Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club

Lindsay Short Mat Mixed Triples

11/10/2025

Thank you to our friends in Lindsay for hosting an excellent short mat tournament on Saturday November 8th.

The winners were the Kingston team of Jim Baggs, Carol-Anne Bell and Scott Bell with 3 wins. The Lindsay team of Chad Burgie, Rhys Warren and Tracey Warren were second (also 3 wins). In third place with the 2 game high were Gary Pickering, Bill McCollam and Peter Stuart-Sheppard (two thirds Cobourg!).

In the recreational tournament Blair Brooks, Wendy Brooks and Mike Edwards (Peterborough) were the winners. Second were Heather Stubbings, Sharon Paxton and Ken Bunner (Oshawa but also two thirds Cobourg short mat club). Third were Terry Shannon, Jenn Wetherall and Dana Williams (Cobourg).

Apologies that Admin does not have photos of all the winners but here are what I have, plus some extras.

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Short Mat Leagues

11/7/2025

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In singles, Division 2 Group 1 play got underway. Terry Dyche and Helen Kowalski both won their games. Irene and Gary Miller played two games and each of them won one game. Irene leads Gary on points difference. Here are the results and standings

In Group 3 of the Pairs Al Bell and Laura Mounce got off to a great start winning both their games. Bob Coleman and Michelle Bignell won one and lost one. The remaining teams have only played one game. Bill and Louisa Arthur won their game.

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Short Mat Mixed Triples Tournament

11/3/2025

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The best thing about a short mat tournament is that the conditions are always ideal. It’s like playing in the SkyDome with the roof closed: bright fluorescent light with a pleasant, forced air temperature and a fast artificial surface. The sound of a baseball bat hitting ball is replaced with the unique thwack of bowl meeting block.

Taking the field in this mixed triples tournament sponsored by Senior Helpers were 16 squads. In round one the eight teams from Cobourg would square off against the visitors: three from Ottawa, two each from Kingston and Lindsay and one from Oshawa. They would play four ten-end games to see who was tops. In the first skirmish Cobourg took five of the eight games.

The home town teams continued to fare well in round two. The Terry Bradshaw, Mike Place and Peter Stuart-Sheppard teams were unbeaten. The only visitor at 2-0 was Ottawa’s Ric Choma. He drew Bradshaw (Bell/ Nan Hendren substituting for Mounce) in round three and ran into a buzzsaw losing 23-4. Round three also featured another battle of the undefeateds. Stuart-Sheppard (Bill McCollam/ Sheri Perkins) took on Place (Terry Dyche/Jan Skillen) and eased to a 15-5 win. That set up the game for all the marbles.

Bradshaw -v- Stuart-Sheppard (Mounce was back as lead for Bradshaw). The match was played on mat four which was very swingy from both sides and proved to be a handful. Sheppard and McCollam were first to find the line at the very edge of the mat. That got them off to a jack rabbit start and a commanding lead. Peter recounts that “the match settled down to a series of tightly packed heads, jack movements, great draws and strategic bowls.” The Bradshaw trio got a bit back but were thwarted from putting up the big-scoring ends they needed. Terry says “we needed 4 going into the last end and we tried to kill the end and failed to do so…the best team won.” Team Stuart-Sheppard took the ‘W’ and the tournament.

This article is taken from the November Newsletter written by editor Henry Kowalski. Photos are also by Henry with some additional ones by Bill Arthur.

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Short Mat Leagues

10/31/2025

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The second week of our singles and pairs leagues are complete. Updated results and standings are shown below for the first two weeks.

The Division 1 Group 2 had some interesting results with Carl Ferguson, John MacKenzie and Laura Mounce all wining one of their two games and losing the other. Bill McCollam tops the group by virtue of his points difference and he has a game a game in hand.

In Group two of the Pairs League the front runners are Jan Skillen and John Saunders who won their opening two games.

Updated week one results are shown below.

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Short Mat is Go!

10/10/2025

Our short mat season is now underway. We meet Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the Cobourg Community Centre and are looking at the possibility of a Saturday afternoon session.

If you are interested in joining or just trying out please contact us at [email protected]

We had a packed gym on Tuesday October 7th with three mats dedicated to teaching 18 people who wanted to learn about short mat. That was in addition to the usual jitney play. There must have been about 60 bowlers in total.

On Thursday October 9th there were ten mats of triples play. Wonderful to see so mnay people enjoying themselves.

Photo credit Henry Kowalski and Bill Arthur

This week in Bowls

9/22/2025

The Golden Oldies

On Thursday September 18th we held our final tournament of the season. And what a lovely day for bowling it was. The tournament was the club "Golden Oldies" (70 and over). This was the second year of this tournament which was sponsored by Ralph Hewitt and Fran Marsh.

