Mother Nature didn’t play her role on the opening day of this week’s City of Orange Golden Eagle Classic Pairs, the 50th anniversary edition of the tournament, drowning Orange City Bowling Club’s greens and forcing the second round to be abandoned.
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Monday’s opening rounds of the milestone tournament went off without a hitch but midway through the second games of the day the heavens opened and at a little after 3.30pm the decision was made to abandon the underway games.
They were all deemed draws, which could actually play a huge role in the tournament’s later rounds and then finals, with round three to continue as per the schedule on Tuesday morning.
In Monday morning’s opening games last year’s runners-up, Molong’s Bob Hamilton and Gulgong’s John Mobbs, made the perfect start in their bid to go one better and claim the lion’s share of this year’s $20,000 prize pool.
They made reasonably light work of Lawson’s Andrew Finlay and Garry McGuirk, winning with a 14-shot margin.
They’ll head into Tuesday sitting second in section seven though, after Bundoora’s Jack Woodhouse and Jamie Hutchinson roared home by 26 shots.
In section seven’s third game Bathurst City’s John Archer and Phil Gray trumped local hopes Mickey Wright and Reg Robinson, from the Country Club, with a 10-shot margin.
Glen Miller and Steve Shannon stamped their authority on section six with the biggest win of the opening round, they thumped Country Club pairing of Dennis Morcom and Peter Baker by an incredible 34 shots.
There was another big win in that section, with composite duo Wayne Eason and Bill Aurisch downing Country Club’s John Cooper and Peter Lange by 27.
While their fellow Orange bowlers were having a somewhat tough time of things, Paul Ruggiero and Ian Carr made sure the host city had something to cheer about with a 15-shot win over Neil Higgins and Fred Maw in section four, even if that victory did come at the expense of another Country Club pairing.
Section three was the tightest on Monday morning, with no games decided by more than 10 shots.
Grenfell’s Rob Coleman and Steve Galvin and Molong’s Kaleb Weekes and Bernie Diduszko – the latter a three-time champion – both had 10-shot victories, while Bathurst City’s Bobby Lindsay and Mick Hall had a thrilling one-shot win over Nick Darius and Robert Joyce.
Joel Diduszko and Paul Gonzales look the goods in section one too, they took down Phil McGarity and Ian Davidson with an 18-shot margin.
Monday night’s calcutta went ahead, with play starting around 8.30am on Tuesday.