Off the lanes, Derek Eoff is making his mark as the USBC Sport Bowling Coordinator at USBC Headquarters in Greendale, Wis. On the lanes, Derek has been making a big impression on the bowling world as well. The 1999 Junior Team USA member, Storm Products, Inc. amateur staff member and 2004-05 Sport Bowling average national runner-up also has his own blog on bowl.com, and in it he will share insight on Sport Bowling and his experiences competing on Sport patterns.
Find out more about Derek.
January 14-18, 2008
January 14 Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas. This week we are at the Sunset station bowling Team USA trials. We bowl nine games a day for four days on four different patterns. The top two bowlers and 2 more bowlers will be selected to Team USA for 2008. Today was the practice session, sweeper and orientation. I don't bowl the sweepers because there will be enough bowling going on this week. I use the practice sessions to try and get a feel for how each pattern will play. After the practice session I was pretty confident in my reaction on each pattern.
January 15 For the first day of qualifying we are starting on the Shark PBA Experience oil pattern. This may be the toughest of the four patterns and I expected a lower scoring pace. I didn't get off to the start I wanted to as the lanes played a little different from the practice session. Many bowlers started playing the lanes from right to left playing outside. I started inside like I always do on this pattern and for the first five or six games the lanes never really transitioned and it was like I was going to a fresh pair every game. Finally in game seven the lanes started to transition the way they should. I also changed balls from a Thunderstruck to a T-Road Solid and ended with games of 236, 236, 300 to put me in fifth place.
January 16 Today we bowl on the high scoring Cheetah pattern. I got tricked in practice and used the wrong ball the first game and shot in the 150s. I made a ball change to a jolt particle and had a good reaction the rest of the day. Some pairs were better than others, but overall it was the typical cheetah pattern where you had to play out and have a breakpoint right of five board down lane. I had some carry problems, but I bowled well today, but dropped a spot to sixth.
January 17 This third day of qualifying we are bowling on a 48-foot low volume pattern. While this pattern is pretty long, it doesn't have much volume to it so it broke down much faster than the Shark pattern. I pretty much tried to play fall back on this pattern and just chase it left. I started with a Thunderstruck the first two games and then went to a T-Road solid for the next five games. The last two games the lanes really broke down and I used a different Thunderstruck in Game 8 and a Thunderstruck Pearl in Game 9. I am glad we ended when we did because the lanes were starting to get ugly with early hook and really tight down lane. I made pretty good decisions and put myself in good position (second) with one day to go.
January 18 The last day of competition we bowled on the USBC Masters oil pattern. In practice this pattern didn't play that similar to the Masters in Milwaukee. We bowled on a different surface (Pro Anvilane vs HPL) and that will had a big impact on how this pattern played and broke down.
The lanes started much tighter than I thought. I played further right (going pretty straight up 10-12) using a T-Road Solid. I had a pretty good reaction for the first few games. As the lanes started to transition, I was stuck and could not really find a good ball reaction. If I went straight it hooked early and if I tried to move in and hook it, it didn't want to make the corner. So I had a game and a half to go and I was losing ground to the field. I decided to go to my Thunderstruck that is more skid/flippy, move in and slow hook it. I guessed right and struck out for a 230 game. The next game they were pretty close, but the left lane was a little tighter and after leaving a 2-pin I moved one right and had a good reaction. I knew I had to double in the 10th to finish first or second and I made two pretty good shots that both carried for a 259 game and a spot on Team USA.
I am excited and looking forward to another great year on Team USA.
November 1, 2007
USBC Masters a great kick off to bowling season Is it me or did this past summer go by really fast. Many of you have look forward to this time of year when the colors start to change and football is in mid-season and, more importantly, the Denny’s Professional Bowlers Association Tour begins.
This year the PBA season kicked off with the USBC Masters right here in my backyard, Milwaukee, Wis. The pattern this year was 39 feet in length and it allowed for multiple angles of play.
The week started Sunday, Oct. 21 with the unofficial practice session. I decided to just park on one pair and bowl for the two hours just to get a feel for how the pattern could play. The next day in the official practice session I ventured throughout the center to try and find any characteristics that would help me throughout the week. My look on the break down in the practice sessions seemed pretty good. I had a good look from farther inside (20-25 boards) as long as I stayed soft with my hand and didn't grab it too much at the bottom. I used the new Storm Attitude Shift as well as the Shift, Thunderstruck and T-Road Pearl. It was just a matter of finding the right ball that went through the pins the best to carry. The lanes normally play a little different from the practice sessions to the actual tournament due to no one using spare balls and people playing all over the lane trying to find the correct place to play.
I worked here at USBC all day Tuesday since I didn't bowl until 8 p.m. that evening. I saw the scores online from the first two squads and they seemed normal for this tournament. After working and waiting all day, I was excited to finally step on the lanes. If the lanes were like the practice sessions I was confident about my reaction and was looking to get a lot of pins because the fresh oil is normally challenging for me. I didn't want to have to make up pins on the fresh.
Once we got started I decided to use the Attitude Shift. The lanes appeared a little tighter than the practice sessions and in practice I was concerned with my carry. I could get to the pocket, but I was leaving a lot of single pins. I decided to slow down my ball speed a bit and that worked out better than I could have imagined. I started off with the first five strikes en route to a 236 game to start. My reaction held up the entire block and I was able to add games of 266, 279, 234 and 237 to put me in the lead going into Day 2.
