National events

Bowls Australia stage a number of coveted national events across the width and breadth of the country each year.

The Australian Open is a mass-participation event, featuring more than 2000 competitors vying for more than $275,000 in prize-money, and is played across 14 days of action while utilising 14 clubs across the Gold Coast region.

The Bowls Premier League is the sport’s made-for-television product, which boasts 24 hours of live broadcast coverage on Fox Sports Australia and Sky Sport NZ with each edition, and sees 10 teams compete for more than $100,000 prize-money; the Adelaide Pioneers, Gold Coast Hawks, Melbourne eXtreme, Melbourne Pulse, Moama Steamers, Moreton Bay Pirates, Perth Suns, Sydney Lions, Tasmania Tridents and Tweed Heads Ospreys.

The BPL Cup provides an opportunity for club-based teams to progress through various rounds to National Finals, to be played in parallel with the Bowls Premier League in November each year.

The Australian Indoor Championships is the sport’s premier indoor singles event and has been contested at Tweed Heads Bowls Club for more than 30 years.

The Nationals is a collection of national events, played across a two week period. The included events are; Under-18 Championships, Sides Championships, Senior Sides Championships, Para Nationals, Champion of Champions and Australian Championships.

The Australian Sides Championships features 192 of the country’s best bowlers all representing their respective States and Territories in the test to determine the winners of the coveted men’s Alley Shield, women’s Marj Morris Trophy and Overall State Champions Trophy.

The Australian Under-18 Championships is the sport’s only junior national event, and comprises of five girls and five boys from every state and territory.

The Australian Senior Sides Championships is a state-based over-60s event, in a round robin format featuring three-rinks of four players in each gender to make up a master-scorecard.

The Australian Champion of Champions is a singles-only event, featuring each state and territory’s reigning champion of champion winner in a test to determine the country’s most consistent singles exponents, who are then afforded entry into the following year’s World Champion of Champions event.

The Australian Championships pits the winners of every State/Territory Championships against each other, in an effort to find the sport’s best singles, pairs, triples and fours combinations in both the men and women’s events.

The Australian Para Nationals pits the winners of State/Territory Para Nationals against each other, in an effort to find the sport’s bowlers across various disciplines and classifications in both the men’s and women’s events.

See the sidebar to the right to navigate through all National Events.