On Sunday February 23, 2025 the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club held the first ever Fourth at Four. The Fourth at Four is designed to provide indoor games, and enjoy our great clubhouse at 4 PM on the fourth Sunday of the month
About 15 fun seekers showed up to play games, enjoy tasty snacks, a glass of wine and enjoy each other’s company. The games were varied including pool, darts, Dominos, poker and the most fun game of all Crokinole. If you have never played or even heard of Crokinole, join us for the April Fourth at Four on April 27, at 4 PM. A great time was had by all.
The Fourth at Four for March is cancelled due the biannual BLBC workday, drilling, sanding and seeding the green.
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!
Embarrassed by the sorry state of the old lifters floating around the club, I made a new set of club lifters. These have three sizes: short (yellow), medium (red), and tall (blue). The intent is that these lifters stay at the club for use by anyone who needs a lifter.
The final rounds of BLBC’s 2024 2-Bowl Singles Tournament were held on Saturday, May 11 amid lovely bowling weather. HC Yung, our dual member from the Kowloon Green Bowling Club (Hong Kong), emerged as champion after a show of steady, steady bowling over the three games.
The tournament started with four groups containing four players who played in round robin format with the top two from each group qualifying for the final day’s play. They were—in order of seeding—Cris Benton, Daniel Gorelick, Hugo Deaux, HC Yung, Gary “Bing” Burns, Tom Birt, Kevin Reynolds, and Jim Audas.
In the opening quarter final play, HC, drawn against Bing, jumped into an early lead, up 11-4 at one stage in the first-to-15-points game. But Bing fought back eventually edging in front 13-12. However, HC recovered his form on the next two ends to claim first one, then two points thus coming out on top 15-13. Meanwhile, on the other side of the green Hugo was winning his match against Tom with relative ease in a 15-7 victory. In the other two quarter-finals, Daniel beat Kevin 15-11 and Cris won 15-10 against Jim.
The semifinals saw Hugo in an early back-and-forth against Daniel, the score tied 5-5 after six ends. Daniel kept up the pressure to hold the game to 11-10 in Hugo’s favor on the thirteenth end. But three winning ends brought Hugo through to the final with a 15-10 victory. In the other semi, HC and Cris fought a ding-dong battle, each enjoying mini “streaks” and the score tied on a couple of occasions through the first sixteen ends. The game was still anyone’s on the 22nd end at 14-13for HC, but he got the necessary decisive point on the next end to win 15-13.
In the final, played to 18 points, HC turned on a show with one fine shot after another to run up a dominating lead of 15-3. But Hugo was not letting go quite that easily and with several winning ends battled back to put an additional eight points on the board before HC recovered and took the game—and the championship—to an 18-11 victory.
Congratulations to HC and thanks to all the bowlers who put on a fine display for the spectators. Also, thanks to Daniel for a well-organized tournament from start to finish, to Sarah Allday and Susan Jamart for supplying the vittles, and, as always, to our greenskeepers for providing a beautiful-to-the-eye and beautifully-running green.
HC Yung, Winner (right), and Hugo Deaux, Runner Up (left), BLBC 20204 2-Bowl Singles
Please join me in congratulating Daniel Gorelick for being selected to represent the USA in a four-country tournament in Ayr, Scotland in August 2024. Other countries are Canada, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
If interested, you could find the details in the April 2024 Bowles Bulletin of BUSA
It was pointed out to me recently that I’ve been remiss in sharing the results of the recently-completed BLBC February Follies with our Club members. Mea culpa.
This experimental league event turned out to be aptly named, as the folly of scheduling anything during the unpredictability of February weather in the Bay Area presented more than a fair share of topsy-turvy. Two dates postponed by rain led to some folks, unable to meet the new schedule, playing their matches midweek. Only half of the original twelve entrants bowled in glorious sunshine during the final Saturday.
When the dust finally settled, Cindy Moss, Ashok Verma, Art Kotoulas, and Sal Garcia-Lemus took home prize envelopes. Cathy Dinnean laid down the winning shot in the post-tournament scramble to claim the not-insubstantial contents of the Ron Byus Memorial Kitty. All in all, it was a pretty good event…
If enough people show interest, I’d consider setting up a similar league – with a couple of format tweaks – sometime this Summer. Let me know back-channel if you might be interested and if so, would you prefer a daytime event on a weekend, or an evening during the week.
