UPDATED 11-01-03
Here is my report of the 1st day of the PBA Pepsi Open held at Spectrum Lanes in Wyoming, Michigan.
Wyoming is just south and east of Grand Rapids about 10 miles which is about 150 miles east of Detroit. Mike Eaton, Ron Eaton and Walt Wheeler were our hosts. Mike is a PBA member as is his son Mike Eaton Jr who has been bowling on tour for the past several years. There was no PTQ, but there was a full field including stand bys. The first alternate to get into the tournament was Tim Mack and unfortunately for him, no one dropped out of the tournament in the last days. The tournament was using the 'B' pattern which last year was one of the higher scoring patterns on which we bowled. This is a long pattern and plays mainly inside. I was on 'B' squad.
An interesting item was that the bowling center put in brand new pins the day before the tournament qualifying started right after the practice session. Normally brand new pins don't fall quite as easy as old pins. Usually the PBA would like the host center to have pins which are at least 2 weeks old and this is the first time I can remember that a host center changed pins after the practice session. 'A' squad didn't score as well as I would have expected them with 32nd place being at +50. However, I have noticed that the 'A' squad seems to have a few more players in the cut every week so it should take less that +50 to make the cut to the top 64. I was planning on playing the first game just left of the 2nd arrow, but one of the guys I was crossing with was playing closer to the 1st arrow so I decided to give that a try.
I started the game with a brand new dull ball
(#0132) playing a little hook with medium speed around 7 out to about 5. I had a decent reaction, but the pins didn't cooperate very well as I had a rip 7-10 to go along with my other taps and a 3-6-9-10 which I thought I was going to make until the ball 'hydro-planed' on the back end missing the 3 pin to shoot 180. The 2nd game I moved into 15 with the same speed and started with a turkey before leaving a solid 10. I had another turkey before leaving the 9 pin while tripping the 4 out. I managed a double before leaving the 4 pin to shoot 247. This was much better. The 3rd game was a bit weird. I had a rip 7-10 in the 2nd followed by a light 4-8-10 which I spared. I missed the 3-6-9-10 in the next frame. I moved a couple of boards left for a strike and then left another rip 7-10 and followed that with a 2-8-10 for another open. I then managed a turkey before leaving a light 7 pin to shoot 168. I started the 4th game with a 2-4-10 which I missed. In the 5th frame I had moved back a bit to the right and got the ball wide when it never thought of hooking back leaving the 1-2-8. I made the spare and moved into around 20 only to watch the ball hook left and leave the 5-10 split which I managed to make. I figured that I had a couple of options. One was to grind out from the outside going very straight and hard and the other was to go inside and play where most everybody else was playing. I thought that could wait to play inside a couple of games, so I went for going straight up 6 with some pretty good speed. I managed a double thanks to a tripped 2 pin in the 10th frame and shot 188. Game 5 started with a 2-10 which I made. I managed a turkey starting in the 4th and had a another turkey starting in the 9th to shoot 236.
In game 6 I started with a 4 bagger and then went light leaving the 4 pin and came right back with a turkey. Unfortunately I pulled the next shot for a 4-6-7 split and an open. A couple of 10 pins in the 10th gave me a pretty decent game of 233. I started the 7th game with a shot just a bit right and missed the head pin leaving the 1-2-4-10 washout which I made. I went very high in the 2nd for a spare only to leave another washout (1-2-8-10) in the 3rd which I made. I decided to move inside and give that a try. Playing 29 at the arrows, my first shot inside was a pocket 4-9 and I made it. I then struck on my next 3 shots. I left a solid 8 in the 9th frame and ended up shooting 207.
In the 8th game I made some bad shots on the right lane early which made me think the lane was playing tighter than it was and I missed a 10 pin in the 4th. In the 6th frame I missed the 6-7-10. On a strike in the 9th frame I threw a wild shot in the 10th and missed the head pin, but made the 1-2-4 spare to shoot 172. I was at +31 with the cut to the top 64 being at +41 with one game to go. I decided that my drifting around the ball return was very consistent so I moved up so that I was in front of it and went to 4 very short steps as opposed to my normal 5 long steps. The left lane was quite a bit tighter and I kept going light on it. Even though I never missed the pocket on the left lane I only had 1 strike on it and that was in the 10th frame when it was too late. I ended with a 195 which put me at +26 missing the cut by 15 pins.
I guess I should have stayed out, but after those 3 consecutive wild frames in game 7 I thought playing in would be a better move. Unfortunately for me I never had consecutive strikes in the last 2 games, and that really hurt.
In the first round I had 45 strikes out of 99 shots. I had 1 strike while missing the pocket, a tripped 2 pin in the 10th frame of the 4th game. I missed the pocket 29 times.
My strike % on pocket shots was 44 out of 70 pocket shots or 63%.
I had 10 opens. 7 were splits (three rip 7-10's, 2-8-10, 2-4-10, 4-6-7, 6-7-10) and 3 missed spares (two 3-6-9-10's and a 10). I did make several splits including two 2-10 combinations, 4-8-10, 5-10 and 4-9 plus the two washouts.
I didn't really feel like I was throwing the ball that bad, but I had some strange things happen. The 3 rip 7-10's certainly didn't help as did the two 3-6-9-10's. Missing the 10 pin was definitely not a good thing even though in the end it really didn't matter. And my carry was not very good, especially the last couple of games when I needed some. It looks like I am going to have to figure out how to play this new 'B' pattern. With a lot of players starting out inside of the 5th arrow it makes it a bit tougher for me as I don't hook the ball quite as much as most of the guys. So I have a little trouble getting into the track area that they create.
Walter Ray