Kerry Clark

Kerry Clark is one of the great figures of New Zealand bowls.

He was born in Cromwell in 1949 and began playing bowls as a 12-year-old.

Clark first represented New Zealand at the 1972 world championships in Worthing, England, where he and Bob McDonald finished 6th in the pairs, posting a record of nine wins and six losses. In the fours that year, he teamed with Phil Skoglund, Bill MacArthur and Bruce Sinclair. The New Zealanders finished 7th.

At the 1976 world champs at Johannesburg, Clark finished 5th in the singles and 8th in the pairs with Vic Sellars.

His great moment as a player came at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, when he teamed with Dave Baldwin, Jack Somerville and Gordon Jolly to win the fours gold medal. The consistent New Zealanders thrived on the atmosphere at the Woolston Workingmen’s Club venue, and compiled a record of 10 wins and two losses to finish with 20 points.

They edged out Australia and Scotland for the medals, despite being beaten by Australia 33-11 early in the tournament. In the final round, New Zealand delivered when they needed to, scoring a thumping 33-9 win over defending champions Hong Kong, while Australia came unstuck against Papua New Guinea.

Clark was back at the Commonwealth Games in 1978, this time as New Zealand’s singles representative. In a particularly strength-sapping tournament, he recorded nine wins and five losses to finish 4th. A narrow 21-18 loss to Canada in the second-last match may well have cost him a medal.

The burly Clark made his final appearance for New Zealand as a player in 1980, and then turned his attention to administration and became one of New Zealand’s most noted sports officials.

From 1982-86, Clark was the convener of the national men's selection panel, and was heavily involved in the organisation of the 1988 world bowls championship in Auckland. He also served as president of the International Bowling Board for two years.

When the New Zealand men's and women's bowls associations amalgamated to form Bowls New Zealand in 1996, Clark was appointed as that body's inaugural chief executive, a position he filled with distinction for many years.

Clark became chair of the World Bowls laws committee in 2004, and also chaired the organising committee of the 2008 world bowls championship in Christchurch.

He chaired the New Zealand Sports Turf Institute from 1997-2011, and was the World Bowls technical delegate for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. He also chaired the organising committee of the 2016 world championship in Christchurch.

Clark was a long-serving trustee of the Halberg Disability Foundation from 1996, and was made a life trustee in 2016.

In the 1989, Clark was awarded an OBE and in 2017 a CNZM. In 2013, he was an inaugural inductee into the Bowls New Zealand Hall of Fame. He was awarded the Order of Merit by the Commonwealth Games Federation at its General Assembly in 2018 for services to bowls.