Better late than never, but I've finally got around to completing the wrap up for the Eliminator.
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Coolangatta Tweed Tenpin hosted the 4th event of the TotalBowling.com.au Touring Circuit. The event also under went a name change and a new format, thus now being called the Tweed Eliminator.
As there was no confusion about Day Light Savings time this year everybody turned up on time and A Squad started on time. The first 6 games saw Tyrone Watson bowl a 289, Stuart Crowley and Gary Negus both bowl a 279 each and there was a number of other high games. Sharing the lead at the end of the first six games was Gary Negus and Tyrone Watson both averaging 231.
B Squad was expected to shoot high and the bowlers in this squad disappoint. Brian Pil(k)ington was the first bowler to shoot a perfect 300 game in Tweed's Touring Circuit events. Brian bowled the perfect game on Lanes 7 & 8 in the 5th game. Other high games for B Squad included Damien Banar with a 289, Nathan Fosbeary bowling a 279 and one of Tweed's local bowlers Steve Kable bowling a 270.
Starting at 2pm saw another 29 bowlers bowl in C Squad. Mark Lawton took the lead early after 2 games with a 504 block but ran out of energy and followed that block with a 127 game. The bowlers on 1 - 8 were commenting on how cool it was on the lanes but that's because all the spectators were at the other end of the centre watching some spectacular bowling. Jon King was the first bowler in the centre's history to bowl a 300 game on Lanes 15 & 16, his previous two games were 278 and 267 and he followed his perfect game with a 235 to give him a massive 1070 for the last 4 games. Needless to say, Jon King was now leading the qualifying with a 250 average.
Squad A had another 6 games to bowl to complete of their 12 games of qualifying. Stuart Crowley and Robert Green were both out of the blocks early both bowling a block of 510. The top 3 finishers for Squad A were Stuart Crowley averaging 230, Gary Negus averaging 220 and Shayne Melton averaging 217.
Squad B had a very early start on Sunday morning starting bowling at 7:30 and surprisingly everybody was there ready to bowl, but that's not to say they were awake. This block of 6 games only saw 2 x 279 games bowled, one by Brian Pilkington and another by Peter Brown of whom started that game off with the front 9. The top 3 finishers for Squad B were Carl Bottomley averaging 225, Nathan Fosbeary averaging 221 and a Tweed local Steve Kable averaging 218.
The bowlers in Squad C had to average at least 203 to make the Top 32 and that was no easy challenge as the bowlers witnessed low scoring blocks for the previous Squad. Squad C didn't let the previous scores worry them as there were many 250+ games bowled over the six games, Darryl Alford bowled a 278 in the 8th games of qualifying and Rhyss Jones bowled a 279 in 10th game. Jon King continued his fine performance averaging a massive 238 for the 12 games, Brandon Qualishefeski averaged 2nd with a 228 and silent achiever John Dunn averaged a 227.
The Finals Elimination format saw 1st placed qualifier play 32nd qualifier, 2nd play 31st, 3rd play 30th etc. There were seven Tweed bowlers placed in the Top 32 which were Steve Kable, Ben Allen, Charles Huff, Peter Brown, Bob Hardie, Chris Bailey and Dean Wrobel, thankfully none of those bowlers had to bowl against each other. Out of those bowlers, the only bowler to win their 2 game match was Charles Huff who bowled a 256 in the block to win.
The Top 32 matchplay also saw the third 300 game in the tournament bowled by Jason Walsh of whom also had the highest block of the Elimination format with a 538. Not to be forgotten, Nathan Fosbeary of Ashmore bowled a 296 in the 1st game of the block leaving the 3/6/9/10.
The closest match difference in the Top 16 was between Gary Negus and Rhyss Jones, Rhyss lost by a margin of only 1 pin, the blocks consisted of Gary bowling a 451 and Rhyss 450. All other matches were won quite convincively.
As the Top 8 matches finished all eyes were moving to Lanes to 7 and 8 where Carl Bottomley was playing John Dunn. Carl seemed to have won the block quite easily until the 9th frame where a flush ball saw the 7 / 10 staring back at Carl, this open frame allowed John to catch up with a Strike. Carl really needed a double in the 10th to secure his win but didn't double which gave John an opportunity to win the block. A strike to lead the 10th frame was all that was needed to win, but John was unable capitalise and therefore lost the match by a mere 6 pins.
The Top 4 matches were interrupted by a streaker dressed in a spiderman suit run across the approaches through to Lane 1... who would have thought bowling would ever see a streaker. As the streaker (a three year old) was finally captured by his parents the Top 4 proceeded to complete their games.
The final saw the master Carl Bottomley bowl against the Touring Circuit's event organiser Shayne Melton. As the 2nd game of the match was about to commence the streaker wanted to take a second attempt at stopping the match but luckily big bad Bob was there to stop him and the match completed without any problems. Carl won the match with a massive 514 block against Shayne's 377 block.
The Tweed Eliminator attracted 63 bowlers, a little less than expected, but putting the numbers aside the tournament was a huge success. The Eliminator saw 21 names added to the Honour Roll (270+ games) which included 3 perfect games that earnt those bowlers $100 each.
Coolangatta Tweed Tenpin would like to thank those bowlers that participated in the Eliminator, all the sponsors for providing additional prizes or pumping up the prize funds and all the staff and volunteers for making the Eliminator a successful event.
Coolangatta Tweed Tenpin looks forward to hosting an event for the TotalBowling Touring Circuit again next year.
Article courtesy of
Coolangatta Tweed Tenpin