Ethan Bortman, Greens Committee Chairman, to BLBC Members on 3/29/2024:
Hi All – Yesterday’s drill and fill workday on the green was a huge success. The turnout of 18 volunteers was especially impressive, given such short notice, and greatly appreciated. It was hard work but the weather cooperated, the refreshments and lunch were yummy, and all the volunteers seemed to be enjoying themselves despite the heavy lifting.
Here’s the proof. Check out these photos from the Benton video team … Cris with the aerial shots and Claudia from the ground:
The Greens Committee gives a hearty shout out to the volunteers:
Phil Watson, Phil Grattan, Cindy Moss, Glenn Nunez, Steve Harris, Tom Birt, Donna Otten, Cris and Claudia Benton, Sal Garcia-Lemus, Ashok Verma, Susan Jamart, Cathy Dinnean, Leslie Engler and an extra special hooray to the Greenskeepers…Janie Hillyer, Judy Hillyer, and Patricia Erwin…who organized and managed the effort. (Apologies if we omitted or mispelled any names.) Many thanks also to members who volunteered for the originally-scheduled Workday on Saturday but couldn’t make it for the reschedule!
If and when it ever stops raining, there is a bit more work to be done so stay tuned for further volunteering opportunities.
Please join me in extending our appreciation to the tournament committee for organizing the first BLBC tournament of 2024, which is also the first ever 4321 tournament at BLBC.
Because of the planning and organization of the tournament director, Daniel Goerlick, the day went flawlessly. Cathy, as always, was hospitable to all. Let’s not forget the volunteers who donated their time to help out and be the markers for these games.
Sixteen bowlers competed for the honor of being the first 4321 champion of BLBC. After three rounds of round-robin games, four bowlers – Chris Davis, Cris Benton, Hugo Deaux, and Daniel Gorelick – had won all three of their games. Chris Davis and Cris Benton were declared the two finalists based on score differential.
The final game between Chris and Cris was a cliffhanger, worthy of this historic event! They competed fiercely to be the first to reach 70 points and claim the championship. In the end, Chris Davis managed to reach 71 to Cris Benton’s 69 to claim the honor. Congratulations Chris!
(In the picture below: Cris Benton on the left and Chris Davis on the right)
“They sure didn’t bowl like novices!” BLBC Pres. Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 12/4/2023:
After watching the participants during the eight morning matches of last Saturday’s BLBC Novice Tournament, one of our club’s veterans confided to me that he was glad he wasn’t playing against them. We had some serious bowling going on. There were blowouts. There were matches decided on the last end. The four markers went through a lot of chalk. One end was so close that even the umpire declared it a tie. And there were just enough wrong-biased deliveries to keep it real.
I was tempted to start this paragraph with “When the dust settled,” but mist and drizzle throughout the chilly, overcast day made sure there was no dust to settle. So… After tallying the results of the two Round Robins, Cindy announced that Judy Hillyer and Gordon Beveridge had each swept their matches to finish as the preliminaries’ only undefeated contestants and would face each other in the first-to-eighteen-points Final.
An enthusiastic audience, including Ginger Cheng – winner of 2022’s edition of this event who was on hand to congratulate her successor – gathered at the center rink. Applause was the order of the afternoon as both finalists showcased skills gleaned from many months of diligent practice and competition at various levels. Judy probably could make a case that Gordon be cited for petty larceny, as time and again she laid down an impeccable shot only to see him draw just a smidge closer or somehow pop her seemingly unbeatable bowl out of the head. Judy never faltered, but Gordon’s repeated successes proved to be too much and he finally claimed victory shortly before dusk. Congratulations, Gordon!
Kudos to our stellar Hospitality Committee for providing goodies and to those participants who added extra treats. Thanks also to the day’s volunteer markers. It was heartening to see the number of new bowlers stepping up for their first competition. The future looks bright for bowling at BLBC.
Great day on the Green
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