My goal on the fresh was to not do anything stupid and blow the lead. The fresh has not been so kind to me in the past. In practice I began playing too far inside and that led to a 172 game, not exactly the start I was looking for. The second game wasn't looking so good either. I started out with two consecutive opens, but I felt like I was close. I then switched to a Special Agent and moved farther right and struck until the 10th frame before leaving a solid 9 pin for 236. After another 236 I was in good shape. I started out well in my next game with the first seven strikes and had a really good ball reaction. I got away with one in the eighth frame as I pulled it and went high but was fortunate enough to carry for a strike. Four good shots later and I had just bowled a 300 game at the Masters. It was fun and crazy. The last game I actually should have changed bowling balls as the pair we went to was hooking a lot and I only shot 180. I was still in first place and had a nice cushion to make match play.
Day 3 started out with the five games of semi-finals. My goal that day was to get lined up on the fresh and then experiment later on. I had a good look on the fresh and started with games in the 230s and 220s. In Game 4 I decided to change balls. After having 40 in the fourth frame I decided that was not a good choice and went back to what was working. I struck to the ninth frame to pull out a 190 game. I shot in the 180s my last game to qualify in third place for match play.
On to match play In my first match I drew Derek Sapp. We bowled on the low end of the center which is the lower scoring end. My reaction was OK and it was a grind. I bowled three 200 games with my Special Agent to pull out the victory.
My next match Thursday night was against Ken Muscato. In practice I felt like I had a really good reaction. When the match started, however, I could not carry. After leaving back to back 7-10 splits in the sixth and seventh frames, I decided to change from my Attitude Shift to my solid Thunderstruck. The Thunderstruck gave me a little more length and pop on the back end. This turned out to be a really good decision as I could stay in the same part of the lane and my carry percentage increased dramatically. I struck out the first game for 200 and then shot in the 230s to gain back 10 pins from being down 20. The last game went down to the 10th frame. Ken finished first and he could not shut me out. Whatever he did in the 10th I had to do. He marked, so all I needed was a mark. I got the first strike to bowl in the 250s and win. It's really nice to win the early matches, because if you get in the loser's bracket early it is very hard to come back.
Thursday night after I was done bowling I talked with Storm's Chris Schlemmer and we decided to drill another bowling ball for the fresh. We were going to drill another Attitude Shift, but we went with a T-Road Solid instead. We drilled it pin up above my middle finger for more length to compliment my Attitude Shift.
Friday morning I bowled another local bowler, Lennie Boresch Jr. from Kenosha, Wis. The T-Road solid was the ball of choice. It worked perfectly (thanks Chris). My attitude Shift hooked up a little too early and the T-Road gave me length but with control on the back of the lane. I started out strong with 240 the first game and followed it up with a 220 game to take a 100-pin lead. The last game Lennie started with the front six strikes. I thought he was going to bowl 300, so I was trying to make sure I was going to at least shoot a 200 game and after I doubled in the seventh and eighth. When he missed, it was over.
In Round 4 of the winner's bracket I bowled Aaron Koch. He had a really good reaction in his previous win that morning. After practice I was very pleased with my reaction still using the T-Road Solid. The first game was pretty crazy. He started out with a strike, spare and then off the sheet for 280. I had the front nine and had to throw the first one to take the lead. I got the first one and then left a solid 7-pin for 289 and a nine-pin lead. My reaction remained strong and I followed it up with a 268 to his 200 game to take a 70-pin lead. The last game I shot 240 for a 790 series and was now one win away from making the live television show.
A tough road against PA and Walter Ray After Round 4 we took a four-hour break. I thought they were going to strip and re-oil while we went to lunch. I came back and the lanes were not touched. I was bowling Patrick Allen and I would have rather bowled on the fresh because my reaction was pretty good with the T-Road Solid. My first few practice shots all hooked at the arrows and it forced me left to the same zone I was playing in qualifying. I initially liked my reaction, but it quickly went away. I was now basically grinding out low 200 games and that was not enough. Late in the third game I switched to a T-Road Pearl, went back to the right and had a good look. Looking back I should have done that from the start. That was a ball that really was not in play all week, so I didn't think about it.
After PA beat me 690-630, I had to face the best bowler on the planet in Walter Ray Williams Jr. He was only averaging about 250 on the day, so I knew I had to bring my striking shoes. This pair played similar to the last one so I started with my T-Road Pearl and had a really good look. The left lane was hooking quite a bit more and I decided to try and go straighter on that lane to start. I split late in the first game and was quickly down 20. The second game I moved in on the left lane and after a 4-9 split I could have gotten within 10 pins. I threw a bad shot in the 10th and we basically tied that game so I was still down 20 pins. The last game is when I knew it was not meant to be. After striking in the first frame I went 10 pin, 9 pin, 9 pin, 10 pin, 9 pin. Walter had a six-bagger and it was pretty much over as he posted a 739-645 win.
I had to bowl one last match against Steve Weber for fifth and sixth place. It was a pretty uneventful match and I had the better reaction and won to take fifth place.
It was a great week and I bowled well. I want to thank everyone here (Gym Class Heroes) and back in my hometown in Washington who supported me. It was nice to have the local support from fellow employees at USBC. I also have to thank my fiancé Breanne for carrying my water all week and not missing one shot I threw.
Hey, Sport Bowling members: don't forget to watch the PBA telecasts on Sunday and answer the question Monday relating to the show.