The format was different this year with four six end games. None of the teams won all four games but three teams won three games so it all came down to points scored by those three teams. The winners were Carl Ferguson, Nancy Kirby and Louisa Arthur with 29 points. Second was the team of Carol Dewey, Ralph Hewitt and Ann Tough with 23 points and third was the team of Bill Arthur, Ken Bevan and Linda Eals with 22 points. The prize for one game high was won by Tom Bevan, Jenn Wetherall and Donna Longman.

Ralph presented the prizes.

Thanks to the drawmasters Julie Perry and Anne Leahy for their work and for the extra prizes for the spider and a musical quiz during one of the breaks. Also, thanks Julie for the music throughout the day. An excellent playlist for those of a certain age.
Bill Arthur

The Ontario Novice Singles Championships
Playing singles at lawn bowls is very challenging. Singles play involves a lot of strategic thinking, including shot selection and anticipating the opponents' moves. Competing against a single opponent can create pressure, as all eyes are on you, and there’s no teammate to rely on. Our representatives at the Ontario Novice Singles Championship would no doubt testify to that.

The Championships were held at the Oshawa club on September 20th and 21st . Lynn Bryans is the Ladies District Champion and she received her winners pin and pennant at the opening ceremony. Terry Bradshaw qualified as the runner up in the District playdowns but a runner up doesn’t get pins and pennants! Just the reward of playing.

Sixteen men and sixteen ladies competed and the format on day 1 was round robin with 4
groups of four players. The top two in each group qualify for the quarter finals on day 2 which is elimination day.

The lawn bowling gods tested the nerves of players and supporters on day 1. Terry got off to a good start with two wins (18-10 and 18-15) and more often than not that would be sufficient to qualify for the quarter final but this was no normal day. Terry lost his final round robin game 18-8 and there was a three way tie with 3 of the payers having each won two games. The tie breaker is based on point differential in all three games. The District 16 player had a point difference of 11, the District 11 player had 9 and Terry had 1. So Terry finished third and was eliminated.

Lynn had the opposite experience. After a heavy defeat in her opening game against Kim
Bonisteel of District 15 (who went on to win the bronze medal) the pressure was on her and she rose to the challenge with wins of 18-4 and 18-8 in the next two days. The calculators were out again as three of the ladies in the group had two wins. Lynn placed second with a point difference of 9 which gave her the edge over the 2024 silver medallist, Karen Manfredi.
So on to Sunday – win or go home! Lynn was drawn against Kirsten Merrill of District 12 and we knew from the outset this would be a tough match as Kirsten had won all her round robin games by significant scores.

Lynn played a very good game and after nine ends the score was 9-10. The next end was a vital one with Kirsten scoring 3 points after a close measure. After that Kirsten scored successive deuces to win the game. It is ironic that Lynn probably played her best in that game but to no avail. Kirsten went on to win the gold medal. Little consolation for Lynn to know that she was beaten by the gold medallist.

Bill Arthur

Bobby Tough Memorial Tournament

9/14/2025

There was a different start to this tournament, sponsored by Al Bell and Laura Mounce, in Bob’s memory. We had a drone operator taking video and photos as we all assembled in front of the clubhouse. He continued to film as we held a spider and started the games. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. We will hopefully have some great media to use for future promotions. The spider was won by Brent Bayley (an omen for a good day for Brent? Read on. )

We were one person short of 12 triples teams so drawmasters Bill Arthur(game 1) and Louisa Arthur (game 2) filled in on Brent Bayley’s team with Dale McMillan playing in game 3. We played 3x10 end games.

Round one
Top scorers in game 1 were the team of Sarah van Steijn, Mary Thibault and Chris Dinner with 15+2 points for and 5 against. Next with 14 points was the team of Brent Bayley, John Saunders and Bill Arthur with 14 points so that meant a match up between Sarah and Brent’s teams in round 2. Other winners in round one were Jacob Hyatt, Henry Kowalski, Terry Bradshaw and Bob Bates.

Round two
An extra factor was introduced in round two with each team allowed a power play in one end. The power play had to be declared to the opposing skip before the end started and the score was doubled if a team won the power play end. There were some big changes if teams were successful in their power play. Bob Bates team, for example, scored three points on their power play and that was doubled to six points. Lynn Bryans was winning 10-0 against Andrew Perry but a successful power play put him right back in the game and he won 14-10.

