Here is my report of the first day of the PBA Geico Open held at AMF Babylon Lanes in West Babylon, New York. West Babylon is on Long Island about 40 miles from New York City. There was no PTQ this week. The oil pattern was 'C' which is normally a lower scoring condition. In the practice session I had a decent reaction on the outside of the lanes, but it seemed like every lane was reacting different. I decided to play up the outside of the lane with a new dull ball (#0881)NO PHOTO. I bowled a pretty decent game, but was only able to get 2 doubles and I picked up the 4-8-10 to shoot 215. The 2nd game was another one of those games where not much went right as I chopped the 6-10 after my only double and missed the 4-9. I never missed the pocket except on the 6-10 and on my fill ball when I threw my shot inside to see how that part of the lane was playing to shoot 180. I went a pinch high on my first shot of game 3 to leave the 4-10 for an open. I never missed the pocket after that and had two doubles and a finishing 4 bagger for 225. In the 4th game the lanes were really tight for me and I left a couple of 2 pin combinations. So in the 7th frame I tried to slow down to let the ball hook a bit and left the 4-6-7, 3-6, and 4-6-7-10 before going back to harder and leaving another 2 pin combination in the 10th to shoot 174. I started with a 4 bagger in game 5 only to leave another 2 pin in the 5th. I went high in the 8th frame, but came back with a double in to shoot 233. Even though I shot 233, I wasn't really happy with my reaction, so I moved inside of the 4th arrow for game 6. I started with the front 4 before going high leaving the 6-10. I left a solid 7 in the 7th frame followed by a double to shoot 233 thanks to a 3-6-7-10 on my fill ball. I started game 7 with a 2-4-10 and a 4-6-10 for 2 opens. I thought I made a decent adjustment after that, but the lane which hooked for me (lane 37) wasn't coming back for me as I left a 2-8, 2-4-10 which I spared. In the 9th frame I decided to go back outside, but went high in the 10th frame to shoot 174. I knew I needed some good finishing games, so I thought I would try to hook the ball from about 8 out to around 3. I started with a 4 bagger before leaving a solid 9. I then pulled the ball for a 3-4-6-7 split and open. I came back with two doubles surrounding a light 10 pin to shoot 230. I needed around 240 in the last game and started with a turkey, but left a weak 10 in the 4th. I went through the nose on the right lane for a 3-6-10. I struck on the left lane, but left a 4 pin in the 7th after moving a bit left. I now needed to strike out and left the 2-4-8-10 on what I thought was a pretty decent shot in the 8th frame to end any chance of making the top 64. I ended up shooting 195 for the game and being +59 for the 9 games. I was 'B' squad which ended up with about 22-24 players in top 64. I don't know why my squad keeps bowling so poorly, but we have only had one week in which we had as many cashers as the other squad and that was an even 32. In the first round I had 52 strikes out of 101 shots. I had 1 strike while missing the pocket, a tripped 2-8 pin in the 6th frame of the fifth game. I did have several tripped 4 pins which I haven't had many of lately. I missed the pocket 29 times. My strike % on pocket shots was 50 out of 72 pocket shots or 69%. I had 9 opens. 8 were splits (4-9, 4-10, 4-6-7, 4-6-7-10, 2-4-10, 4-6-10, 3-4-6-7, 2-4-8-10). I missed the 6-10 when I chopped it in the 2nd game. I did make two splits, the 4-8-10, and the 2-4-10. I did make the rest of my spares which included three 6-10's, two 2-8's, two 3-6-10's, a 2-5, 2-4-5, 3-6 and the 3-6-9-10. I again did very well on my spares, but I need to make more strikes and have less splits. Walter Ray