Club member, Stephen Hartley, & his partner, Alison Yearling, are through to the semi-finals of the Para Visually Impaired Mixed Pairs competition at the World Bowls Championships being held on the Gold Coast in Australia. They have beaten teams from Hong Kong & New Zealand, drawn with Australia, and lost to South Africa & Scotland. They face South Africa in the semi-final on Friday 1 September with the final being played the same day. The table, after the round-robin games is below.

Position	Name	Played	Won	Loss	Draw	Bye	For	Against	Score Diff.	Score %	Points
1	M. Homer (P. Homer), H. Scholtz (G. Newcombe) – South Africa	5	4	1	0	0	72	50	22	144	12
2	J. Hudson (R. Hudson), J. Fehlberg (C. Fehlberg) – Australia	5	2	2	1	0	61	56	5	108.93	7
3	M. Inness (G. Miller), R. Barr (S.J. Ewing) – Scotland	5	2	2	1	0	63	61	2	103.28	7
4	A. Yearling (J. Herbert), S. Hartley (I. Shieh) – England	5	2	2	1	0	55	56	-1	98.21	7
5	J. Parsons (B. Parsons), K. Wheeler (C. Wheeler) – New Zealand	5	2	3	0	0	48	71	-23	67.61	6
6	T. Shun Yee (NG. Kwok Fai Kenny), L. C. Ming Rockey (L. Fond Kiu) – Hong Kong China	5	1	3	1	0	61	66	-5	92.42	4

The Golden Hind Trophy match is an annual event between a combined team of Tavistock & Plymouth Sir Francis Drake Bowling Clubs against a Plymouth select team. Tavistock SFD & Plymouth SFD each provided three rinks and played the match at the Plymouth SFD green. The two Clubs ran out eventual winners with an overall score of 111-73. Tavistock’s three rinks contributed 60 points to the total score.

Tony Smith, Match Captain for Tavistock, accepted the Golden Hind Trophy which will be held by the Club for the next 12 months.

The three rinks from Tavistock were Tony Smith, Jeff Sawyer, George Tutte, Brian Lamb, Vic Stacey, Geoff Carter, Bill Hunt, Alan Puddicombe, Mike Felles, Paul Chaney, Peter Croft & Charles Carter.

It was a very enjoyable evening, with pasties and the bar open after the game.

Club member, Stephen Hartley, has been selected to represent England in the World Championships para bowling being held on The Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia from 29 August to 10 September. This is the first time that the World Bowls Championships have included para bowlers. Bowls England has chosen two visually impaired bowlers, two female physically impaired bowlers and two male physically impaired bowlers to join the ten able-bodied team.

Trials took place at Leamington Spa in May and where Stephen admits to playing the best bowls of his life! He has been picked to skip Alison Yearling – a Commonwealth Bronze Medallist and has undergone a short steep learning curve in the array of shots a skip needs to play!  At the end of a rainy July, they returned to Leamington to test the team dynamics against the England high performance squad, and they dominated the two matches. Confidence is high that they will come back with a medal. 

Anyone wishing to follow the scores, can keep updated via the Bowls England website (bowlsengland.com) or their Facebook page, or through the World Championships official website (worldbowls.com), including links to stream live matches. 

Stephen said “It’s an honour to represent England and Tavistock at this level of play and I owe so much to Tavistock Bowls Club for its guidance and support on my journey.  I look forward to seeing you all later on in the year.”

The Club wishes Stephen every success in Australia and look forward to hearing all about it on his return to Tavistock.