Wilson enjoys winning ways

Tweed Heads bowler Lauren Wilson is enjoying a memorable year on bowling greens all over the country.

Blainey Woodham

LAUREN Wilson is not having a big year in bowls - she is having a huge year.

Wilson, 17, a Tweed Heads Bowls Club member, has won so much metal this year the family mantelpiece is beginning to groan under the weight.

Not that anyone in the bowls-mad Wilson household is complaining.

They'll just have to leave the cars out of the family garage and build a trophy room.

For a young woman who readily admits to being "not terribly competent at all" in a large number of sports tried before taking up bowls as an 11-year-old, Wilson has transformed from a duck out of water in other sports to a magnificent, elegant swan on bowls greens.

This year alone the likeable lass has won a host of titles at club, district, state and national levels.

A member of the Queensland team at the recent Junior National Championships in Melbourne, Wilson won gold as a member of the girls' triples and scored silver as runner-up in the singles championship.

Her outstanding performances earned her inclusion in the Australian Under-18 squad and automatic entry into next year's Australian Open at Darebin, where she will compete against the likes of four-time Golden Nugget champion Karen Murphy and all the other Aussie bowls greats.

Another of her big wins this year came as a member of the Tweed Heads team that won the prestigious State Pennants Division 1 at Robina last Sunday.

That victory has earned the team a crack at the Champion of State Champions next month, which brings together all the state pennants division one champions.

One of her most precious wins this year was when she paired with her mother, Wendy, to win the B-Grade pairs at the Tweed Heads club championships.

Wilson also won the B-Grade singles and finished runner-up to the vastly experienced Lyn Cuthbertson in the open singles.

Wilson was introduced to bowls at a barefoot bowls evening at South Tweed. Six months later she was "right into" the sport and somehow managed to fit in plenty of time on the greens between her school studies and working at after-school and weekend jobs.

"She is one to never shirk hard work at whatever she applies herself to," proud mum Wendy said.

That hard work at play and study is reaping rewards for Wilson.

Obviously she has established herself as one of the hottest prospects in Australian bowls, but she knows there is life after bowls and is enrolled at Griffith University, where she is studying for a degree, majoring in interior design.

Normally you have the child following a parent into a particular sport but no so with the Wilsons.

"Lauren's involvement was the catalyst in the rest of us following into bowls," Wendy said.

"Her younger brother Brendan (15) took up the sport a year after Lauren and six months later I also got the bug and for the past 12 months my husband, Andrew, is now playing bowls socially.

"Brendan shows a bit of talent as well and recently earned selection in the Queensland Under-18 boys' squad."

When asked what was the main topic of conversation around the Wilson dinner table each evening, Wendy just smiled and said: "You only get one guess."