The Zone One South Singles qualifying championships were held at Yamba and Iluka over the weekend.

The Open and Senior divisions were contested at Yamba, however due to the large number of nominations in the President’s Reserve division, it was necessary to split the division into two sections, one played at Yamba and the other at Iluka with the winner of each section to advance to the Zone Championships scheduled for the weekend of June 26-27.

Somehow through a quirk of the draw and subsequent results, the two qualifying finals in the State Open division came down to a battle of clubmates. The first qualifying final was played between Grafton District Services Club (GDSC) lawn bowls gladiators, Tony Lickiss and Gregg Maxted. Tony and Gregg had both shown tremendous form during the preliminary rounds and neither could claim favouritism over the other entering the final. However, it was Tony who took a very close and regaling contest by 31 shots to 29.

The other qualifying final featured two Yamba bowlers, Steve Butler and Don Plummer. Steve had defeated Nathan Jolliffe (GDSC) and Ray Ryan (Maclean) on his way to the final while Don had defeated sibling Zack Jolliffe (GDSC) and Mark Walsh (GDSC) on his path. Again, the in-house contest provided great entertainment for the throng of appreciative spectators with Steve taking the beguiling contest by 31 shots to 24.

Don Freeman

Picture Zone 1 South Open Singles qualifiers: Tony Lickiss (GDSC) and Steve Butler (Yamba). Image: contributed.