph winds could be used to excuse an errant shot or two.
The format was, as the title identifies, two bowls per player. The goal in each game was first to 15 points. Following a random draw to determine the first round of play, bowlers were matched in a modified strength v strength process. From a strong field, four players emerged as the leading quartet after the first two rounds—Kevin Reynolds, Cris Benton, Chris Davis (each with two wins) and Daniel Gorelick (one win, one loss, but just enough of a positive differential to edge out both Ben Corson and Mark Baker by one point).
What was effectively a pair of semifinals matched Kevin against Daniel and Cris versus Chris in two tight games. In the latter, Cris and Chris traded the lead until the position stood at 9-9 after thirteen ends. But then Chris D got into a run and brought the score to 13-9 by the sixteenth end and within sight of victory. Cris B was not giving up, however, and took one point on each of the next two ends to narrow the gap to 11-13. But on the following end, Chris managed to find the remaining two points needed to secure the win.
If that was a close enough battle, over on the neighboring rink Kevin and Daniel were in a dogfight. Kevin jumped into a 10-5 lead by the tenth end, but then Daniel applied the pressure as only Daniel can, scoring seven points over the next four ends to edge in front 12-10. Kevin replied with a 2, a 1, and a 1, to reverse the lead to 14-12. Daniel wasn’t letting that phase him, and tied the game up at 14 apiece on the next end. But Kevin kept his cool and, with one point on the final end, prevailed by the narrowest possible margin 15-14.
Kevin the victor
Perhaps it was Kevin’s continued adrenaline from the third game, or perhaps Chris had relaxed a little while waiting for the Kevin v Daniel scrap to finish, but Kevin built up a steady but substantial head of steam in the final, leading by 11-4 after thirteen ends, and by 14-5—on the edge of victory—after sixteen. Chris sought to recover momentum with one point on each of the next two ends, but Kevin killed the game off with the needed single point on the eighteenth, thereby preventing Chris from repeating his win in the 2024 edition of this tournament. Congratulations to Kevin on his consistent strong performance throughout the day, and thanks as always to the “usual suspects”—the greenskeepers, the markers, the hospitality team, and all those who helped with early set up. The TD wishes to express his particular thanks to Daniel who brought his computer to the event with the tournament spreadsheet on it—unlike the TD who forgot his!
The 4-3-2-1 Tournament format remains relatively new to Berkeley, this being only the second year it has been held. It may be related to “The Belgrano” devised in tribute to General Manuel Belgrano, an Argentinian military hero and Founding Father who has many sites, streets, and institutions named after him in his native country, including the Belgrano Athletic Club, home to Argentina’s first and largest lawn bowling club (situated unsurprisingly in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires). It is speculated
that Argentina originated this variation on the more casual “Cutthroat” game of bowls involving involves three players. The 4-3-2-1, in contrast, is a Singles game, but follows Cutthroat scoring—the closest bowl to the jack, irrespective of whose it is, gets 4 points, the second-closest 3 points, the third bowl 2 points and the fourth a single point. Thus, in principle a total of 10 points is available to either player in a given end.
Consistency is the key goal of any lawn bowler and consistency pays off particularly in this format—make sure you get something out of each end and don’t give up too many 9 or 10-pointers. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself deep in the hole after only a few ends, even with first to 65 points being the decisive goal.
Standings after the preliminary games.
This year, the BLBC tournament was held on Saturday, February 28 under fine bowling conditions. Following a preliminary set of matches held over the preceding three weeks, 12 players qualified for the final day’s contest. They faced each other in a modified version of strength-to-strength play in which the stronger players after each round went up against bowlers lower in the rankings with the field tighteningafter each round.
By Round 4, only two players—Daniel Gorelick and Jim Corr—had won all three preceding match-ups: Daniel against Russell (Rolly) Coe, Cris Benton, and Mike O’Leary, while Jim had prevailed against Michael Leutzinger, Tom Birt, and Sarah Allday. The final was keenly contested. Jim built up a small but significant lead early on, playing his short jack game. But when he got an opportunity, Daniel began closing the spread with a T-to-T strategy, so that after 10-ends the gap had been closed to only 4 points, 52-48 in Jim’s favor. Over the next three ends they split the points 15 apiece resulting in a razor-thin 67- v63 victory for Jim.
