Congratulations to Laurie Guy for an outstanding NZ Professional Bowls Association weekend last week at the Heretaunga Club in Hastings. Laurie won the first day Ranking Singles event, and was then runner-up on the second day in the International Open Singles qualifier. Laurie fell at the last hurdle to Natarsha Grimshaw (Hawkes Bay) 10-4, 2-11, 2-0. This was the first time Laurie had made a PBA singles qualifier final.
Laurie’s PBA ranking will climb to 7th when the updated rankings are released this week. Unfortunately falling in the tiebreak means Laurie’s bid for a place in next year’s Trans Tasman challenge between the Australian and NZ PBA’s will fall short again.
Tim Toomey and Richard Corry both reached the quarterfinals of the International qualifier. They lost to Grimshaw and Kaaren Guilford (Johnsonville) respectively. All four semifinalists surnames started with ‘G’ so they will need to rename themselves Goomey and Gorry next time.