CARDINIA WATERS BOWLS
IT TURNED out to be ‘Donny’s Weekend’ at the Cardinia Waters Bowls club, as on Saturday morning Donny Gibson, only a second year bowler defeated Dennis Patmore in the Minor Championship.
Dennis got away to an early lead and led eight-shot to one but Donny pegged him back with some precision draw shots and looked to have the game in hand. Dennis however had other ideas and fought back and at the 30th end was leading 23-22. The final end was very tight, Donny surrounded the jack with some great draw shots while Dennis was unlucky to have three shots that narrowly missed trailing the jack to give him the two shots he required. Donny won the thriller with a score of 25-23.
It was an honourable loss for Dennis though as he missed all last season due to an ankle operation and bowled this year with the aid of a bowling arm.
And on Sunday Donny went up against Doug Eastick in the 100 Up final.
It was close early with Donny leading 39-34 after ten ends, and a maximum ten on the 12th end followed by a seven saw him lead 64-40. Doug then fought back by scoring seven, nine, eight and nine in the next four ends to take the lead, 72-71. But that was it for Doug; Donny got a second wind and scored nine, eight, nine to lead 97-76 on the 20th end and wrapped it up for 100-78 victory.
Donny was very pleased as he finished runner-up in last season’s final. His opponent then was Mick Knight who missed out this year but did a great job in organising and marking both the week end’s singles events.
The final of the mixed pairs was also played on Sunday between club president Lindsay Cameron and his wife Lynn against Val Moore and Gunter Baumbach.
After four ends it was four-all but from then on the greater experience of the Camerons’ saw them forge ahead. The scores were probably not a true indication of the game as all four were playing good bowls but after the 18 ends the score was 23-9 in the Cameron’s favour.
