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13/11/08
Gold Coast Division One pennant winners South Tweed roll off the 2009 Premier League Queensland season with an away match against Ipswich United "Warriors" on January 10 without the services of champion Kelvin Kerkow.
Kerkow, although no longer the Sports Promotion Officer at South Tweed, will play with the "Sharks" but his overseas professional bowls commitments will prevent the star bowler from possibly the six or seven rounds.
The World Indoor Singles and Pairs commence on January 5 - 25 and closely followed by the Welsh International Open on Jan 31 - Feb 6 and Kerkow could possibly only be back in Australia for a week at the end of January before going to Wales.
The draw for the 18 team Premier League Queensland season includes five double header weekends with the first coming up on the weekends on Jan17/18 followed by another two weeks later on January 31/February 1.
All in all the seventeen rounds of the 2009 PLQ season run from January 10 till round 17 on Saturday April 5 followed by qualifying finals on April 18 after the Easter weekend.
Semi finals commence on April 25 - Anzac day at 1.00pm with the preliminary final commencing at 5.00pm and then the Grand Final at 1.00pm on Sunday April 26.
If Kerkow goes well in the Welsh International Open then he will miss the home match for South Tweed against Paradise Point on February 7 but then should return to play his first match against Springwood on February 14th - St Valentine's Day
The entries for the Bowls Queensland Australian Indoor qualifying closed on Wednesday with an increased number of entries state - wide due to the decision to utilise five venues this year.
Bowls Queensland has six qualifiers for the Australian Indoor and therefore each venue will play for one qualifying spot and the venue with the most number of entrants will be allocated two qualifiers.
Suburban Townsville has 15 men and 5 ladies entrants and North Mackay
also has 15 men but only 2 ladies.
Urangan Bowls Club, on the Sunshine Coast, the entries for the men's qualifying total 22 and for the ladies 14.
On the Gold Coast, Paradise Point has 32 entries for the men and the ladies 20 entrants. The Tweed Heads Bowls Club has the most number of entrants with a total of 57 entries and the ladies also attracted the most number of entries with 28 entries.
The total number of entrants is far higher this year, being the first time that five venues have been used and it is great for the far north bowlers to have the chance to play in the qualifying and to win a spot in the Australian Indoor Championships.
The total number of men this year is 141 and for the ladies 69
The qualifying is played at all venues over Saturday/Sunday on the weekend of December 6/7 with the main event the Australian Indoor at Tweed Heads on April 27/30 2009
The Australian qualifiers Wayne Turley and Aron Sherriff failed to get past the first round in the first of the World Bowls Tour events in the UK this week.
Turley lost to 13th seed Les Gillett in a tie breaker 1/2 after winning the first set 10/7 and then narrowly losing 7/8 in the second set.
Aron Sherriff lost in two straight sets to Jason Greenslade 3/8:3/9 who was too strong for our Aussie qualifier, in fact only two of the sixteen qualifiers from around the world managed to win and advance to round two.
Aussie professional Kelvin Kerkow played well in the first set to win 14/2 against CY Wong then narrowly lost the second set 7/8 but then won the tiebreaker 2/0 in the best of 3 ends - shots do not count in the PBA events.
The final is on the weekend and a full round up of all results is on the THBC web site - www.thbc.com.au - lawn bowls news.
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Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed in this Bowls Column are not necessarily the views of the Tweed Heads Bowls Club Board, Management or its members, and is written as a matter of general interest and news in the public interest to lawn bowlers worldwide. Greg Kelly Without Prejudic