Newly crowned Australian men’s bowls champion Tyson Cromie was thankful that his father Tim was there to witness his gold medal performance in Devonport on 27 November.
The 23-year-old Ocean Grove bowls maestro defeated Western Australian Ben Leggett in the gold medal playoff at the 2025 Nationals and said the enormity of the achievement “really hasn’t sunk in”.
“Mainly for me, it was just my old man who went across (to Devonport),” he said.
“It was fantastic to have him there by my side. He’s gone through the ups and downs of my career with me over the past 14, 15 years.
“So to have him there was pretty special. We had an embrace pretty much straight after the game and it was pretty emotional.”
Scores were 11-apiece in the final, but a two took Cromie to a 19-14 lead and it proved crucial as he ran away with two threes to win the gold medal 25-16.
“It was a funny sort of match,” Cromie said.
“He (Leggett) won the first couple of ends and I think he had me about five-one or something and then we got back to about six-all and from then on it was shot for shot and pretty even right through until I think it was about 11-all.
“And then I got a small gap out to 19-14, something like that. It pushed a bit of a gap on him and put a bit of pressure on him and then he was trying to catch me where I was able to still just play freely and play the game. And was lucky enough that I won the next couple of ends.”
Cromie said his tactics didn’t change once he built a handy lead.
“There’s a couple of different ways to look at it,” he said.
“I was pretty happy with how I was going, so I was just trying to keep doing what I was doing for starters. But you do try and take a little bit of the risk out of it, just try and get second shot when he’s got shot and don’t take any big risks, I guess.
“You get yourself into a position with a five- or six-shot lead because what you’re doing is obviously working. So my theory is just to try and keep that going.”
Cromie had no time to rest and was back in Ocean Grove for the club’s Premier Pennant win on Saturday. He said the reception he received from the club was overwhelming.
“Our teammates are fantastic at Ocean Grove,” he said.
“They’re just like a big family, really, so the support I received from all our members, and to get a nice standing ovation Saturday night when we read out our results for the day was pretty cool.”
Cromie doesn’t want the big wins to stop here, though.
“Oh, there’s still plenty to achieve,” he said.
“I’d like to break into the main Australian squad. At the moment I’m in the second tier squad.
“So probably the first step is to try and break into the main squad and then from that play a capped game for Australia. That’s the main goal.
“But I don’t want to stop at one. I want to try and get as many titles as I can between now and whenever that time comes to an end in 20, 30 years.”
