National Champion of Champion Triples – 22 – 24 August 2025

It was a case of so near but not quite far enough for Mairangi Bay’s Sheryl Wellington, Jan Gledhill and Colleen Rice, as North Harbour’s representatives in the national champion of champions triples tournament in Auckland at the weekend.  They came agonisingly close to making the women’s post-section, missing out by literally one shot.

They appeared to be on course to qualifying when in the fourth round against Palmerston North’s North End they led by three shots with two ends to play. But on the last two ends they dropped two shots on each to lose 19-18. They did win their final game but that left them one short of the necessary three wins.

Harbour’s men’s representatives, Helensville’s Carlson Barnett, Brendon McPhail and Bart Robertson, were also out of luck when after a win and a loss on an opening day they lost any chance by losing in Saturday’s opening qualifying round.

They struck Whanganui’s former world champion Peter Belliss, who had multiple national champion Lance Tasker in his line-up, in the first qualifying match. While competitive the Helensville side never quite recovered from that defeat.

Belliss’ Aramoho went on to win the title, with a 12-8 win in the final at Royal Oak over Bay of Plenty’s Mt Maunganui. Belliss showed he retains much of his magic touch with his weighted shots over the latter ends twice gaining crucial shots when Mt Maunganui had been holding multiple shots which could have put them back into the match.

Northland’s Kamo won the women’s title, beating Marlborough’s Kaikoura 20-13 in the final.

The national champion of champions events conclude next weekend in Tauranga with the mixed pairs. North Harbour will be represented by Takapuna’s Simon Poppleton and Keiko Kurohara.