Yes, the shot at the ABC Nationals is very notorious about an out of bounds building up.....if you move in deep and swing the ball out just one board too far, you will completely miss the pocket light. 18 out to 14-15 is a good line at the ABC, but I'd bet there was a huge penalty to pay for sending the ball just one or two more boards outside.
The three years that I bowled the ABC Nats, the best line that I found was playing a 15 to 13 mild swing line.....and if I touched the 10 board, the ball just sailed away and never came back to the headpin. And, as play progresses, the inside will dry up some, but the out of bounds looms even larger as you steepen the angle on the lane. It really becomes a finesse shot to catch the edge of the dry, make the mild swing, and not hit the OB. Obviously Ron found a very good attack angle during the Singles, because his scores sure indicated that the shot was working for him! I would also be curious as to what his consecutive strike string was during the Singles set......we know that he had 24 in a row, and there could have been even more during the late part of the first game....his consecutive strike string might have also set an ABC Nats record as well.
Any way you look at it, the ABC shot is TOUGH. One can speculate about it in other houses, but when you get to that shot on the ABC lanes, with the fresh condition pins that ABC uses, you've most definitely got to HIT 'em to GET 'em....forget about lucky trips and late scouts.....if the initial impact didn't get the pins down, then they will still be standing for a spare shot. Once you actually bowl the ABC for real, you find out that it is much tougher than people give it credit for. Bowling on a similar lane condition in a different house just doesn't give you all of the same parameters that you run into with the ABC tournament. When you walk in for the team event for the first time, you realize that this is not your run of the mill local tournament. Even the ball inspection line can be unnerving for those poor souls who happen to send a ball through that doesn't meet the specs....I can attest to that one first hand from Salt Lake City in '96, where I had a Cuda/C break out on gross weight at 16.02 pounds (the extra weight had come from oil absorption, because the ball was some 15.90 after initial drilling). The ABC rep took the ball to the drill press, drilled a 1/2" diameter hole down in the middle of the thumbhole, then he drilled a 3/8" diameter hole down in the middle of the ring finger and middle finger holes, put the ball back on the scales, and the ball passed at 15.99 pounds.
Speaking of balls flunking inspection line, I know of several individuals who I bowl with that have had balls flunk at the ABC inspection line. Sometimes the answer is a quick balance hole.....the guys running the drill press are pretty good at guesstimating exactly how much and where to remove excess weight from the ball to bring it back into specifications. Also, the balls that tended to break out on total gross weight back in the mid-90's were the Columbia reactive resin balls.....one of the inspectors clued me in that the Columbia coverstocks were the most notorious about drinking in a ton of lane oil, and enough oil can tip the total weight over the edge of 16.00 pounds. It is amazing at how fast the ball inspectors do their work on the two inspection lines....they don't waste any effort when handling the balls, and they are very quick to pick up on problems that make a ball flunk inspection.
Once a ball flunks inspection, you have three choices. You can leave the DQ'd ball in the inspection room, or you can take it back to one of the ball rep booths for correction, or you can sign the form to allow the ABC to correct the problem on the spot.....no DQ'd balls are allowed to be carried out on the lanes when you go out for your squad time. And, you would be hard pressed to get to one of the ball rep booths and get the correction done in the amount of time that you have in the squad room, unless it would be an easy fix. So, needless to say, a DQ'd ball puts a lot of stress on the unlucky individual who owns the ball in question. What I recommend is to take any ball that might be questionable to the manufacturer's booth before heading to the squad room, so that you might can head off an unexpected SNAFU before it happens. In Reno during the '95 Nats, I decided to get my Piranha/C checked at the Columbia booth....and of course, the ball was over the fingerweight limit by some 1/4 ounce. The Columbia driller pulled out both inserts, drilled the fingerholes deeper, and glued the inserts back in place, so I didn't get caught on the ABC inspection line with it. Had the ABC reps corrected the ball, they would have likely just punched a weight hole above the finger bridge, rather than taking the time to remove the inserts and do the work in the fingerholes.
