On Saturday, June 14, 36 teams from clubs around the Bay Area gathered at San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club to compete in the Mixed 5’s Tournament. The teams had to consist of three women and two men or three men and two women in order to make the required team mix. Singles and Fours games were played in the morning and Pairs and Triples in the afternoon. Jim Corr and Annie Brillhart from Berkeley along with Rose Selby and Tom Burnoski won their Fours game. Meanwhile, Jonathan Burnoski won his Singles game. In the afternoon, Jim and Tom won their Pairs game and Jonathan, Rose and Annie won their Triples game. Not only were Jim, Tom, Jonathan, Rose and Annie the only team to win all four games, they also won all four games with the maximum ten + points!
On a cloudy, cool, and misty Saturday morning, 42 enthusiastic and seemingly over-caffeinated bowlers from five Bay Area clubs arrived in Berkeley to participate in the annual Howard Mackey Jamboree, the crown jewel of BLBC’s annual tournament schedule. The Jamboree, which was created by Mr. Mackey in the 80s, has a unique tournament format. There are three 10-end triples games. Players are allocated into the three categories of skip, vice, and lead and the teams are randomly selected and then changed after each game. It is the one tournament in which there is an “I” in team as each player maintains their own score and at the end of the day there are no team awards, only individual winners in each category.
The challenge for our tournament committee is to ensure that every bowler will have different teammates and different opponents in each…i.e., no one will ever play with or against the same bowler all day. Kudos to our TC for figuring out how to do this. An additional, albeit yet to be solved, complexity is never having anyone bowl on the same rink more than once. That’s next year’s challenge.
Daniel gets the play underwayWe started out under grey skies
As usual, the BLBC green was in pristine condition and there was an abundance of yummy, nutritious snacks and barista-quality coffee. Manifesting the collective IQ of the participants was that game one started on time as every bowler was able to figure out their team, position, and rink they were assigned to. As if scripted, the clouds disappeared by 10 AM and the remainder of the tournament was played under blue skies and pleasant temperature. The last games finished at 4 PM and nearly all the participants gathered on the patio, munching on ice cream sandwiches (a Jamboree tradition), eagerly awaiting the final results, which were:
Even though there was a bit on cash involved, the abundance of camaraderie, laughter, and cheerful banter throughout the day was akin to a typical draw game, which is exactly what this tournament is all about.
Bowling aplentyA nice pause for lunch
And lastly, a huge shout out to our Hospitality Committee and our greenkeeping team for helping make this a glorious day.
This week 27 bowlers, plus one supporter were in attendance for the second iteration of our revived Tuesday Evening Bowls
What a great showing considering the weather wasn’t all that flash. Two new members, and three Rossmoor folks came over for the fun and camaraderie.
There was plenty of food for all, with chips and salsa, Fresh cherries, three or four delicious salads, pizza, apple pie, blueberry loaf, wine, all generously brought along by various club members. I’m sure I have forgotten some items that were brought along.
A pleasant après-bowling gathering.
Everyone had a great time bowling with people from all levels, helping coach those who were new, or just playing to practice for no good reason.
The playdowns are qualifying tournaments to select one men’s team and one women’s team to represent PIMD at the national championships to be held this year in October at the Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club. The playdowns are a rigorous test of skill amongst most talented and most ambitious bowlers in our division. The playdowns are set up in a full round robin format where each team plays every other team in the competition and the team with the best record goes to the nationals. This process can take time, but is the fairest and most complete method to select our teams.
Rose Selby and Annie Brillhart
Five women’s teams participated and played over the weekend of June 21-22 at the Rossmoor Lawn Bowling Club. In a highly competitive and closely matched event, the standings shifted frequently and dramatically over the course of the games. At the end of the two days of bowling the team of Rose Selby from the Palo Alto LBC and Ann Brillhart from the Berkeley LBC emerged as the winners having won 3 of their 4 games with 14 plus points. Congrats to Rose and Ann who are on their way to Laguna Beach. They just edged out Ginger Harris (Palo Alto LBC and Janice Bell (Berkeley LBC) by just one plus point. Ginger and Janice will be the alternates.
Trademark Daniel post-win pose.Jesse and Luis are alternates
Twelve men’s teams played 11 games against the other teams over the weekend of June 21-22 in Rossmoor and June 28-29 in Berkeley. These full days of competitive bowls lasted into the early evening on the first three days, represented a test of skill and endurance. At the end of the 4 days, consistency was rewarded as the team comprised of two lead / singles specialists Daniel Gorelick from Berkeley LBC and Calvin Darling from San Francisco LBC emerged as the winners. They won 10 of 11 games with 117 plus points. Congrats! It did come down to the last game as the team of Jesse May (Santa Cruz LBC) and Luis Zapata (San Francisco LBC) won all three of their games against tough competition on the final Sunday, to keep the pressure of Daniel and Calvin. Jesse and Luis finished just one game behind at 9-2 and will be our alternates.
There was a huge turnout for this week’s session of free bowling lessons. Twenty folks showed up for an introduction to the game and games were underway on four rinks within an hour of instruction .
