State Championship Week 2021

State Championships Week 2021

3-7 May 2021, South Tamworth Bowling Club

Greenkeepers headed to Tamworth, home of The Golden Guitar, for the Greenkeepers State Championship Week.

Bowls Report by Brent Norman, Bowls Secretary

SOUTH Tamworth was the venue f o r t h e N S W B o w l i n g Greenkeepers Championships held from Monday May 3rd through until Thursday 6th May. Sunday afternoon again proved the meeting time for the majority of the Greenkeepers to catch up after two years. I’m proud to say this was our biggest number of entries received in many years and all the participants were keen to not only catch up but show the locals the high quality of bowls our association can play.
And the boys didn’t disappoint.
The competition kicked off Monday with 23 teams doing battle in the knockout games over 18 ends of 3 games. The standard of the greens was fantastic and credit must go to State President Michael Woods and Craig Graham as the host greenkeepers.

NSWBGA STATE PAIRS CHAMPIONSHIP

State Pairs finalists 2021- Shannon White, Brent Norman defeated Mitch McDonnell & Hemi Palmer.

Once the dust had settled after game 2 we were now down to our quarter-final match ups these included:
Nick Hancott/Mick Woods v Duncan Elphick/Tim Allan
Brent Norman/Shannon White v AnthonyMinihan/Ray Cooper
L u k e Wa d e / A d a m T r o t h v M i t c h McDonell/Hemi Palmer
Mitch Bellingham/Dan Ryan v Pat Chorley/Andy Rodger

All these quarter final matches were played under lights in great conditions on a green running 15 seconds. Woods v Allan’s game came down to the wire with Woods playing a bomb to take out the match 15-14.
White v Cooper’s game ended up a one-sided result in the way of White. Troth v Palmer’s game was of the highest quality with Palmer hanging on to secure a 12-9 victory to make his way into the semi-finals. Ryan v Rodger’s was also a nail biter with Rodger taking out the game on the last end 16-15.

So the scene was set for the semi-final stage H a n c o t t / W o o d s v N o r m a n / W h i t e &
McDonnell/Palmer v Chorley/Rodger, these matches were played on the Wednesday after a
full day of singles on Tuesday.

After some overnight rain President Mick again had the greens running fantastic, the White v
Woods started with Norman & White jumping out of the blocks and the combination of Hancott &
Woods fight their way back into the game only to drop a 6 in the latter part of the game. That was
the telling factor in the final margin with Norman & White winning 22-15.

Semi-final 2 was a thriller with McDonnell & Palmer playing some big bowls on the last
couple of ends to get over the top of the evergreen team of Chorley & Rodger 19-18.
The Final was played in still conditions on a perfectly prepared Tifwarf running 15 seconds,
this game could of gone either way with the lead changing several times and was destined to be
decided on the final end. In fact the game was decided last bowl with White having to play a
weighted shot and move the jack to take out the title.
Final Result: Brent Norman/Shannon White 19
defeated Mitch McDonnell/Hemi Palmer 18.

PLATE PAIRS CHAMPIONSHIPS
After round 2 results all unsuccessful players go into the plate pairs with names drawn out of the hat for combinations and played under 2 sets of 7 ends plus 1 end tie-breaker if necessary.
After 4 rounds the final was between Adam Moffitt & Adam Webb vs David Hukins & Col McPherson and in another entertaining final the two Adams proved too strong.
Final Result: Adam Moffitt/Adam Webb 1.5 defeating Dave Hukins/Col McPherson 0.5 sets.
Pictured: Adam Moffitt and Adam Webb, winners of the Plate Pairs.

Ben Morthorpe, NSWBGA State Singles Winner 2021

NSWBGA STATE SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP
It was Singles time and again we witnessed 3 Rounds to kick off day 2 of the tournament with some mouth-watering early round match ups the round of 16 matches were played after some 2 hours of rain delay. Although we did receive the rain over that period the greens still ran true and provided the scene for some tight heads of bowls. These games finished around 8pm and we were now down to the quarter final match ups featuring the following:
Hemi Palmer vs Paul Earl
Ben Morthorpe vs Adam Troth
Shannon White vs Rodney Crean
Brent Norman vs Steve Berger
Unfortunately Hemi couldn’t fulfil his commitments for this game so Earl received a walkover into the semi-final.

The Morthorpe vs Troth started with Adam having the better of the early stages before Ben got hold of the mat and throw his customary long ends to finish over the top of Adam 25-21.
Pictured: Ben Morthorpe winning the Singles title for the third time running.
The White vs Crean game saw Shannon take early control to run the winner 25-13 over Rodney.
The same with the Norman vs Berger with Brent taking early control to win 25-12 over Steve.
Semi-finals saw Norman vs White with Shannon controlling the middle stages of this game to win
31-22.
The other semi-final was one-sided in the favour of Morthorpe over Earl 31-12.
So the stage was set for the Singles final with Ben Morthorpe going for his 3rd straight title and
Shannon White going for his 3rd title after winning in 2013 & 2015.
As per many games during the week the large spectator group were expecting nothing but a
classic final that would go down to the wire and the boys didn’t disappoint with Ben getting off to
strong start only to see Shannon fight back and see the winning bowl played by Ben when the scores were 29 all.
Final Result: Ben Morthorpe 31 Shannon White
29.