Leeden won the final at the Westpac Indoor Bowls Stadium when he beat Andrew MacGregor (Hokonui) 7-5, 11-4 in the two-set final.
It was not an easy journey for Leeden through the two-day tournament, because he was forced into winning the three end tie-breakers in his first four games.
"I tried to play steady bowls," Leeden said.
"But the tie-breakers are tough and cut-throat."
Leeden will advance to the national final against the winners of the Auckland, Hamilton and Hastings tournaments that were also held yesterday.
If Leeden wins the national final he will represent New Zealand at two events - the Scottish and Welsh championships in November.
Leeden (53), the owner-manager of Home Plus in Dunedin, competed at the Scottish Masters in Perth five years ago.
Earlier this year, he reached the second round of the PBA world championships at Potters Leisure Resort in England.
Leeden is one of the top bowlers in Dunedin and has won six centre titles in outdoor bowls.
But he has found a niche for himself in the indoor game.
He used his Red Line bowls indoors for a second year and they again came up trumps for him.
MacGregor (44), a Gore sales manager, is a tenacious bowler who keeps improving each time he competes in the PBA in Dunedin.
He proved his mettle by beating Mark Cowan (Dunedin) 8-3, 11-8, Ross Stewart (Southland) 4-9, 8-2, 2-1 and Robbie Thomson (Dunedin) 3-8, 7-6, 2-0 in his first three games.
MacGregor forced Leeden to play at his best to beat him.
The game could have turned in his favour if Leeden had not been on target on three crucial ends.
In the first set, MacGregor held the shot on three ends and Leeden was forced to play rescue shots to get out of trouble.
Leeden was leading 3-2 after three of the nine ends, but the fourth end was crucial to the outcome of the set.
MacGregor held four shots when Leeden drove with his last bowl and took the jack into the ditch and his own bowl followed the jack to give him two shots.
MacGregor closed the gap slightly but did not have the range of shots needed to play catch up bowls.
He played on the backhand for most of the game and this allowed Leeden to put in blocks.
On the second end of the second set, Leeden was one down on the head and trailed the jack for three shots with his last bowl to lead 4-0.
On the sixth end, Leeden took three shots when he added the bonus point with his last bowl to stretch the lead to 8-4.
On the last two ends he put in blocks to prevent MacGregor attacking his shot bowls.
There were some surprises, with double world champion Gary Lawson (Canterbury) beaten 1-12, 7-6, 2-1 by Malia Ellison (Andersons Bay).
It was a good tournament for women bowlers with Carolyn Crawford (St Clair) reaching the quarterfinals before being beaten 5-6, 9-5, 2-1 by Leeden with his last bowl on the extra end.
The ranking pairs event, that was held on Saturday, was won by Ross Brown (Dunedin) and Steve Jones (South Canterbury) who beat Evan Roberts and Doug Thomas (Dunedin) 9-8, 8-7.
