He is the club president, it was about time Richard Corry won the Victoria Invitation Pairs.
But while he has been knocking on the door for several years, Corry was stunned that the breakthrough happened yesterday with Euan Wong, of Stokes Valley.
“It’s hard to believe,” Corry said.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever played with Euan so to go through and win it, it’s big. I’ve been there or thereabouts in this tournament. I hadn’t reached the final but had some third and fourth playoffs and got close a number of times.
“So it felt really good. There’s always such quality fields here, you always feel good just getting close in this one.”
Tournament organiser Lou Newman couldn’t recall two unseeded combinations progressing to the final before yesterday.
Corry and Wong prevailed 14-10 over Canterbury’s former world champion Andrew Curtain and Victoria veteran Gary Ruane in a see-sawing encounter.
Corry and Wong claimed six straight shots to go from 10-7 down to 13-10 up heading into the 12th and final end.
Ruane let three consecutive beauties rip to potentially pull level but Corry stepped in to seal the $2200 prize with the winning bowl.
“They’re making fun of Gary upstairs, he’s not in our premier team and they were saying he should be our singles player, drawing shots like that,” Corry said.
Play was delayed for four hours on Saturday and conditions were windy and slippery yesterday.
“I knew it would be a tight one and we just had to put a lot of bowls on the head,” Corry said.
“It was difficult conditions so it was whoever had the most bowls there or thereabouts. The greens are looking good considering the amount of rain we’ve had.”