North star Alan Landers wins Westgate Winter Merit title

The day started as fine but clouded over and then rain set in just before midday making a green that started in less than good condition even more awkward to play on. The entry was reasonable at 24 and main competition games were initially played with 2 on the card increasing to 4 from the second round.

The preliminary round did not see any really close games but neither were there any really big wins. Ashley Brunton-Douglas (Eastfield) had a 21-16 win against Sue Purcell (Whitby) with the reward of playing Alan Landers (North Cliff) who won a “group of death” game against Paul Morgan (Whitby) 21-14.

Mike Scott (Dukes Park) pulled off a surprise win against Geoff Watson (Whitby) 21-13 while his clubmate Chris Dobson beat home bowler Mary Kenworthy 21-12.

Alan Kynaston (Hunmanby) won 21-15 against David Muir (Eastfield) while Ronnie Noble (Borough) had a 21-12 win against Anthony Clarke (Westgate). Ian Richardson won an all-North Cliff game against Mally Kay 21-14 and Tim Purcell (Whitby) beat Dave Wright (Westgate) 21-12.

In the first round Geoff Price (Dukes Park) won comfortably, 21-10, against Brian Dalby (Borough) while David Hill (North Cliff) was pushed by Bernard Chalk (Westgate) before coming through 21-19.

Keith David won an all-Westgate game against Larry Dixon 21-14 to face Gary Thornton (Borough) who beat Cliff’s Judith Andrews 21-16.

Landers won comfortably, 21-12 against Brunton-Douglas while Dobson won 21-13 against Park clubmate Scott. Kynaston had a 21-18 win against Noble while Tim Purcell won 21-17 against Richardson to complete the round.

The first quarter-final saw something of an upset as Hill beat Price 21-20 to face Thornton who cruised through 21-20 against Davis.

Landers also made comfortable progress beating Dobson 21-11 but Purcell and Kynaston went to the wire before Purcell prevailed by 21-19.

Hill’s fine run was brought to a crushing conclusion when he lost 21-4 to Thornton in the first semi-final while Landers was scarcely less relentless winning 21-6 against Purcell in the other.

In the final, a replay of a quarter-final from the previous week at Borough won by Landers, Thornton made a good start and led 9-5 after five ends and then 11-7 after 8. Landers then pulled back to level matters at 11-11 after 11 ends.

Thornton then scored a single before Landers hit his length and won the next 6 ends to lead 19-12. Thornton did get one more before Landers scored two singles to win 21-13.

There were 10 entries for the T&B and in the preliminary round game Kenworthy & Chalk just scraped over the winning line, 21-20, against Dave Wright & Judith Andrews.

In the first semi-final Geoff Watson & Dave Bradley (Westgate) had a 21-17 win against Anthony Clarke & Mally Kay to set up a final against Dave Moment (North Cliff) & Larry Dixon who beat Kenworthy & Chalk 21-19.

The final started relatively evenly with Moment & Dixon leading 11-10 after 6 ends and then adding 2 in the next end.

Watson & Bradley then won 5 successive ends to lead 17-13 before Moment & Dixon got back in and scored 8 unanswered points in five ends to win 21-17.

On Sunday Westgate are due to host an Open Singles.