General News
28 August, 2020
Airtime for Camperdown Golf
TALES of yesteryear at Camperdown Golf Bowls Club featured virtually earlier this month.
TALES of yesteryear at Camperdown Golf Bowls Club featured virtually earlier this month.
Club stalwarts Max Johnson, Peter Hindhaugh and Kevin Conheady along with Steve Lucas and Peter Reilly joined the Corangamite Bowls Show to share stories about their beloved Lakes Complex-based outfit.
Golf was the first club to feature on the show, which uses Facebook and Zoom to provide an engaging insight into the world of bowls at local, regional, national and international levels.
As part of the show, players from the Corangamite Bowls Division (CBD) have put their interviewing skills to the test to chat with a special guest each week about their journey in the sport.
A number of special shows included a CBD Board updates, a CBD Midweek special, and CBD juniors to watch have also aired.
High profile guests to feature so far have included Scotland’s Alex Marshall and Australia n representatives Barrie Lester, Ryan Bester, Aron Sherriff, Kelvin Kerkow, Aaron Teys and Matt Flapper.
Bowls Australia chief executive Neil Dalrymple, Ultimate Bowls Championship founder Mark Casey, Victorian disability representative Lucas Protopapas and Australian cricketer Brad Hogg have also made appearances.
Golf’s episode, which was the show’s ninth, saw stories cover the club’s founding years, the current COVID-19 pandemic, Country Week and more.
Johnson, the founding chairman of the club, spoke of how Golf was established in the 1980s and quickly became a force.
“The golf club got a government grant to develop the golf course, and the town clerk of the time doctored up the application to include a bowling green in the development,” he told the show.
“We eventually built the bowling green and after three or four years of completing the green we formed a bowling club with primarily golfers and from there we started fairly successfully.
“We won five flags in 10 years and were generally considered pretty successful.”
The club, which started its way in division five in 1988/89, won premierships every two years and eventually worked its way to securing a top division premiership by season 1998/99.
Hindhaugh said a core group of players was behind the club’s rise through the ranks.
“Mostly the reason we started so well was because we had known each other for years,” he said.
“All of us had played footy, cricket and tennis together and we just adapted to bowls pretty quickly and it worked.”
Johnson, Hindhaugh and Conheady also shared their thoughts on the club’s most improved player and their players to watch if this year’s season goes ahead.