Story and photos: Drawn to burgers and bowls

The Burger and Bowls lawn bowls tournament is a terrific example of what can be achieved by a group of people coming together to have fun in a social sporting setting.

It’s a great show of community togetherness and very well-organised event that generates friendly competitiveness and camaraderie, the opportunity to catch up with people not seen in a while and meeting new folk.

Eighteen teams of social groups and businesses took to the greens of Howick Bowling Club over six weeks recently, and the first thing everyone acknowledged was that we had a great run with the dry weather, with no Thursday evenings rained off.

Each team had three players – triples in bowls lingo – and the quality of play steadily improved across all the trios, and much of that can be credited to the helpful advice and guidance of the Howick Bowling Club volunteers.

A big thank-you to the host club and its friendly and knowledgeable members who volunteered on the bowling green and in the clubhouse, including the team of women in the kitchen who served up the delicious burgers after the 54 players completed their two matches each Thursday.

Many of the social bowlers took up the opportunity to partake in the free bowls sessions the Howick Bowling Club holds on Saturday mornings, a way of being properly introduced to the sport and to get coaching pointers on technique and strategies.

The club says it always welcomes new members and encourages anyone who’d like to give bowls a try to get in contact.

Businesses entered in Burger and Bowls also supported the event further by contributing prizes and niceties throughout and a big thank-you goes to them: Times Media, Liquorland Howick, Resthaven Funerals, Elite Property Management, Sleep Space Howick, French Electrical, Promo Factory, and McDonalds Botany.

For the record, The Smooth Rollers were crowned champions of Burger and Bowls for 2025, with Dark Horses rolling into second place, and Lawn Stars coming third.

It was a fantastic Burger and Bowls season, played in wonderful spirit with a decent touch of competitiveness that any sports competition encourages, and by all indications most of the teams will be rolling up to play again in early 2026.

And as a sweet touch to finish, we all got ice cream from Mr Whippy, thanks to Elite Property Management.

• To contact Howick Bowling Club, about joining as members, corporate bowls, or venue hire, phone 09 534 5331, email howickbowls@gmail.com or see www.howickbowls.co.nz.