The finest gathering of lawn bowlers ever assembled in the Barossa did battle at Tiger Park on Sunday 25th of November in the inaugural Vine Inn Skins tournament. Thanks largely to the efforts of Tournament Director Roger Mattschoss and Vine Inn Hotel Motel Manager Verity Wyld the event was a huge success.

The quality field of bowlers was only matched by the magnificent feast put on for the competitors by the Vine Inn and the award winning Buckland Estate wines gracing the tables.

Green Keeper Scott Thulborn received high praise for his preparation of the Nuri greens by State coach Jeff Hammond who also suggested that next year’s event would attract an even better field by way of a greater infusion of State bowlers.

The Vine Inn Skins, with $3,000 total prize money, is believed to be one of the richest events of its kind in South Australia and much to the competitors delight the prize money ran deep. Top money winners for the afternoon, with the tidy sum of $625, were the Salisbury combination of Brett Davis, Geoff Nethercott, Mark Schutz and ex Nuri Tiger Ian Johnson.

Equal runners’ up was the S.A. State bowlers outfit of Scotty Thulborn, Adam Forbes Ashley Klose and Huw Lloyd, who shared the $1,000 prize money on offer in their skins round with the Summerton team of Scott Taylor, Max Kleinig, Anthony Kleinig and Paul Sunman.

Coming in at 4th place was the combination of Ashley Hammond, Jeff Hammond, Cameron Dickson and Kane Coulls.

No less than six other teams also joined in with the spoils of battle and claimed their share of the loot on offer!

Event organisers were well pleased with the turn out and are already fine tuning the format for next year.