Really good recap on what the heck was going on with the shootout.


Tournament of Champions Recap

Hello again everyone,

     This week we’re at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas for the H&R Block Tournament of Champions.  This is the second year we’ve bowled here.  This is one of the coolest centers that we bowl at on tour.  One of the many features of the center is the VIP area which doubles as our locker room and player area. This features 12 private lanes that can be sectioned off into groups of 4 lanes.  We can pretty much practice anytime we want, and they take care of us well.
     We were supposed to be bowling on the Masters pattern from last season.  I’m not sure which masters this was, but it was not the Milwaukee pattern.  This might have been the pattern from the show, which also seemed like a house shot, but definitely not the qualifying pattern.   So far this year, some of our normal patterns have outscored the Ultimate Scoring Championship by quite a bit.  This week was no exception.  The part that was really disappointing was that this was a major tournament, and in the past, these have always been lower scoring contests with emphasis on spares, and consistency.  This week, it was a free for all, and I really don’t think that a major is the place for a carry contest.  Regardless of what we think, we all still have to bowl on it, so we still have to try to solve the lanes the fastest.
     In practice, pretty much every ball looked good at some point.  The main characteristic was that there was plenty of friction on the lane.  There still seemed to be fairly quick transitions.  I had the best look with some of the cleaner covers.  The Villain from the last tournament actually looked pretty good, along with the Break S75 for when the oil carried down.
     This week was going to be a marathon.  This was a format similar to what we used to bowl every week.  We had three 8 game blocks to qualify before cutting to the top 24 for an actual round robin.  
     I started off with the Villain, and tried to keep the ball around 6-7, and with good speed.  I bowled some pretty good games to start, and stayed within the top 24 number.  As each game progressed, I kept creeping left, and opening up the front of the lane.  The last couple of games showed me some of the same transition that keeps slowing me down in the middle of the block.  I needed to open the front up even more, and stay aggressive.  The last couple of games, I only bowled around even, and dropped out of the finals number.
     The second block started pretty much the same as the first.  I could throw the Villain firm up the boards, and let the lane take it into the pocket.  My carry has always been good on the fresh, and this block started the same.  I bowled a pair of 220 games before a 279, which vaulted me up in the standings quickly.  The problem was that you could never feel safe about any cushion that you thought you had, because it would only take a small 200 game to lose 50 pins to the field, and possible drop 10 spots.  I had a chance to finish with 279 for the second game in a row, but went through the face for a split.  This was the start of another transition that I needed to stay ahead of.  I bowled a 180 game next, and slipped in the standings quite a bit.  I switched balls a few times before settling on the Black Break with some polish on it.  I bowled 238 the next game, and moved up to the 24th spot.  I was trying to cut the heads early in the track, but had to keep good speed, and higher revolutions to get it to carry.  I bowled 257 the last game to get a little cushion for the last block of qualifying.
    The third block started similar to the others.  This time I started with the Nkryption Code, and kept it firm again.  I started off well, and did a good job staying ahead of the number.  This time, once we got to the fourth game, I automatically moved in and went to the Black Break.  I didn’t want to wait too long, and tried to stay ahead of the move this time.  This seemed to work better, although this time, my scores went down the last two games.  The number, however, stalled a little for everyone.
     Now that we had a marathon qualifying round, we were halfway through the games we bowl for the week.  I was looking forward to the round robin, because we’ve been bowling the modified version all year, and it was nice to bowl everyone in match play instead of a sampling of each group.
     I started the match play portion with the same strategy, except that the lanes seemed tighter, so I used the Break S75.  I had the same look from before, and bowled some decent games early.  This was definitely a strike fest, but I was able to put together a great match play round to start.  Within a few games, I had to move deeper.  I didn’t have as much success as the night before, since they seemed to play a little more wet/dry for me.  This was the point that I brought out the new Mega Friction from AMF.  This ball really does hook, and it took the wet/dry out of play for me, and I bowled a couple better games at the end.  All in all, I started with my best match play round so far, and went 7-1 for the round.  The bad news was that even with all the wins, I lost ground on the show.   I still had 16 games to go, and anything could happen.
     The next morning was more of the same for me.  In fact this week reminded me a little of the movie Groundhog Day.  Every morning seemed like the same thing over, and over again.  I started with the S75 from the day before, and bowled a good game again.  The next game and a half seemed to transition a little different.  This time, I took an Orbit Xtreme, and moved farther right.  I thought this would help me stay in a good spot for carry.  It seemed to help, and I bailed out a potential disaster game against Parker Bohn III.  I needed all three to win, but left a ring 10 on the fill to tie.
     I stayed with this strategy for the rest of the block, and ended up bowling my high block for the tournament so far.  I bowled better, but didn’t win as many matches.  This one ended with a one pin loss to Barnes at 257-256.  I was still encouraged by what I saw, and thought I could maybe make a small run at the top 4 even though I just shot 282 over, and only gained 25 pins on the show.
     The night block was more of the same again.  I started in the same zone with the S75, and had a couple of good games.  This time I bowled 256, and won by a pin.  It was pretty easy to bowl big games, and lose the match this week.  I still think that this scoring pace shouldn’t have a major attached to it, but what can you do?  I went back out with the Orbit Xtreme, and still had a really good look.  I actually got within 130 pins of the top 4 at this point.  Slowly, but surely, I was starting to chip into the deficit a little.  The next few games produced a transition that I had not seen up to this point.  It seems that a lot of the other players had the same idea about moving right during this block.  The little hold spot that I was using burned up a lot faster than earlier, and it sent me scrambling to try to make something else work.  The result was a couple of bad games, and what little ground I had made up disappeared faster that you could imagine.  Going into the position round, there was a lot of separation between some of the spots, and while I couldn’t move up any, I couldn’t really drop either.  This week had a lot of ups and downs for me, but overall I was really happy with my performance, and added another top ten finish to my stats for the season.  It seems like I’m getting closer each week, and hopefully there will be a few more championship round appearances for the season.  We have a week off, and then it’s back to the west coast for the Dick Weber Open and the Masters back in Vegas again.  I’ll try to keep up the momentum, and see if I can improve on last year’s Masters performance!


                                                   Thanks,

                                                    Steve
 

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