Why I'd like to become a professional bowler

NOBODY should have been shocked when Nick Donaldson landed the WIBC men's singles title. After all, three years ago at the Welsh Masters, the 45-year-old self-employed carpenter beat world champion Paul Foster.

There are interesting comparisons between Foster and the Guernseyman.

While Foster is well established as one of the sport's fully-professional big guns, Donaldson has to make do creating a name for himself at the amateur world indoor bowls council level, eating into his own funds to make occasional appearances at the Professional Bowlers' Association qualifying tournaments and breaking into the top 24, who gain automatic entry to the biggest event of all, the professional world championships.

For now, and perhaps always, Donaldson can only dream of that.

Travelling to qualifiers costs him time and money and when you have two children - Sophie, 14, and Ivan, 12 - to bring up, it's never going to be easy.

'A bit of sponsorship would

not go amiss,' said the Guernseyman.

'It does become very expensive,' he said, having turned down an invitation to compete at the ongoing World Cup event in New South Wales for largely that reason.

'I'd certainly like to be able to get myself in a position to be a professional bowler,' he said.

But that is never going to be easy, despite his unquestionable talent, honed over the years either indoors on the Hougue du Pommier rinks or outdoors at his home club, Vale Rec.

Winning a PBA qualifier is possibly tougher than golfers attempting to battle through open championship qualifying or snooker players winning a berth at the televised world championships.

There are, he says, only ever two spots open in each of the four bowls PBA world-championship qualifiers and the best he's so

far managed is to reach the last four.

To win eight times on the bounce without losing is a big ask for anyone and, as he says, 'being a straight knockout, you've got to be on top form'.

His WIBC triumph saw him win all the way, although he could afford to slip up in the round-robin qualifiers.

He didn't and romped through to the final where, under the gaze of the BBC television cameras, he beat Scotland's Andrew Barker 8-3, 4-9, 2-0.

'I've had a bit of experience playing live on the telly and it didn't bother me that much,' he said.

He quotes figures of 20,000 household sets watching the match in Northern Ireland alone, while many more will have been able to watch the match via Sky.

All along, Donaldson fancied his chances of getting at least as far as the last four.

At what point did he think he could actually win it?

In the second set of the final is the answer to that.

'That's why I lost the second, because I suddenly thought: I'm going to win this. I was 4-2 up.'

He admits he had the rub of the green, but quite rightly points out that to win anything you need a little luck on your side.

'I've been playing fairly consistently, but you just need that bit of luck and this time it worked out for me.'

The Guernsey, CI and now world champion said it was great to have his wife, Tracy, there to witness his greatest triumph in 23 years of bowls.

'I'd like to say a big thank you to the missus for putting up with me all these years.

'She was there to see it, which is good.'