Fast Lane
story first published in the Central Western Daily, Saturday 23 January, 1997
The traditional first tenpin tournament of the year, the Bob Jane T Mart/Harvey Norman Discounts Seven No Tap final will be bowled tomorrow, Australia Day, at the Orange Bowl.
The tournament will commence at 9:30am with competitors bowling ten games using the seven no tap format where they will be awarded a strike for simply knocking down a minimum of seven pins.
The number of finalists, originally limited to 20, has been increased to 32.
The format really gives bowlers of all averages an equal opportunity and awards accuracy on the first shot above everything else.
Considering that you could roll ten splits and not make a spare in a normal game you could still manage a 300 game with the same shots using tomorrow's format and therefore just about everybody in the final has a chance of victory.
Last year's surprise winner Debbie Seers gave credence to that belief as she shot down her more fancied higher-averaged opponents with a near flawless display, missing just once in 120 shots.
The scores in tomorrow's final should again be on the high side although, surprisingly, no-one had produced a perfect 1200 series in the four game qualifying round at the time of writing.
The wily veteran Jack Rapley was still leading the pack with his score of 1168 and as top qualifier will receive free entry into the final.
Rapley finished equal second behind Seers in last year's event and will take some beating in tomorrow's final with his fire at the headpin bravado.
One of Rapley's biggest threats is Mark Lijic, second on the list of qualifiers with a tally of 1164 just one pin ahead of Jason Osborne and Jason Belmonte.
Osborne also has a great show. The rapidly improving player is always around the headpin and while his downfall in the past has been an inability to convert simple spares that won't be a problem to him with the no-tap format.
Rounding out the top ten are Peter Brown 1162, Jim Dullaway 1154, Bonnea Wiseman 1153, Les Gunner 1147, Carl Bishop 1135 and Bob Waddell 1119 and a victory from any of them would not surprise.
Others in the top 20 are Ken Wiseman, Steve Winkler, Anthony Knudsen, Marg Hayward, Maria Bishop, defending champion Debbie Seers, Ian Hazzard, Grant Burgess, Marie Rosser and David Rosser.
The tournament winner will receive a set of All-Rounder tyres valued at $400 courtesy of Bob Jane T Mart while the minor placegetters will take home electrical goods from Harvey Norman Discounts.
The Country Championships will be held at the Mayfield Bowl in Newcastle over the next two weekends.
Singles, doubles and teams events will be held while the Country Masters will be bowled on the final day of the Championships, 9 February.
If anybody intends to compete in the championships can they please contact Jim Dullaway at the Bowl who is still looking for doubles and teams partners.
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The news from the Bowl is extremely scarce again this week with most of the centre's leagues not back from the Christmas hiatus.
The week's star bowler was Dianne Gee who rolled a lane record breaking 277 game in the Wednesday Autostyle Doubles.
That score will certainly give the women something to chase for honours as the high game of the year.
In the same league Yoka Smith rolled 212, Jim Dullaway shot 208 and last week's bowler-of-the-week, the in-form Wally Price rattled up games of 214-203.
The only other league to come through with some scoring information this week was the Tuesday Ladies Singles.
Among the best efforts were high games from Sharon Trudgett 247, Maureen Durkin 232, Gwen Britt 232-215, Val Irwin 223-210, Rhearne Trudgett 200, Dianne Gee 201, Judy Streatfeild 209, Bonnea Wiseman and Marilyn Schwenke 214.