Jim Corr – winner of the 2026 4-3-2-1 Tournament
Congratulations to Jim on his success in the first club tournament of the BLBC 2026 calendar, and thanks to all participants, the greenskeeping team, the hospitality folks, not to mention the always welcome markers who made the games flow smoothly.
The 2025 4-Bowl Pairs took place on August 23, with a full house of 28 bowlers filling the seven playable rinks on the green. Bowlers were assigned positions–Skip or Lead–by the Tournament Committee (TC), taking account of preferences to the extent practicable. The TC also assigned a limited amount of handicaps.
Skips drew their Leads, and first round rink assignments, by random draw. Thereafter, we used the strength v strength format, with the top two teams after each round facing each other, third v fourth, and so on.
Tournament scoring (click to enlarge)
By the conclusion of the third round, only two teams had won all three of their games, so the Final pitted Cris and Janine against Mo and Judy. The result was as closely contested a 10-end game as you could get without it actually resulting in a tie. The first nine ends were won with single points, each side outdoing the other with superb bowling along the way. But Mo and Judy had taken six of those ends to Cris and Janine’s three, leaving the latter down three going into the final end. Cris and Janine were holding two in the final end when Mo, with characteristic calm, drew the third shot. It came down to the last bowl but Cris’s efforts to best Mo’s shot fell short. So, Mo and Judy won the game 6-5 and with it the tournament.
Mo Shooer and Judy Hillyer smiling broadly after a fine day of bowling
Congratulations to Mo Shooer and Judy Hillyer as BLBC 2025 Pairs Champions!
And thanks, as always, to our greenskeepers, and to our wonderful hospitality crew
Berkeley Prevails at First PIMD “Battle of the Rinks”
Rinks play or Fours is not a very popular form of the game of bowls in the USA, especially at the club level. Most players prefer the opportunity to use three bowls in Triples or four bowls in Pairs and Singles. But Rinks is widely played overseas and is commonly, these days, the third format in the “big” Open tournaments in the USA—the South Central, Southwest, and US Opens.
Partly with the aim of raising the visibility of the Rinks format—and partly just for fun (that’s what we’re here for, right?)—PIMD decided this year to institute a new tournament: rinks format with the quartets each representing their home club. No dual member ringers allowed. This is the first time, at the PIMD level, that clubs rather than individual bowlers have faced off.
The Berkeley team : Russ, Janice, Rob, and Jim.
With Santa Cruz LBC agreeing to host the inaugural event, held on Saturday August 9, we were guaranteed a fast and relatively true green—not to say there weren’t tricky patches occasionally. In addition to the BLBC foursome—Rob Hoey (skip), Jim Corr (Vice) Russ Leonard (Second), and Janice Bell (Lead)—there were entrants from San Jose, Palo Alto, and San Francisco, which fielded two teams. Attempts to put together a second BLBC team proved unsuccessful for a variety of reasons—bowlers out of town, bowlers with other commitments that day, bowlers not keen on the travel to the outer reaches of the PIMD universe, etc etc.
Berkeley did well in their first two games in the morning, defeating the home team by 5 points over the 12 ends played and Palo Alto by the maximum plus points of 7, each player contributing to the overall team performance. In the afternoon, a bit of the after-lunch blahs set in and BLBC struggled in the early stages against the San Francisco “A” team but managed a comeback to pull off a 2-point win in the third game. At that juncture both San Jose and Berkeley were the only two teams with three wins, and the luck of the draw had them face each other in what was, in effect, a Final, winner-takes-all.
Berkeley had three points on the board after the first two ends, but San Jose (Jon and Tom Burnoski, John Johnson and Reggie Banares) responded with a run of winning ends, including four on the fourth, to establish a powerful 9-2 lead at the halfway stage. At this point, Rob, who had been playing some fine “skip shots” throughout the day to save many an end for BLBC, called a quick team conference. His pep talk (who remembers the actual words?) was Churchillian in its effect as Berkeley went on to storm the remaining 6 ends and pull off victory by 13-9.
And so BLBC has the honor of winning the first PIMD “Battle of the Rinks.”
Sixteen players took to the green on Saturday, May 31 to contest the Club’s 2025 4-Bowl Singles Tournament amid excellent bowling weather. Daniel Gorelick emerged victorious after four rounds, thereby adding to the 2-Bowl Singles title he had won in early March.
