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.

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.” 

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!

Berkeley sweeps again!

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.

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.

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.