Lessons underway with a nice turnout of students and coaches.
Happily, there was advanced notice that a larger group was interested in learning the game. Kudos to Leslie Engler, Cathy Dinnean, Sarah Allday, and Cindy Moss for stepping up to coach these lessons. The club could not exist without the cheerful volunteer contributions of its members.
Cathy Dinnean explains scoring after an end is complete.
Rolly Coe has stepped forward to revive the summertime Tuesday Evening Bowls series. Here is his report from the initial gathering:
Our first Tuesday evening bowling for 2025 was attended by 19 club members, a strong showing. We started bowling a few minutes after 5:30pm, and finished up at just after 7:00pm
There was cheese and crackers, Pasta salad, Cheese Board pizza, wine and beer, which was brought by various club members and was enjoyed before and after bowling. Going forward we will follow this format, where if you can bring some food or beverages to share it makes for a relaxed atmosphere.
On 9 June, Jose Ramirez, our awesome gardener, brought his hollow tining machine and tined the green. The machine put thousands of small holes in the green about an inch deep. During the summer the green gets drier and drier. As we bowl and walk on the green, it compacts the soil making it difficult for water, oxygen and nutrients to reach the roots of the grass. The tining allows for better penetration of the soil. Tining also removes some of the soil from the green to help level it. Jose made several passes with the tining machine over higher areas of the green.
All hands on deck.
After the tining was done, the green was cleaned by shoveling up the dirt/grass plugs removed by the tining machine and then lightly sweeping and blowing the green clear the debris.
Thanks to a small group of volunteers this cleaning was finished in a focused 2 hour work session. Thank you Janie and Judy Hillyer, Patricia Erwin, Cathy Dinnean, Janine and Phillip Andrews, Steve Harris, and Claudia Benton.
From the upper left clockwise: Steve Harris, Jose Ramirez, Janine and Philip Andrews, and Patricia Erwin with Janie Hillier.
The next morning our fabulous greenskeepers Janie, Judy Hillyer and Sarah Allday worked on rolling and blowing the green again to get it ready for bowling, while Claudia and Rolly Coe cleaned the ditch which was thick with debris.
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.
Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high. But the green is getting dry, and it needs bit of water. So, each afternoon we’ll give spot watering a try.
As we enter Berkeley’s dry summer, the green needs strategic watering of areas that become dry while avoiding areas prone to moss buildup. Our dedicated greenskeepers are on it and could use some help. If you can spare a few minutes on an afternoon or better yet sign up for a regular shift by contracting one of the greenskeepers. I am sure we would all appreciate it, the green would appreciate it, your karma balance would swell, and so on.
Good news this week from the PIMD playdowns. Our Janine Andrews dominated the field in a round robin competition to select PIMD’s participant in the national women’s championship. Well done! In the men’s competition Berkeley’s Rob Hoey and Daniel Gorelick rose to the top of a fiercely competitive field. Here is the account taken from the PIMD Newsletter:
On May 17-18, seven ambitious women took part in PIMD’s playdowns at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, competing for the right to represent PIMD in the National Singles Championships to be held In Laguna Beach, California in October. Participants were Mei Chan (San Francisco), Reggie Banares (San Jose), Joellyn Raderstorf (San Francisco), Rose Selby (Palo Alto), Janine Andrews (Berkeley), and two teen-age bowlers, Adilyn Zeino (San Francisco) and CeCe LeMessurier (San Jose). Over the course of the weekend, the ladies played a complete round robin style tournament, playing each of the other competitors one time. CeCe is a regular bowler at the San Jose lawn bowling club, which has artificial turf. Believe it or not, this was CeCe’s first time playing on natural grass. At the end of the day on Sunday, the two younger participants had very good showings, each winning three of their six games. Janine Andrews (Berkeley) won her first 5 games and had the event won prior to the start of her last game. She will represent PIMD at nationals. Rose Selby was runner up and will be the alternate.
Janine Andrews
Over that same weekend, plus Monday, sixteen men competed in the men’s singles playdowns. Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to group play with each player competing one day in San Jose and one day in Santa Cruz. After the weekend, the field of 16 was reduced to a final bracket of 8 to be played off on Monday in San Jose. The final eight consisted of DanielGorelick (Berkeley), Calvin Darling (San Francisco), Chris Davis (Berkeley), Jim Corr(Berkeley), Scottie Marzonie (Palo Alto), Frankie Napoli (Rossmoor), Rob Hoey (Berkeley), and Jesse May (Santa Cruz). All eight of these bowlers travel regularly to bowl. All of them took part in last year’s US Open and 7 of the 8 were at last month’s Southwest Open. The competition was fierce and at the end of the day Monday Rob Hoey, emerged the victor and will represent PIMD at nationals, having run through Scottie Marzonie, Jesse May, and Daniel Gorelick in three epic matches on his way to a well earned win. Daniel Gorelick will be the alternate.
Daniel and Rob looking rightly proud.
We promote the game of lawn bowling for the enjoyment of new and experienced players alike.
You must be logged in to post a comment.