Until next time, Bowl with US.
2006-2007 Season July 27, 2007 PBA Experience league Is it just me, or has this summer really gone fast? It seems like it just started and it is almost time for the new bowling season. The Sport Bowling team here at USBC has been really busy this summer. With more than 100 percent growth from last season the PBA Experience has really taken off. This past month I had the chance to work Bowl Expo and the 2007 USBC Junior Gold Championships. It was my first trip to Bowl Expo and it was a neat experience to see how that show works. It was also great to meet a lot of people in the bowling industry and put faces with names. Sport Bowling had a booth. We had a lot of traffic and good discussions with proprietors about how we can make Sport Bowling better. Recently I was in Buffalo, N.Y., working the Junior Gold tournament. We had a booth at registration and I held two seminars, one on Monday and Tuesday discussing lane play strategies for Team USA patterns and the PBA patterns. On Friday David Garber (High Performance Director at USBC) ran an on-lane seminar. I was one of the instructors and the goal was to educate the bowlers how short, medium and long patterns should be played. We used the same patterns they bowled on during the week and helped them strictly with lane play strategies. I focused on the long pattern with Bill Hoffman and Brad Angelo. Other instructors were Shannon O'Keefe, Dan Patterson, Diandra Asbaty, Kevin Dornberger, Bob Learn Jr. and Jack Jurek. Congratulations to everyone who made USBC Junior Team USA. They have a big year next year, bowling the World Championships in Orlando, Fla. They have a year of hard work ahead of them to hopefully bring home some gold medals. My summer PBA Experience league has a couple of weeks left. Recently on the Cheetah pattern I bowled 752. I used a Secret Agent and took some of my hand out of the ball and tried to go as straight up the lane as I can. As the lanes broke down I could move a little left but they started to get funny. I shot 220 my last game and if I had to bowl more games I would probably change to a weaker ball and stay to the right. When I moved left on this pattern my ball has trouble reading the same break point consistently. Until next time, have a great summer. June 6, 2007 AZCDerek strikes gold (three times!) in first Team USA competition Derek talks about his success at the American Zone Championships May 17, 2007 PBA Experience league It has been a busy spring in the USBC Sport Bowling department. Bowling centers and leagues are registering daily. We already have more leagues this summer than we did all of last season. I am participating in one of those leagues, a PBA Experience singles league at Olympic Lanes in Milwaukee. For the first time ever, I decided to bowl in a summer league. I am using this league to stay sharp throughout the summer and to help prepare myself for upcoming tournaments. We have bowled two weeks, both on the Chameleon pattern. The first week I shot 708 and used a Storm Thunderstruck. I started playing at 15 with a break point of 6 or 7 and just chased the pattern left. As long as I stayed soft with my ball speed I had a good ball reaction. The second week I shot 635. For some reason our left lane was much tighter than the right lane. I started with the Thunderstruck again on both lanes, but I was playing the left lane four boards tighter than the right lane. I left three 4 pins on the right lane for a 207. The second game I went to a Special Agent on the right lane. I needed to control the back of the lane so my Special Agent rolls a little sooner than the Thunderstruck and this seemed to work as I shot 222. The last game the lanes started to break down in a hurry. I lost the left lane and struck every time on the right lane for 206. The neat thing about our league is it is a position round every game, so you always bowl someone of similar average to you. They also leave the lanes on for unlimited practice after league is over. I use that session to try other equipment and different hand positions to see what works. Next week I will be off to Guatemala to bowl in the American Zone Championships. I have been looking forward to this trip for a while now. Wish me luck and hopefully I can bring back some gold medals. I will update the blog as much as I can while competing in Guatemala. Follow along in the Team USA section of bowl.com. March 4-12, 2007 USBC Team USA Training Camp March 12, 2007 Saturday is our last day here as everyone departs tomorrow. This morning David Garber led our last classroom session. He wanted everyone to know who he is and what he does. For those of you who do not know, David is the new High Performance Director for USBC Team USA. Basically he is the director of Team USA. After class we were headed to Kingpin Lanes for a Pro-Am. It was a pretty special pro-am as it was for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There was a young girl there whose wish was to go to Disneyland. So this event raised money for the foundation. It was fun and great to interact with all the kids and adults who were bowling with us. After the pro-am we headed to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. They gave us enough food for a small army. It was really good, but wow, was it a lot of food. After dinner we headed back to the training center. We had one last meeting and it was the Freddie Awards. The Freddie Awards go to all team members, recognizing something each of us did all week at camp. We all had a good time with the awards. I can't remember the exact title of my award, but it had something to do with smoothies. In the cafeteria they had a smoothie bar, so I made myself a smoothie for every meal of the day. As the week went on it was a running joke about me making smoothies all the time, so my Freddie award was for making smoothies for every meal. The week has drawn to a close. It was a very busy and fun week. I learned a lot of great information and I look forward to putting it all to use. Now it is time for bed as I have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight. March 9, 2007 We started the day in the classroom and had the pleasure of listening to a certified strength and conditioning specialist who works with all the Olympic athletes here at the training center. He discussed what he does and how strength, conditioning and nutrition can help athletes. It was very informative and I need to make a strength plan for myself. After class we headed to the bowling center to bowl on the long pattern today. We bowled for an hour or so and then took a break for lunch as they re-dressed the lanes. After lunch we had another competition against the women. After our first game we took a break to discuss how the lanes were playing and what we were seeing. We then bowled the other two games working on getting soft with the ball speed to allow the ball to read the proper break point. We ended up beating the women tonight and they once again had to carry our dinner trays. I can thank Tina tonight. