The 55th annual Festival Fours is being held this week and the small central Southland club of Drummond, with just 18 members, has sent teams to all but one of the events.
The club has two of the 36 teams competing in this week's tournament.
Among those taking part are Owen Johnstone (68) and Murray Miller (77), sons of two of the players in the original Drummond team that contested the 1954 event.
It was the most popular event of the year for hard-working sheep farmers Tom Johnstone and Tom Miller.
Tom Johnstone died in his mid-80s and Tom Miller at 88.
"Dad brought home a lot of stories and we wanted to carry on the tradition," Owen Johnstone told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
"We stay together with our wives and it is always a lot of fun," he said.
Murray Miller played 57 games for the Southland rugby team at lock from 1953-61. This is only the sixth time he has played in the Festival Fours.
Drummond is the most loyal club attending the annual event and has travelled to Dunedin with one or more teams since the early days.
The Southlanders traditionally enjoy a week's holiday in the city with their wives, who go shopping and sightseeing while their husbands play bowls.
Most members of the Drummond club have been farmers, and all eight members of this year's teams are retired sheep farmers.
"It used to be my annual holiday when I worked on the farm at Heddon Bush," Jack Cowie said.
Cowie (72), the skip of one of the Drummond teams, is playing in his 28th Festival Fours.
He has been playing bowls for 33 years.
"I like the friendship and the atmosphere," he said. "This tournament has a fond place for our club members."
The Drummond Club has never won the event but that does not worry the club members, as they enjoy meeting people and the social atmosphere of the annual tournament.
"I was runner-up in the plate event to former Southlander Frank Boyle one year and won an electric razor," Cowie said, Lindsay (Dig) Macdonald (78), the other skip, is playing in the event for the 25th time.
"It's become a tradition in the Drummond club to travel to the event," he said. "We only had one team at first and then brought up two teams."
The qualifiers for post-section play in the main event today are: Charles Harris (Green Island), Regan Larkin (Andersons Bay), Robbie Gibson (Taieri), Graeme Allan (Kaikorai), Wayne Hewitt (Fairfield), Kerry Becks (Christchurch), Brendon Hollander (Forbury Park), Josh Freeman (Fairfield), Brian Malcolm (Fairfield), Trevor Wilson (Macandrew Bay), Russell Smith (Taieri), Jack van Zanten (St Clair).
Post-section play starts at 8.30am and the final is expected to start at 4.30pm at the Kaikorai club.
