Bowls: Dunedin to host NZ championships

Bowls Dunedin will host the New Zealand bowls championships, the premier domestic event in the sport, next season.

The Taieri Bowling Club has been appointed host club and will be the championship headquarters green for the fifth time.

Dunedin has also been allocated the New Zealand championships for the 1913-14 season but the headquarters club for that event has not yet been decided.

It will be a special occasion because it will be 100 years since the first national championships were held in Dunedin in the 1913-14 season.

This season's New Zealand championships will be held in Wellington, but no centre had applied for next season's event when the Bowls New Zealand annual meeting was held in Auckland in September.

Pat O'Dea, the region six delegate at the annual meeting, asked Bowls New Zealand chief executive Kerry Clark where the event was being held.

"Kerry told me that no centre had applied for it and he indicated that if Dunedin applied, it could come here," O'Dea said.

"The Taieri club applied to hold the event and I'm convinced the club will do a successful job."

The decision to base the event at the Taieri club has pleased manager-greenkeeper Robbie Gibson.

"It is a prestige event and I want to do a good job and make sure that the New Zealand championships continue to come to Dunedin," he said.

Dunedin has always been a popular venue with bowlers because of the ease of travel in the city and the high quality of the greens.

Bowls great Phil Skoglund always regarded Dunedin as the best venue in the country for a New Zealand championships because of the short travelling distances to the green and the friendliness of the people.

Skoglund won the singles in 1972 and the pairs and fours in 1976 when the event was held at the Kaituna club in Dunedin.

The first time Taieri was the headquarters club was in 1988 when Kevin Darling (Caversham) won the singles title.

The other occasions were in 1992, 1997 and 2002.

In 2002, Mike Kernaghan (Kaikorai) beat Terry Scott (North East Valley) in the singles final.

Kernaghan also won the previous year at Auckland and is one of only five bowlers who have won back-to-back titles.

The others are John Martin (Edgeware) 1945-46, Ron Buchan (Tui Park) 1964-65, Phil Skoglund (Northern) 1970-72 and Ali Forsyth (United) 2003-04.

A field day with greenkeepers was held this week to inform them what was needed to get the greens into top-class order for the championships.

"We let the clubs know the standard of the greens expected by Bowls New Zealand. It will affect the autumn maintenance at the end of this season," Gibson said.

It will be a busy season for Bowls Dunedin in 2010-11 because the national secondary schools finals will also be held in the city in December.

• The New Zealand Open bowls men's and women's singles finals yesterday were close-fought affairs, with Richard Girvan and Sharyn Renshaw emerging victorious, NZPA reports.

The men's final between New Zealand international Girvan and Pakuranga's Neil Fisher went down to the wire with the score at 20-20 before Girvan won 21-20 on the final end.

Australian Renshaw, playing out of the St John's Park club, had to stave off a fightback from New Zealand international Jan Khan to win 21-19.

Girvan completed a double when he combined with Pakuranga's Neil Fisher to win the pairs title, beating the composite side of Shayne Sincock and Lance Pascoe 19-11 in the final.

National championships in Dunedin
First held in city in 1913-14.
Number held in Dunedin: 23
Since World War 2.
- National men's championships in Dunedin: 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007.
Venues: Leith, Kaituna, St Kilda, Taieri, Bowls Dunedin HQ greens.
Otago national singles champions: 1950, L J Edwards (Balclutha); 1976, Ernie Wilson (Balmacewen); 1985, Iain Dickison (Kaikorai); 1987, Ken Walker (Fairfeld); 1988, Kevin Darling (Caversham); 1990, Terry Scott (North East Valley); 2001-02, Mike Kernaghan (Kaikorai).