Dean Drummond, 26, is a Hawke's Bay bowls player who now has a national title and third-place national ranking under his arm. Photo / Warren Buckland
Dean Drummond, 26, is a Hawke's Bay bowls player who now has a national title and third-place national ranking under his arm. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hawke's Bay bowls prodigy Dean Drummond is a ray of gold in a sea of silver hair.
Drummond won a national title at the Bowls3Five National Interclub Finals at Naenae Bowling Club on June 13 and at the start of 2021 was ranked third in the country for his collatedbowls achievements.
But the 26-year-old's youth rolls in contrast to the surplus of grey-haired bowlers congregating on weekday afternoons at the Bowls Hastings green.
Songs like Piano Man and American Pie, written long before Drummond was born, provide the background ambience as he goes about his training.
Bowls is a sport that has struggled to attract youth in Hawke's Bay, making Drummond something of a regional anomaly.
Dean Drummond rolled his first bowl aged 8, accompanied by his bowls-loving grandad Bill Rae and dad Craig Drummond. Photo / Warren Buckland
He rolled his first bowl aged 8, accompanied by his bowls-loving grandad Bill Rae and dad Craig Drummond.
At 13 he "caught a bug for the sport", a bug which he says has driven his pursuit of national and international success.
Drummond has now won 12 Hawke's Bay titles, a recent national title at the Bowls3Five and a pairs title at the Victoria Open Lawn Bowls in Shepparton, Australia in 2019.
At the World Qualifier Singles and Pairs competition on June 26 in Hastings, Drummond won the Men's Singles event, which qualified him for the National Bowls Final in Ōtepoti/Dunedin in September.
If Drummond manages to come away with a win at the national final then a second trip to the United Kingdom for the World Indoor Singles will be in the offing.
Drummond says he aims to practise at the green at least two or three times a week, especially when building up to a competition, and enjoys playing with the "mix of people" there.
When not at the green, he works an early shift at Wattie's Ingredient Complex Recipe Room in Hastings, helping to make "spaghetti, baked beans, and a whole lot of different foods" fit for another kind of bowl.
Drummond says he has to manage his training schedule without coaching, without competitors his age to train with, and without any sponsorship or financial support.
Sometimes he can't make all of the competitions that he wants to because he has to balance both bowls and work.
Drummond views his own bowls journey as reflective of the sport's positioning within NZ's national sporting agenda, which he says privileges contact ball sports like rugby.
The lower priority of bowls is a story as old as time - in 14th-century England bowls was banned by the monarchy as it was seen to distract men from more important combat sports such as archery, which would equip them with skills for battle.
However, the skillset of a bowls player is something millennial men could benefit from, Drummond says, describing the core characteristics of a good bowler as someone who "stays calm under pressure, wants to get better, practises and is able to gel and get on well with other team members".
The National Champion of Champions Triples is coming to the Bowls Hastings green on July 16-18 and Drummond says he hopes it can mark a local shift in this agenda.
Perhaps he might even get a crowd to watch a rising talent roll.
