BOWLS is a competitive sport no matter what level you play.

Whether it be social bowls, club championships or inter club leagues and also the ever increasing popular barefoot bowls, you compete.

By the very nature of the nearest bowl to the jack wins the end and scores, bowls is competitive as a team sport in all formats, in singles, pairs, triples and fours.

So what is the difference between social bowls, club championships or inter club leagues such as pennant, premier league or super challenge or barefoot bowls?

Well, for a start barefoot bowls is all about a good laugh, a few drinks and having a great time with your mates.

Social bowls at most clubs is a competitive outing usually against your own clubmates in the afternoon followed by raffles and a few drinks and in some cases the winning team is drawn out of the hat.

Club championships are more competitive and if run properly by games directors, can be rewarding and give the better bowlers in the club the opportunity to shine and be etched forever on the club honour board.

So what is the difference between these and inter club leagues such as pennant, premier league, super challenge and also the Tweed Valley shield - coming close to 30 years as a small Monday afternoon league?

When we play in pennant etc, we play for the club, not just at the club.

We have been selected to represent the club to perform at our best against other clubs, usually within a team of fours as in pennant.

To be selected to represent your club is an honour - and for the vast majority of bowlers - grassroots is the highest achievement.

However the short season of pennant run by the district is for only 10 weeks of the year since bowls began 150 years ago and nothing has changed.

At the start of the 21st century, a group of competitive bowlers formed a committee to start a privately run Premier League Queensland with 14 invited clubs in South East Queensland and elected Gary Andrews as chairman.

Bowls Super Challenge, another popular league run by competitive bowlers also started at the same time, playing singles, pairs, triples and fours.

Both leagues have been successful and popular for 16 years and more recently PLQ introduced Premier 7's for the smaller clubs to participate in this inter club league.

Pairs has always been the most popular format in our sport and Premier 7's has a team of fours, a pairs team and singles player (7 bowlers) playing in the best of 3 rinks and representing their club.

Premier League Queensland for elite bowlers is today regarded as the benchmark of the game in the state and is highly regarded Australia wide.

Tweed Heads and Kawana are the two new clubs in PLQ for 2017 - South Tweed, Broadbeach and Helensvale are the other three participating Tweed Gold Coast clubs.

Premier 7's has grown from 38 teams and 21 clubs in 2011 to 158 teams from 58 clubs in 2016 and the interest is huge for the 2017 season starting in January.

The 2017 PLQ draw was released this week and can be found on www.lawnbowlsnews.com