Bowls: Veteran claims national singles title

Photo / APN

Marilyn McLeod, a dairy farmer and 61-year-old Bay of Plenty grandmother, offered a reminder that bowls at top level should still have a place for its more traditional age group by yesterday winning the New Zealand Open women's singles title at Henderson.

McLeod, from the Tauranga South club, recovered from a sluggish start to beat another veteran, 62-year-old Northlander Anne Bateman 21-16 in the final.

Bateman, who represented New Zealand in 2005, looked as if she would add to the national pairs title she won that year when she led 11-7.

But McLeod, who has played for 23 years and collected 12 centre titles, made a spectacular burst in the middle ends to take control.

Playing from south to north, with the wind freshening and the green quickening, she picked her weight and green perfectly to score two consecutive fours.

In contrast, the youthful face of bowls was seen in the men's singles final when an athletic 28-year-old from Counties-Manukau's Papakura club, Raika Gregory, convincingly beat Mike Bradshaw 21-8 to deny the 55-year-old Aucklander the chance to add to his pairs title.

Gregory took up the sport while he was still playing rugby league as a 12-year-old as a disciplinary measure by his father to stop him throwing lemons on to the green next to the family home in Ngaruawahia.

Since then Gregory has developed into a fine bowler without following too much of a conventional path.

As a teenager he moved to Levin and before he was 17 had already become a Kapiti centre gold-star badge-holder for winning five titles.

One of his main influences there was former test cricketer Peter Petherick, the first New Zealander to take a test hat-trick.

But he then had a long spell out of bowls, returning only relatively recently to play in Waikato and mainly by making an impact on the PBA indoor circuit.

Steve Beel and Lance Tasker, from Bay of Plenty's Mt Maunganui club, combined with Birkenhead's Tony Grantham to win the men's triples title from Hillsboro's Chris Lowe, Grant Goodwin and Martin Dixon.

The Beel-skipped triple, with every member a former national champion, won 15-11.

But they never looked threatened, especially after scoring a five on the opening end when Beel drove out the only two counters Hillsboro had on the head.