For a protracted period, Scott Thorning did not play bowls with his 13-year-old son, Tim.
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"We only just started playing together again because he wouldn't listen," Thorning, a longtime former Premier League player in Sydney, said of his son's aversion to his advice.
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If someone else offered Tim a bowling tip, Thorning said, the youngster would accept it.
"So I thought, 'Oh well, he can play with some other people," Thorning added. "But now he's starting to listen, so we're playing together again."
That is good news for the Thornings, but bad news for their rivals.
On Monday, father and son won the turnaround pairs at the Gunnedah Services and Bowling Club's Easter Tournament. They had previously won the event's now-defunct fours event twice.
"It was good winning it with the young fella," Thorning said of their latest triumph.
Thorning said his son - in year eight at Gunnedah High - started bowling after he "got bored one day" and "started throwing a few down".
"He's gonna end up a pretty good bowler, I think," Dad added. "He'll probably be better than I ever was, I reckon."
Thorning met Tim's mother, Angela Marshall, at Gunnedah's Eastern Tournament in the naughties. At the time, he was playing for Birrong Bowling Club in Sydney.
Tim is current representing Zone 3 at a junior state seven-a-side event in Dubbo.
In the first pairs event, played on Friday and Saturday, the Thornings finished fourth. The winners were Fred Hall and Matt Hooker. Mark McLaughlin and Sean Love were second.
Paul Williams and Darren Worrall were runners-up in the turnaround pairs, while Chris Brydon won the single shootout on Saturday and Hooker was the runner-up.
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