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and tonight the men's team has a bonding session where we all will learn more about each other. This week has gone by pretty fast and I can't believe tomorrow is our last day. March 8, 2007 This morning we again had a classroom discussion. We discussed the shot cycle with Gordon Vadakin. It was very interesting; everything tied in with the pre-shot routine we discussed earlier in the week. I have not worked with any coaches about the shot cycle, so that was refreshing and gave me new things to work on. After the classroom we headed to the bowling center again to practice on the short pattern. Most of us have drilled urethane bowling balls because they give us a better and more consistent reaction on the shorter pattern with less volume. Once I got close enough to the gutter and stopped going left to right with the shot, my reaction was much better. It is hard training the eye to see the ball path a urethane ball makes versus a reactive ball. I grew up on urethane, but that was before I really started to learn how to bowl. At the end of the practice session we had a competition against the women. Each bowler rolled two games and the team with the highest average (because we were down one player) won. The loser had to carry the dinner trays for the winning team tonight after dinner. I don't know what the final score was, but the guys won, so the ladies had to carry our dinner trays when we were done eating. Thanks, Lynda. After dinner we had a classroom discussion about lane conditions. Team USA's own John Janawicz gave the presentation. Since John works for Kegel and has applied lane conditions all over the world, he decided to share his knowledge of oil patterns and what to look for when bowling tournaments and studying the lane condition being used. That's all for today, now it's time for bed. March 7, 2007 This morning we had a short classroom gathering before our photo session. We went to the aquatic center in a small room to take our individual head shots. We then headed outside for the team photos. It was pretty sunny out, so it was hard not to squint. After photos we headed to the bowling center to work on more drills and get action shots taken while we bowl. It was a shorter day on the lanes, but we got a lot accomplished. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and a classroom session. Tonight we discussed equipment for long and short oil patterns. In recent years, all the patterns used in international events are short and long with lower volumes. So we discussed what we use and what has worked for the team in the past. Tonight will be a late night as we head over to a different bowling center to bowl against the Colorado Springs All-Star team starting at 9:30 p.m. March 6, 2007 Today we had an early classroom session with Fred Borden and Gordon Vadakin speaking to us. Fred discussed our master plan and practice plan. The master plan was about our physical game, lane play, bowling balls, mind and body. The practice plan dealt with angles, equipment, changing speeds and rotation and loft. Gordon discussed our pre-shot routine and how important it is to our success. We then headed to the lanes and did some drills working on changing ball speed, loft and rotation. The patterns we bowled on were short and long and tapes were put on the lane from the foul line to about 40 feet down the lane. We had to lay the ball down and keep it between the tapes and hit the pocket side of the headpin for any shot to count. It was a pretty challenging drill; I definitely had to use loft and different releases on the different lanes. When I was finished the drills I sat down with Gordon and talked more about the pre-shot routine and the importance of it. It was very informative and it is something I sometimes do, and need to do all the time. I just finished eating dinner with the team and tonight we have a classroom discussion with USBC Technical Director Neil Stremmel about lane surfaces and oils and how they affect ball motion. March 5, 2007 After competing in the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev., I caught a flight to Colorado Springs, Colo., for USBC Team USA Training camp for the week. It was a tight connection but I made it to Colorado Springs Monday night. The training camp at Colorado Springs is the Olympic training facility where most of the Olympic athletes train in there respective sports. Some athletes even live here for months at a time. We are sharing a floor with the archery team in our dorm. Tonight we bowled the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev. We had the 11:40 a.m. squad and I planned on starting where I ended in team event with the same ball. But the lanes were a bit drier and I started four boards left with the T-Road Pearl. In the third frame I switched balls to the Shift because I didn't like how early the T-Road Pearl was hooking. This turned out to be a good decision. I shot 226 the first game with a few taps. The next game I found a way to carry and was fortunate enough to bowl 300. It was exciting, something I never thought I would do at nationals. My partner and I were about 160 over and had a go another 100 over to take the lead. We both started striking and in the 7th frame I knew we had a chance to take the lead. My partner, Rick Volhard, shot 278 and doubled in the 10th. Now I knew I had to double for 228 and to take the lead in doubles. I threw three really good shots and carried for Rick and me to take the lead. The next game we moved a pair to the right and I moved three boards left and left a Big 4. So I moved another three boards and finally found a good reaction, still using the Shift. I shot 192, 246, 240 for a 678 in singles and a 2,075 for All-Events. March 4, 2007 Today I bowled the team event at the Open Championships at the beautiful National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I go with a group of college friends that I bowled with at Nebraska. It's really good to see all the guys as I only get to see some of them once a year. We bowled the team event at 8:30 pm. I heard the lanes were pretty tight from other people that have already bowled and from looking at the graph the shape of the pattern looked similar to last year, except there was more oil this year. In practice it took me a few shots to get loose and find a reaction. I had a few opens the first game for 197, not a bad start, but could have been