Results – BNH Champion of Champion Singles
Takapuna’s Brent Malcolm and Lisa Dickson achieved a rare double for their club with respective wins in the centre’s champion of champion singles event decided at the Hobsonville club at the weekend.
Malcolm won the men’s final beating Birkenhead’s specialist draw bowler Mark Rumble 21-15 while Dickson won the women’s final 21-11 over Helensville’s Sue Hart, who by coincidence was an old family friend who had been a playing partner of Lisa’s mum Irene at Auckland’s old Onehunga club.
For Malcolm, now with Takapuna after several seasons with Northcote, it was his first Harbour title, so ending a long run of near misses, the most recent of which came with Takapuna in the Dick Bree triples in the 2021-22 season when he, Wynne Gray and Gordon Jenkins lost narrowly to Browns Bay.
But his bowling credentials have been long established for in 2018 he won the Ivan Kostanich open singles, which, of course, though run by North Harbour does not count as a centre title as it includes outside bowlers.
Brent was also a mainstay a few seasons back of the highly successful Harbour one-to eight representative sides which won the national title. And both his Dunedin-domiciled parents have been national champion so his bowls pedigree is obvious.
In the semi-finals he had a comfortable 21-6 win over Hobsonville’s promising junior Clinton Smith, while Rumble, who has enjoyed a good season, including a win in the centre’s three-five competition, had a notable success 21-15 over multiple centre champion, Helensville’s Bart Robertson.
This was Lisa’s 19th Harbour title, taking her to within of one of a third bar to her gold star, which she could well achieve in the next couple of weeks as she is playing for Takapuna in two other of the champion of champion events.
Though bowls has not been her priority this season, she has had many good results, including four club titles at Takapuna. She also was runner-up in the centre championship fours.
The pivotal match in her latest centre win came early, in the first round when she was pitted against Birkenhead’s Millie Nathan, who probably was the other strong player in the field. Lisa won this 21-12, then had comfortable wins over Lorraine Brassett (Warkworth) in the quarter-finals, and then Kaylene McNabb (Manly) in the semi-finals.
The only other player apart from Millie to get to double figures against her, indeed was Sue Hart in the final. Sue made the final with a 21-17 win over Beryl Truebody (Orewa) in the semi-finals.
Her earlier wins were over two bowlers with centre titles to their credit in Rona Turner (Browns Bay) and Irene Donaldson (Mairangi Bay). So to make the final was a worthy effort.
