I just rolled back into Illinois this morning around 4:45, so since I have 15 minutes to kill until my next batch of students comes to class, I figured I'd share my experience. Here goes:

 

Started the trip off with one night in New Orleans. Like others have said, it's about an hour from Baton Rouge, but it's worth the trip if you've never been and are in the mood for a good time. We stayed at the Parc St. Charles. It's right in the heart of downtown, so it was pretty darn pricey. I think it was $210 a night plus $27 for valet! They are doing some renovations right now, so I definitely didn't feel it was worth the price, but the staff was very friendly, and the proximity to Bourbon St. and stuff made it tolerable. If you go to Bourbon Street, just be careful. They run 3-for-1 drink specials until 9 p.m. in several places. This can lead to nasty drunkenness in a big hurry. I was actually a good boy and left before things got out of control. Of course, had I known how poorly I was going to throw the ball, I probably would've just gone ahead and partied like it was 1999! But I digress.

 

Once in Baton Rouge, we stayed at the Holidy Inn on College Drive, which is about 7-8 minutes from the River Center. The hotel was very clean, had tons of amenities, and was reasonably priced $94 out the door. Personally, I didn't like the way I was talked to by the two front-desk attendants with whom I interacted, but maybe that was just me. In any case, I'd recommend this hotel.

 

The River Center itself is pretty easy to park and get into, and it's easy to navigate your way around once inside. The layout made sense and is very user-friendly. On that same tip, the staff does a great job as well. The workers really strive to give every set of bowlers the best possible treatment. Everyone with whom I had contact, bracket ladies, lane monitors, etc, were extremely well-mannered and friendly.

 

Okay, now to the nasty part, the bowling!

 

We bowled the 8:30 team squad on Sunday night. My team was the odd team out, so we didn't know our companion team on the pair; nevertheless, they guys we bowled with didn't do anything crazy, so the shot wasn't blown up with any craziness. My plan was to use my C300 Burst at a fresh 2000 and, after playing up 5 during practice, start out going as straight as possible up 7-8. I threw the first two shots dead flush for strikes, but the humidity in the convention center was really wreaking havoc with my thumb and finger size. As such, I was really struggling to get the ball off my hand anywhere close to as cleanly as I normally do. I did my best to stay outside, but, again, my lack of feel and the sensitive nature of the pattern really made it tough for me to make good shots or judge what was happening with the lanes. At some points, I was literally makinfg ball choices based on what I could get my hand into, not on what would give me the best reaction!

 

Nevertheless, here's what I can tell you. Straighter is greater, but don't feel like you need to stay way, way outside the entire time. You can slowly work your way in a bit and still keep the shot very playable. Be advised that there is a ton of friction out there. That's not to say that there's no push down the lane, but you need to be really solid at projecting the ball properly to your breakpoint, or it's going to break loose. Also, go straight at all spares that can be had that way. Even my EPX-T1, which pretty much rolls like strong urethane, had quite a bit of backend bite. As such, using that as a spare ball quickly went out the window!

 

For minors, we bowled the 11:40 a.m. squad yesterday. That meant we were following two squads of S&D. I spent some time during doubles trying to use loft to clear the heads and play a gentle swing through the track area. Truthfully, the look I had wasn't terrible, but you had to be very, very precise, and I am very, very not! Seeing some of the guys on our companion group light up our singles pair from inside, I attempted to jump to where they were playing with a weaker pearl, my Mission 2.0. I had a good look, but, again, I'm just not very good at projecting the ball left-to-right from deep inside because I tend to get outside the line a bit on the downswing. The guys who are good at staying inside the line were able to have the world going 23-24 at the arrows out to about 8 at the breakpoint. Mike Larsen did this to shoot 300 during doubles, and he stuck with that approach to put up another great set during singles.

 

So, here's the final breakdown. I shot 491-543-521 for a miserable 1555, which was extremely disappointing considering I shot 1710 in 2010 bowling two-handed! lol I was victimized by a lack of feel (on Day 1), some bad breaks and a complete inability to execute the right kind of shot to give myself any kind of wiggle room. I averaged something like 3 strikes a game over the course of the 9 games. Obviously, that doesn't leave you much room to recover when splits or foolish opens creep up. Overall, I think the shot is very playable for talented bowlers. If you can execute good shots, you will put up some numbers and win a lot of $$. If you are as one dimensional as I am and have trouble repeating shots, particularly from in deep, you are going to struggle. This tournament challenges bowlers to be at their best. This year, I wasn't up to the challenge. Hopefully some hard work and lots of practice, particularly on Sport patters, will allow me to make a more respectable showing next year in Reno.

 

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about anything you read or anything you'd wished I'd told you, just make a note of it, and I'll do my best to respond. Good luck and good bowling to all who are stepping up to the great challenge of this tournament!

The humidity caused my fingers and thumb to swell up a bit even before we started bowling. As such, my inserts felt really small in some balls, and my thumbs were hella-tacky as well. To combat it, I bought a pouch of Easy Slide from the Ebonite booth. I kept that pouch in my pocket and simply stuck my fingers and thumb in it every shot or every-other shot. If you've watched Wes Malott with his pouch on TV, that's pretty much what I was doing to make sure I could get out of the ball. It was strange to have to go that route because I haven't had to do anything like that since my junior bowling days! In any event, it helped give me confidence that I would get into and out of the ball. In any event, I know part of the problem is my ball fit, but the humidity definitely played a large role because, obviously, I use all of the same gear back in Illinois, and I've never had problems like that.