better. I made a ball change from a Pearl Thunderstruck to a T-Road Pearl to start the second game and I had a much better reaction. I shot 215 with a few bad shots. The last game I moved in a little as the lanes started to break down and shot 231. Our team shot 3,050. February16-17, 2007 Derek Eoff SportBlog: Pan Am Trials February 17, 2007 Today we finished the first event for Team USA 2007. It was a unique event because we competed against each other. Two men and two women will represent the United States in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, later in the year at the Pan American games. For those of you who do not know, the Pan America games are a big deal for bowling - the closest thing bowling has to the Olympics. The Pan Am games are a continental version of the Olympic Games. To learn more about the Pan Am games, visit http://www.cob.org.br/pan2007/ingles/jogos_historico.asp. The four people chosen to represent the USA in the Pan Am games were based on a point system from major tournaments throughout the 2006 calendar year, this past Team USA Trials and the Pan Am team trials held from Feb. 15-18 in Milwaukee. Today we came back and bowled six games instead of five because we moved to the USBC Specifications and Certification facility here in Greendale, Wis., to conclude the tournament. The test facility has eight lanes with seven different surfaces and both wood and synthetic approaches. The coaches decided it would be best to bowl six games instead of five so everyone would bowl on every pair we used twice. We were not using lanes 5 and 6 because they had Lane Shield and Guardian surfaces. The oil pattern today was the World Youth Championships long pattern. It was 42 feet with 19.44 milliliters of oil. I started on 7 and 8 which were both Pro Anvilane surfaces with lane 7 having a wood approach and lane 8 with a synthetic approach. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track area. I had a really good reaction and other than a bad shot in the ninth frame for an open I shot 240. I then moved to lanes 3 and 4. Both had the same synthetic approach but lane 3 was a wood with 100 percent Solid Top coat and lane 4 was wood with a double urethane finish. I knew this pair would hook more being wood so I moved five boards left and left a 3-10 split to start the game on lane 4. On lane 3, I moved another three boards left and went light flush for a strike. I went back to lane 4 and it appeared to hook more than 3 so I moved another two boards left from lane 3 and went flush. Lane three was definitely tighter, but I had lane 4 hooking about ten more boards than 7 and 8 and lane 3 two boards tighter than lane 4. I ended up shooting 215 and was pleased with that score. I then went to lanes 1 and 2 which had the same approach as 3 and 4 but lane 1 was HPL and lane 2 was wood with a urethane top coat. I knew lane 1 would be tighter, so I moved four boards back to the right and still went light for a 2-4-5. On lane 2 I decided not to move off my adjustment from lane 1 and it worked, I went flush. I went back to lane 1 and moved another three boards to the right and the ball barely got back to go light flush. I ended up shooting 224, but lane 1 was the tightest lane in the building. The back end was so tight I even left a 5-pin, something I have not done in a long time. In game 5 I had to switch to my Thunderstruck pearl as the lanes started to break down and my Special Agent was hooking too early. I just chased the pattern left and tried to remember what each lane was doing and I ended up going plus 207 for the six games to lead on that pattern. I ended up finishing second for the weekend and seventh overall. I didn't have many points coming into the weekend because of my lower finish at the Team USA trials which comprised 40 percent of the point total, so that hurt my chances of finishing in the top two. The top two men were Rhino Page and Cassidy Schaub. Joining them will be Diandra Asbaty and Tennelle Milligan for the women. That group sounds like plenty of gold medals to me. I wish them the best of luck and I know they will represent the U.S. well. For complete results please visit the following link. http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments/PanAm/panamRankMens.pdf February 16, 2007 The first day of competition today we bowled 15 games, five games on three different patterns. The first pattern was 44 feet long with 21.88 milliliters. This pattern was the 2006 World Ranking Masters long pattern in Kuwait. The scoring pace was pretty high for this pattern. I attacked it like the Shark pattern on the Denny's PBA Tour and the PBA Experience (you had to play inside), but I used a pearl ball to get the ball through the heads easier because of the lower oil volume. I started with a Shift and then switched to a Thunderstruck Pearl and just chased the pattern left. I finished fourth on this pattern at plus 143. After lunch we bowled on a slightly revised version of the USBC Masters pattern, 39 feet long with about 27 milliliters of oil. This pattern was tricky because the gutter did not play very well and there was a lot of out of bounds to the right if you played inside. I started playing the track area and used the Shift the first game. This turned out to be the wrong line. After shooting 176 the first game I decided to move farther left and switch to my pearl Thunderstruck. This ball allowed me to clear the front of the lane and give me a little hold. After shooting 230-plus the next three games and finishing with a 200 game, I was plus 89, good for third on that pattern. The last pattern today was the short one. This pattern was 34 feet long with only 19.48 milliliters and was the 2006 World Ranking Master Kuwait short pattern. Needless to say you had to play right. I am normally hit or miss on short patterns, so I decided to try some different layouts for shorter patterns. I drilled an Agent with the pin in my track for some length and I also drilled a solid Jolt with the pin two inches from my axis so I could try and eliminate the over/under reaction I normally get. I used the Jolt and it worked great. I could square up more to the gutter instead of having to move left and throw it at the gutter. The first game I opened in the 10th frame for 196. Then I shot a 250 game and back to back 230s. The last game I had to bowl on the pair I started on and shot 170, that pair was not much fun. I ended up at 95 over and fourth on that pattern. January 10... later Anxious moments Now everything was out of my control. I decided to leave the stadium, get lunch and rest for a bit before going back over and watching the women finish. Once the women were done bowling it was time to sit and wait. To ease my nerves about being