Bowls: Outram men shine alongside women

Outram won the George Payton Memorial Trophy and was the top club in Dunedin bowls last season.

The club has always been strong in women's bowls but the men added a new dimension by reaching a few milestones themselves.

The team of Rex Calder (singles), Paul McLeod and Philip Stevenson (pairs) and Roger West, Neville Stevenson, Roger Cameron and Rob Scouler (fours) won the Dunedin final of the division two interclub sevens and finished runner-up in the regional final in Oamaru in March.

The men won their division of the Wednesday afternoon interclub and their section of the Saturday afternoon competition.

Calder won his first centre title when he won the Bowls Dunedin mixed pairs with Sue Hodges at the beginning of the season.

It gave Hodges a bar to her gold star and she won her 11th title in the triples with Cindi Ewart and Mary Stevenson.

That win gave Ewart her 10th title and bar for her gold star and Stevenson her fifth title and gold star.

Hodges, a case manager at Milton Prison, has been playing bowls for 15 years and has now won 13 Bowls Dunedin titles.

It was a successful season and she won four centre titles - open singles, open triples, mixed pairs and the champion of champion triples - and was named the Dunedin Woman Bowler of the Year.

The most significant win was the mixed pairs that she won with Calder, because it was her 10th centre title and she added a bar to her gold star.

Hodges learned valuable lessons when she was a member of the New Zealand development squad last year and used the new techniques to plan her season.

It helped her regain top spot in Dunedin women's bowls.

The most important lesson she learned from her time in the development squad was to be more focused with her bowls.

This included having more targeted practice sessions and making sure she had defined objectives when playing in games.

"I learnt to focus on the game all the time and to shut out outside influences, especially opponents," she said.

A feature of the season was to attract former All Blacks Sir Colin Meads and Peter Henderson to the annual Outram 2000 fours bowls tournament, which has prize money of $2000.

 

Add a Comment