The final four have been found in the Para Bowls New Zealand singles championships at Paritutu.
Before the heavens opened at lunchtime on Tuesday, the quarterfinals were successfully completed on the slick Paritutu front green, with the surviving players in the singles, from an original field of 46, being Chen Naude (Putaruru), Peter Horne (Naenae) Adrian Browne (Upper Hutt) and Graham Skellern (Takapuna).
They will square off in the semifinals at Paritutu, starting at 9am on Wednesday morning, with the final scheduled to commence at 2pm.
Naude beat fellow Waikato competitor Geoffrey Carseldine, who qualified top by virtue of his four wins on Monday, 20-10 in the last eight. Naude is bidding to repeat his effort from June when he made the final of the Australian Open.
The redoubtable Horne, MNZM, with more than 40 years top-flight competition under his belt, beat 26-year-old South Otago bowler Reilly Paterson – grandson of the 2011 Dominion pairs finalist, Marilyn – 21-13. Horne got off to a flyer, leading 15-0. But Paterson then plastered the jack and Horne needed to call on his vast experience to escape on a number of heads to get across the line.
Browne, a former accomplished golfer, won through 17-10 over Rod Abbott, while former Taranaki Hearld reporter Graham Skellern ousted Wayne Cowley 21-9.
The afternoon rain meant that the three sectional rounds in the drawn pairs were forced into the Indoor Complex, with shortened matches taking place.
The top two pairs, Paterson/Bernice Tyree and Kerrin Fair/Sally Engi, will square off at 11am on Wednesday for the gold medal. At the same time, the luckless Skellern/Graham Smithies – who like the aforementioned duos also had three wins – will play for bronze against Herbert Lawson/Ralph Woolley.
The annual event concludes on Thursday with a Bowls3five triples competition and dinner.