selected, my dad and I went to the sports bar in the stadium and played ping pong. After beating up on my dad in ping pong, it was time to see who was going to represent the U.S. on USBC Team USA 2007. I sat in the back of the room, anxiously awaiting the selections. They announced the men and women who bowled their way onto the team first and then went into the selections. They were down to the last person to be selected and, fortunately for me, my name was called. I really could not believe it at first, but I was excited. I want to congratulate David O’Sullivan and Lynda Barnes for winning national amateur titles. They both bowled great all week. It should be an exciting year and I very much look forward to it. A big thank you goes out to everyone who supported me while I was in Reno bowling. Until next time, bowl well. January 10, 2007 Making a move on the Masters pattern The last day of qualifying we bowled on the USBC Masters pattern and I had a lot of pins to make up. I did bowl the Masters this year in Milwaukee, so I had an idea of what I was going to see. Obviously with a different surface at the National Bowling Stadium, the pattern will play different. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track and had a really good reaction. I shot 276 with a bad shot in the middle of the game. The next three games I slowly lost my reaction; I could not believe how fast the pattern carried down. I tried switching to my more aggressive Thunderstruck and my Domination. After a couple of bad games trying to find a reaction, I decided to move in and slow my ball speed down with the Domination. I found a pretty good reaction and realized I needed to bowl some big games and wanted to at least get into the top 15. After a 235 and 214, I was confident I could bowl some big games moving down to the low end of the stadium. With only four games left I decided to leave it all on the table. I threw the ball well and made some good adjustments to bowl back to back 267 games. I was very confident in my ball reaction, until I threw a shot on 29-30. In the first frame I left a 2-8-10. So I moved right and went light flush for a strike in the second. Then, I left another 2-8-10. I was looking at 30 in the third and bowling on a much tighter pair. I moved right but could not get the 10 pin out and started to bowl tight knowing I needed to start striking. In the 10th frame after already moving six boards right, I decided to move back one board to the left and slow my ball speed down and trust that it would get back. I threw three good shots and struck out for 179. With one game to go I wasn’t sure if I should stay in the same part of the lane or move left and play this pair like every other pair other than 29-30. I decided to move a couple boards left. It was a good decision. I hit the pocket every shot, leaving three 10 pins and doubling in the 10th for 247. This put me in decent position to finish in the top 15. There were still a lot of bowlers that could pass me, but I knew I would finish anywhere from 10th to 20th. I didn’t watch any of the last bowlers finish because it was out of my control and I bowled the best I could today. It turns out that I finished 13th. January 9, 2007 Trying to get back in the hunt Tuesday we bowled early on the Shark pattern. This has been the toughest scoring pattern on the Denny’s PBA Tour this year, and I didn’t expect it to play any different. It was tighter than the practice session, but you had to play inside with an aggressive ball. I started with a Special Agent and was waiting for the pattern to open up a little. Once the pattern did open up I switched to a solid Thunderstruck and used that until the last game, when I went back to the Special Agent. I just kept moving left as the lanes broke down and had a decent reaction. I went 108 over and this put me in position to make a run Wednesday on the Cheetah pattern. The Cheetah is not my favorite pattern, but it was on the schedule and we bowled on it for Day 3. I knew the scores were going to be high and then the women bowled early and the scores were really high. I started with a Double Agent and had a decent reaction. I was trying to grind it out until the lanes carried down and then I thought I could start to strike. The one major problem I had was getting my ball to enter the pocket at the correct angle. I could get there, I just could not strike as much as everyone else. I had an over/under reaction with most of my bowling balls so I kept using the Double Agent working on my speed to control my entry angle to the pocket. Nothing really seemed to work, and as the lanes broke down my reaction got worse. I think I left some variation of the 2-10 every game. I just could not get my ball to read the pattern properly to face the pocket the correct way. Later on in the block I did switch to a Thunderstruck (a second one, not the same one I used on the Shark pattern) and had a good reaction but still had some over/under. I felt like I bowled OK, but just bowling OK on the Cheetah pattern means you lose a couple of hundred pins to the field. I went 79 over and lost a lot of pins to the field. January 8, 2007 Competition starts On Monday the women bowled early, the guys late. I slept in and had lunch, then went to the bowling center ready to bowl on the modified Viper pattern. In practice I still could not get comfortable with what I was seeing and what the lane was giving me. You had to play right but you could not just throw it at the gutter. I started with a Double Agent (trying to go right up first arrow) because this ball burned off all its energy early and controlled the back of the lane for me. Once the lanes carried down I was lost for a couple of games. I threw everything from a Ragin Banshee to a solid Thunderstruck and T-Road Pearl. I ended up moving farther right with a pearl Thunderstruck. My reaction still wasn’t great and I was bowling tight; I could not get loose and make good shots. The last game I had 70 in the fifth frame and decided to move left and use a Paradigm Domination. I ended up striking to the 10th frame to pull out a 212 game and get to 52 under. This was definitely not how I wanted to start the tournament. January 7, 2007 Practice session Sunday night was the practice session; they put out all four oil patterns for a 90-minute session. I had a good idea how the Shark and Masters pattern would play so I focused most of my attention on the two short patterns, the Cheetah and modified Viper (they shortened the Viper from 37 feet to 34 feet). I didn’t like my look on either of the short patterns. I could not get the ball to come off the outside boards the way I wanted it to, so I was forced farther left. I threw some shots on the Shark and Masters patterns and