Report – BNH Champion of Champion Singles – by Lindsay Knight

  • April 24, 2023

  Orewa’s Elaine McClintock and Northcote’s Mike Haggart each gained a double for the season when North Harbour’s champion of champions singles events were held at the weekend.

 Elaine added to the pairs championship won earlier this season with Kerin Roberts when she won the women’s title with a 21-10 win in the final over Mairangi Bay’s Colleen Rice, while Haggart beat Steve Hoeft, playing for Mahurangi, 21-10 to win the men’s.

 This followed Mike’s earlier success when he was in John Hindmarch’s championship winning fours team.

 With these two wins he now has equalled the tally of centre open titles won by his sister, Helensville’s Debbie Presland.

 For McClintock, for many seasons now one of Harbour’s best and most consistent women’s players, it was her 16th centre title. She also has enjoyed success at national level, including runner-up in the singles in the nationals at Browns Bay in 2015.

  Her win in the final followed a 21-13 win in the semi-finals over Birkenhead’s Millie Nathan who in the quarter-finals caused the tournament’s biggest talking point with the most significant win of her relatively short career when she beat Takapuna’s national champion, Selina Goddard, 21-14.

 Colleen Rice won her semi-final 20-15 over a long serving stalwart of the centre, as an umpire and coach as well as playing, in Milford’s Lorna Donald.

 The other beaten quarter-finalists were Hanaan Shawan (Hobsonville), Glenys Ferguson (Manly) and Vickey O’Connor (Sunnybrae).

 In his semi-final Haggart beat Warkworth’s accomplished Stewart Macdonald 21-16 and Hoeft, who has played most of his bowls previously in the Auckland centre with Point Chevalier, ousted the winner of this season’s singles championship, Mairangi Bay’s David Payne 19-14.

 Until then Payne had had another golden run with his accurate draw bowls with wins over the centre’s best singles player of recent years, Helensville’s Bart Robertson, and earlier Browns Bay’s Brian Wilson.

 Others eliminated in the quarter-finals along with Robertson were Jack Huriwai (Birkenhead), David Den Hertog (Hobsonville) and former leading soccer player, Alf Stamp (Orewa).