Because the green could only accommodate seven “playable” rinks, the event got off to a staggered start, with one matchup—decided by random draw—having to wait until one of the first seven games finished. Once that round was complete, the bottom two players were eliminated, thus removing the need for further staggered play, and the remaining teams were drawn into the now familiar strength v strength format, with Number 1 playing Number 2, Number 3 against Number 4, and so on.
Daniel, who also served as tournament director, gets things underway.
From that point forward, games became essentially single elimination, as any loss put the chance of reaching the top two positions mathematically out of reach. At the end of Round 2, four players remained in contention: Daniel Gorelick, who faced Jim Corr, and Calvin Darling, who took on Cris Benton. These two semifinals were both hotly contested, resulting in a final game of Daniel against Calvin.
Calvin Darling showing fine form.
In the final, which was set up on a first-to-18-points basis, Calvin got off to a brisk start with three points on the first end playing a nicely weighted shot with his last bowl to trail the jack to the back. He held that lead until the seventh end, when Daniel edged ahead with a 3-shot, and then pushed on to have a solid advantage of 10-6 by the ninth end. But Calvin would not let him get “out of sight” and kept himself in the game trading ends that witnessed some nice tight heads and great bowls by both players. On what proved to be the final end, Calvin was trailing 11 15 in the game and down one shot in the head. Demonstrating the confidence he had shown throughout, Calvin attacked the head, successfully hitting the target, but as the shot bowl winged off to the side it hit Calvin’s own bow—that had been the second shot—hard enough to push it completely out of the head. It was a misfortune that would have been difficult to foresee, and the result was to leave Daniel with three shots in the head giving him the needed 18 points to win the game and the tournament.
Our victor mugs for the camera – nicely bowled Daniel!
Congratulations to Daniel, whose victory will now make him eligible to represent Berkeley in the PIMD Champion of Champions Tournament at the end of the season.
As always, thanks to our greenskeepers for maintaining a fine bowling surface, to our hospitality crew for the food and drinks, and to all those who helped set up the rink (mainly Annie Brillhart) ahead of play. A special shoutout to our markers who helped make the games run as smoothly as possible and whose only reward—a worthwhile one to be sure—was to be up close to witness a great day of bowls.
Berkeley’s 2025 Triples Tournament was held on Saturday, May 3 in perfect bowling weather and provided some near perfect bowling throughout the day on a well-running green thanks to our amazing greenskeeping team.
A strong field of 36 bowlers had signed up for the event, creating 12 teams, and representing a high proportion of the most “active” bowlers in the club, so fierce but friendly competition was to be expected. Onlookers were not disappointed.
Entrants had indicated their positional preference at the time of entry and the Tournament Committee had sought to accommodate those wishes to the extent practicable, while making a few adjustments to provide a balanced set of Skips, Vices, and Leads. In addition, the Committee had assigned handicaps that became, through the beauty of computer algorithms, each team’s handicap throughout the day.
The format involved the now-familiar strength v strength approach, in which the team at the top of the table after the random draw for Round 1 played the second place team in Round 2, third played fourth, and so on. The team of Kevin Reynolds (Skip), Joseph Chow (Vice), and JoAnn Lorber (Lead) got off to a strong start with an impressive 16-4 victory in Round 1, and maintained that position after Round 2 with an equally convincing 18-7 win. However, this early success was not maintained, as they lost to Chris Davis, John Gardner, and Marty Lorber by a narrow two points given up in the last end of a tight match.
Round 3 brought about significant reshuffling of positions. Not only did Chris’s team take pole position, but the team of Rob Hoey, Leslie Engler, and Stephen Ng moved into third with a close win over Lennon Hamilton, Sarah Allday, and Ginger Cheng. Also, Janie Hillyer, Annie Brillhart, and Ashok Verma overcame Jim Corr, Sal Garcia-Lemus, and Karen Ng to gain sixth place.
Rob, Leslie, and Stephen are grinning for good reason!
The last round of the day thus was set for multiple potential outcomes—some, admittedly, mathematically more remote than others—but when all the results were tallied Rob, Leslie, and Stephen emerged top of the heap after a solid 15-9 win over Chris, John, and Marty.
Congratulations to the final leaders and thanks, as always, to the Hospitality Team for keeping everyone well-vittled and quenched.
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