was pretty comfortable with what I saw. I also worked on my swing with Storm’s PBA Tour rep Chris Schlemmer. I have been having some problems recently hitting up on shots way too often, so I want to thank him for his help. Never under estimate the value of good coaching. January 6, 2007 Reaching Reno As many of you know, the 2007 USBC Team USA Trials were held Jan. 6-12 at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I was there competing on four tough USBC Sport Bowling lane oil patterns for 40 games to earn a spot on Team USA 2007. I arrived Saturday afternoon with no real plans other than to go check in and just kind of relax. There was a sweeper, but I decided bowling 40 games plus practice and the practice session was enough bowling for me. I didn’t want to wear myself out before the actual tournament started. Sunday I got up early to watch the PBA telecast live. The pros were in Reno the week prior. What a great show with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Jason Couch and Patrick Allen. Congratulations to Patrick Allen for defeating Walter Ray in the title match. After the live telecast I went back to my room and waited for my parents to arrive from Seattle. Nov. 1, 2006 Welcome back to another exciting year of bowling. Hopefully everyone had a great summer and is ready to lace up the shoes for another great season. This year started off with a bang, with the first stop on the Professional Bowlers Association tour being The USBC Masters, one of the PBA's four "major" tournaments. As many of you know, the USBC Masters is conducted on a Sport Bowling compliant lane oil pattern. This year, however, the majors will not be the only Sport Bowling compliant patterns used on the PBA Tour. Hopefully many of you watched the Masters show this past Sunday and heard about the "big secret." If you did not see the ESPN finals, the announcement was that Sport Bowling is partnering with the PBA. Starting Jan. 1, the Sport Bowling program will be promoting PBA Experience leagues that will allow bowlers to compete on the same patterns as the professionals. You may have heard of the five PBA patterns, which are known by animal names: Cheetah, Chameleon, Scorpion, Shark and Viper. This is an exciting opportunity for both the PBA and the Sport bowling program. In what other environment can you compete in the same atmosphere as the professionals? You can't hit a Roger Clemens fastball or tee it up at Augusta National under the same conditions the pros golf on. But with the PBA Experience, you can bowl on the exact lane conditions as USBC Sport Bowling spokesperson Chris Barnes, Norm Duke, Patrick Allen, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Kelly Kulick and all your favorite PBA stars. How exciting! Be sure to watch the telecast Sunday afternoon and then bowl on the same pattern that was used that week. Find out more about the PBA Experience or contact me and I will send you free promotional materials. As I mentioned earlier, the PBA Tour season kicked off with the USBC Masters. With the tournament in Milwaukee for the third straight year, I once again bowled in the event. It was a challenging week for me. I felt like I bowled OK, but I just could not get anything going. The pattern was very challenging and you had to match up well and make good shots. I started on "C" squad so I bowled first on fresh oil. My goal was to just stay clean and wait until the lanes opened up. I started with a pearl Thunderstruck playing out toward the channel. Looking back on it, I probably should have started with my solid Thunderstruck or Diablo. Those balls would have given me an earlier roll, allowing my bad shots to still hit the pocket. So after grinding out the first two games going 30 under, I decided to move in and change balls. I went to a Double Agent with a little shine and moved in to the 17 board at the arrows. I then went from the low end of the center to the high end (the center is split with 24 lanes on the low end) and had a much different reaction. I had to change to a Spit Fire and move a few boards left. I ground out a clean 206 and ended with 209 to get to minus 4. The cut was plus 30 so I knew I had some work to do the following day. On day two of qualifying I got to bowl on "D" squad on the break down condition. I thought I was going to have a good ball reaction based on how I finished the previous day, but my reaction was not as good as I had hoped. I could not use my Spit Fire because the back ends were much tighter and I had trouble getting it to hit. So I started with the pearl Thunderstruck and ended up using my Paradigm Domination to finish the first game and for the next four games. I could not get anything going and bowled nine over to get my total to plus five for the tournament. The cut was plus 35, so I missed by 30 pins. I am disappointed but I did learn a lot and with the help of Storm rep Chris Schlemmer. I now have several things to practice for the next time I see this type of pattern. I would like to congratulate Doug Kent for winning the USBC Masters. He bowled great all week and was fun to watch. I hope everyone enjoys our revamped Sport Bowling section of bowl.com and wants to participate in a PBA Experience league starting in January. Questions about the new leagues? E-mail me. 2005-2006 Season April 13, 2006 SportBlog from the USBC Open Championships The 2005-06 fall/winter bowling season is almost over. This means a couple of things: that we are registering summer leagues almost on a daily basis and that warm weather will be heading our way here in Wisconsin. Although this hasn't been a bad winter, it will be nice to see some warm weather for a change. I did get to see some warm weather last month when I was in Corpus Christi, Texas, competing in the USBC Open Championships. Read the full story... March 2, 2006 Challenging conditions tested all bowlers at mega-bucks events, U.S. Open This past month was great for competitive bowling. We had the so-called "mega-buck" tournaments in Las Vegas and the U.S. Open, a major tournament on the Professional Bowlers Association tour. These tournaments have one thing in common: challenging lane conditions. Let's start with the mega-bucks in Las Vegas. While I could not bowl this past month, I have bowled enough of these events to know what goes on out there. One thing I would like to address is the difference between international and American bowlers. Recently there has been a lot of talk about the international bowlers and who is better, us or them? Every year a handful of international bowlers make the trip to Las Vegas to compete against some of the best amateurs we have to offer. Every year the international bowlers do really well. Is that because they are better than the