Round three
When the scores were totted up after round 2 the top match to determine the winners was Bob Bates team versus Brent Bayley’s. Each team had two wins. This was a close encounter and with one end left Brent was one point ahead. Bob scored one in the final end to tie the game but lost the extra end. Brent’s team were the winners.

Henry Kowalski went into round three with two wins but a low points total. Nevertheless he had a good chance of claiming second place if he could beat Carol Dewey’s team. Partly due to judicious use of her power play Carol’s team won 15+6 points to 7. That took Carol into second place.

The full result:
Winners – Brent Bayley, John Saunders and Dale McMillan 3 wins 36+1 points
Second – Carol Dewy, Donna Ball and Alan Loney 2 wins 35+7 points
Third – Bob Bates, Jenn Wetherall and Norma Stoffers 2 wins 35 points
One game high – Andrew Perry, Helen Kowalski and Greg Booth 28 points

Between the second and third games we held a “put the jack in the ditch” skills test. Three jacks were place at the edge of the ditch and the bowlers had to hit one of the jacks into the ditch. Each bowler had one bowl and they bowled from 21 metres away. The only players to put the jack in the ditch were Jan, Skillen, Jan Moynes and Ron Kinsey. They moved on to the second round but none of them hit the jack. However, Ron Kinsey was declared the winner as he was closest to the jack. Ron won a bottle of wine courtesy of the sponsors.

And finally Baylee van Steijn won the draw for a bottle of Scotch which was donated by Ann Tough

Bill Arthur

John Clews Memorial Tournament

9/7/2025

On Saturday September 6th we held the inaugural John Clews memorial tournament. It was a club pairs and it was sponsored by John's close friends Brent Bayley and Jenn Wetherall who presented the prizes. Thank you Brent and Jenn for sponsoring this new tournament.
Ladies:
Winners - Jan Skillen and Helen Kowalski
Second - Sarah van Steijn and Jan Moynes
Third - Janice Slobojan and Nan Hendren
Men:
Winners - Bob Bates and Jim Clark
Second - Braden and John Saunders
Third - Andrew Perry and Ron Kinsey
Photo credit: Henry Kowlaski

Labour Day Weekend Action

9/2/2025

District 14 Novice Singles

The playdowns were held at the club on Saturday and Sunday August 30/31.

Congratulations to Lynn Bryans and Terry Bradshaw on qualifying for the Ontario Novice Singles Championships.

Lynn won the ladies title winning all five of her round robin games. Terry won all his round robin games and semi final but just came up short in the final. The top two men and top two women all qualified.

Labour Day Mixed Pairs 242
Labour Day means our annual open mixed pairs Aussie 242.

A great turn out with 10 Cobourg teams and ten "out of towners". Many thanks to our sponsor CRCS DKI for their support.

It was a beautiful day for lawn bowling and there was some great bowling with lots of fun and laughter.

Al Bell's usual partner, Laura, has been sidelined by injury in the last few weeks and Julie Perry has taken her place to great effect. Al and Julie won the tournament with 3 wins and a score of 43+2. Laura presented the trophy on behalf of the sponsor.

Full result
Winners - 3 wins and 43+2 points - Al Bell and Julie Perry (Cobourg)
Second - 3 wins and 38 points - Bill McCollam and Janice Slobojan (Cobourg)
Third - 2 wins and 47+1 points - Peter Stuart-Sheppard (Cobourg) and Tracey Warren (Lindsay)
Fourth - 2 wins and 40+4 Points - Dennis and Mona Davidson (Oshawa)
Fifth - 2 wins and 39+7 Suzie Palmer (Oshawa) and George Boersma (Belleville)
One game high with 32 points - David Saliba and Cara Booth (Pickering)
Last game high with 18+2 - Bill Arthur and Michelle Tinney (Cobourg

Midweek Action

8/28/2025

Ontario Senior Pairs

Congratulations to Bill McCollam and Peter Stuart-Sheppard representing Cobourg LBC and District 14. After winning bronze in the 2024 championships they repeated that this year with another bronze medal.

Look out for a full report in the next Newsletter.

Bill and Peter are pictured with Rebecca McQueen representing the OLBA

SWS Club Tournament

This triples tournament was postponed in May because of bad weather. We were blessed with a (not too) warm day which was perfect for bowling when the tournament was held on Wednesday August 27th.

Thank you to the joint sponsors Spectacular Water Systems and Benjamin Moore.

Results:

Winners: Al Bell, Jan Skillen and Ron Kinsey
Second: Terry Bradshaw, Andrew Perry and Chris Dinner
Third: Jacob Hyatt, Ralph Stoffers and Marjorie Smith
One game high: Brent Bayley, Mary Salter and Robert Eales