Despite it coinciding with the Australian Open, all of last season's big winners in the Dunedin regional PBA bowls competition will take to the rinks at Dunedin Bowls Stadium this weekend.
Competition gets under way tomorrow night with section play in the Scottish Open singles and continues throughout the weekend with competition also for the Shanghai singles before finishing with ranking singles on Monday.
Dunedin co-ordinator Ken Walker has been encouraged by increased competitor numbers and the return to the rink of top-class competitors such as past New Zealand under-25 representative Blair Barringer (Taieri) and champions over the Dunedin summer season in Beth Brown (Taieri) and Joko Susilo (Andersons Bay), to name just a few.
''The competition is heating up even before a bowl is played,'' Walker said.
''There is going to be some very good bowlers in action. So competition is going to be hot.''
Although up-and-coming bowler Caleb Hope is returning this weekend, his Gore club-mate, Sheldon Bagrie-Howley, will be one absentee after playing last year.
He is playing in the Australian Open followed by a Bowls New Zealand training camp both of which clash with the Dunedin regional PBA competition.
Also missing from last year are outstanding husband and wife combination Roger and Bronwyn Stevens, who will be Australian-based throughout the PBA season.
Barringer returns after a five-year break from the game while Brown is one of eight women in the 70-strong field.
She will take on some of the South Island's top male competitors such as Canterbury's Andrew Kelly, and Paul Austin, Peter Bell (Oamaru), Elliot Mason and Duane White (both Forbury Park).
Champions in the mixed pairs last year Helen Carman (Taieri) and Mario Sopp (Brighton) are back but not as a team.
Carman was the talk of the World PBA championships in England earlier this year when, as a virtual unknown, she reached the final of the mixed pairs with Englishman Nick Brett.
Sopp, originally from the southern-most bowls club in the world, Bluff, had the largest contingent of supporters.
Winning the national PBA mixed pairs final with Carman last year and progressing to the world final gave him huge status in his old club.
The winner of this weekend's regional Scottish singles progresses to the national final for a chance to win automatic entry to the Scottish Open singles in Perth in November.
