Hunmanby ace Phil Todd earns North Cliff Over-60s merit win in final event of 2023

Sadly only 15 bowlers managed to drag themselves away from the post-Christmas sales on what turned out to be a reasonably pleasant, mainly sunny, day for bowling spoiled only by a chilly wind and a couple of very brief showers of rain, writes David Muir.

Of the fifteen, six were from North Cliff, two each from Eastfield, Hunmanby and Whitby and one each from Borough, Dukes Park and Westgate.

One benefit of the small turnout was that all games could played off scratch, even in the consolation Tea & Biscuits (T&B) competition for first game losers.

One feature of merits is that there is almost always at least one game where there is an unexpected result.

Sometimes this might be a case of a good bowler beating a slightly better bowler to whom they would normally lose. In others it is a case of a bowler beating someone they would not be expected to beat.

The first round of the main competition saw both. In the first category Alan Lee beat his North Cliff clubmate Ian Richardson 21-8 with the margin of victory maybe being a big surprise.

This was also the case in another all North Cliff clash where Ashley Douglas beat Ed McCormack 21-15.

In the second category David Muir (Eastfield) beat another home player, Dave Moment. (who is noted as a very difficult opponent on his home green) 21-16.

In the other games Phil Todd won an all Hunmanby contest against Glyn Goodyear 21-12, Gary Thornton (Eastfield) beat Dukes Park’s Chris Dobson 21-14, Geoff Watson (Whitby) won 21-17 against Larry Dixon (Westgate) and Barrie Watson beat Pam Moment (North Cliff) 21-9.

In the top half of the draw Todd beat Whitby’s Geoff Leatherland, who had had the first round bye 21-6 while Thornton beat Lee 21-13. Todd then ended Thornton’s challenge winning the semi-final comfortably by 21-10.

In the bottom half Muir removed the last North Cliff player by beating Douglas 21-10 and in the clash of the Watsons Whitby’s Geoff beat Borough’s Barrie 21-9.

This semi-final started out fairly evenly but then Watson settled on a mark in front of the clubhouse and took 8 ends to lead 20-13. Muir then regained the jack but too much damage had been done and Watson soon won 21-14.

Watson made a good start to the final by getting onto his semi-final winning mark only to self-destruct by failing to set a 19m mark and allowing Todd to set a mark away from the front of the clubhouse.

From being 0-4 down Todd proceeded to win 11 of the next 12 ends to lead 16-6. Watson nibbled away at Todd’s lead to get back to 20-13 but Todd then got the winning chalk to win 21-13.

Seven of the first game losers entered the T&B.

In the first round Dave Moment beat Larry Dixon 21-13, Glyn Goodyear beat Chris Dobson 21-15 and Geoff Leatherland scraped home 21-20 against Ed McCormack. In the semi-finals Goodyear beat Moment 21-14 and Leatherland beat Pam Moment, who had had the bye, 21-11.

The final saw Glynn Goodyear defeat Geoff Leatherland 21-10.

The next open singles will be on Sunday 7 January at Westgate with the usual scratch time of 9am.