The Great Bowls Challenge was founded by Darren Colburn in 2016. Darren started the competition as he thought the Sunshine Coast was lacking a summer lawn bowls competition, that didn’t require bowlers to travel for over two hours for a game of bowls.

In the inaugural year the Gr8’s as it’s commonly referred to, had 24 male teams competing in 3 divisions. In 2017, the competition opened another 3 divisions which incorporated the ladies.

In 2021 the Gr8’s, at bowler’s requests expanded into Brisbane. 2024 the competition has 146 teams that play over a 6-week period, which is then followed by regional finals. The top two teams from each division then meet in a Round Robin Final where the Sunshine Coast & Brisbane regions playoff to decide the champion team for the year!