American bowlers? In my opinion the international bowlers do well for a combination of reasons. First, they are talented athletes. Secondly, they bowl on lane conditions that most Americans consider too difficult. They are not as shocked when they arrive in Vegas and the lanes are not easy. This helps prepare them for tournaments like the mega-bucks and other major events where the lane conditions are challenging. When it comes to lane conditions, it seems that there will be no happy medium for lane conditions. If the conditions are made playable, some people say they are too easy. If the conditions are challenging, others say they are too hard. What people don't understand is that the more you bowl on challenging lane conditions the better bowler you will become. The international bowlers are proof of that. Speaking of challenging lane conditions, did anyone see Tommy Jones win the U.S. Open last week? As I sat at home watching the U.S. Open on TV, I was pleased to see some of the world's best bowlers performing well on the toughest pattern of the year. It was a 40-foot, 1:1 USBC Sport Bowling pattern. Bowlers had to make quality shots and the correct adjustments to score well, something bowling should always be about. If you have never bowled on a flat oil pattern, I recommend at least practicing on it. Not only will it make you better, but it will give you a new appreciation for how good the pros are. The U.S. Open and the USBC Masters are perfect examples of how top bowlers can bowl well on Sport Bowling patterns. There has been a lot of talk about the lanes being too easy for a PBA Major, but when you have the best bowlers on the planet all coming together to bowl at the best of their ability, you are going to have good scores. January 20, 2006 2006 USBC Team USA Championships Greetings fellow USBC Sport Bowling enthusiasts. I hope everyone had a great holiday break. I know I did. Today I will discuss the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships in Reno, Nev. Before I get into that I just want to remind everyone that if you are not currently bowling in any Sport leagues, feel free to start a short-season league today. If you are competing in the USBC Open Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas, or the USBC Women's Open Championships in Reno, Nev., bowling in a Sport league is a great way to prepare for those tournaments. It can be a singles, doubles or team league. Check out the "Unique League Formats" section of the Sport Bowling section of bowl.com to get some ideas about how to run a short-season league. Well, I am back from Reno after bowling the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, the tournament that determines Team USA. I am just going to go through what took place each day. Sunday: Today was registration day, two sweepers and a practice session. I decided not to bowl the sweepers because I knew it was going to be a long week and felt the practice session would be good enough for me to get ready for the tournament. During the practice session, half the house was the short pattern (35 feet) and half the house was the long pattern (42 feet). To clarify, all the patterns used at the tournament were Sport Bowling compliant. The women did bowl on a different pattern, but it was also Sport compliant. The women's pattern was right at a 2:1 oil ration and the men's was about 1.5:1. The first thing I noticed in the practice session was that the short pattern was not hooking nearly as much as I thought it would. It took me a while to get lined up and put the right ball in my hand, but once I did I could hit the pocket a lot. The long pattern was about what I expected, I could use my Trifecta or Paradigm and get to the pocket. Monday: Today was the first day of qualifying on the long pattern. It played pretty close to what I had at the practice session so I was comfortable to start. One thing about the National Bowling Stadium is that from pair to pair, the lanes always seem to play just different enough where you don't have the same ball reaction. Having many bowlers play all over the lane doesn't help either. In my opinion, the women scored higher because they all started out playing the same part of the lane so the lane transitioned properly. When guys are starting anywhere from five to 30, it's anyone's guess how the lanes are going to break down and from pair to pair makes it very difficult to predict what you are going to see. Overall I was pleased with Day one. I used my Trifecta and Fired Up to go 86 pins over and was in 22nd place. Tuesday: Today was the first day on the short pattern. As I mentioned above, the short pattern didn't play anything like a traditional short pattern. Normally you can throw it at the channel on a short pattern and watch it fly back to the pocket. If you did that on this pattern you either missed the head pin right or left a 2-8-10. So you had to square up, but still play out. The fresh condition was very challenging because you didn't have the hook to the right, but since the pattern was short you didn't have any hold either. As the oil carried down, the lanes became much easier as you could see by the scores if you were following along. I used my Ragin' Banshee all eight games and went 203 over for the day and 289 over for the tournament. Wednesday: Today we were back on the long pattern and they were hard. For some reason the lanes seemed to hook earlier, even on the fresh. The first few games I was just trying to get a comfortable reaction and could not find anything. Finally, I moved deep inside and used my Trifecta and had a decent look. It was a day of grinding. I went 43 over to put me at 332 for the tournament and in seventh place heading into match play. I used my Trifecta most of the eight games. Thursday: Today we bowled 16 games (eight on the short and eight on the long) of match play with 20 bonus pins going to the winner of each game. For some reason we also switched sides of the stadium. They have never done this in the past. Normally the men always stay on the high side and the women always stay on the low side. So now the men were on the low end and the women were on the high end. For some reason I had the low end a bit tighter than the high end. I couldn't use my Trifecta because the back of the lane was very tight and I could not get it to recover. So I used the Paradigm and attacked the lanes the same as I had all week on the long pattern. I had a decent look but nothing great. That afternoon we came back and bowled eight more games on the short pattern. The short pattern seemed tighter as well and you could tell as the scores were a lot lower. I could still use my Ragin' Banshee but my look was not as good as Tuesday. I once again went 5-3 but dropped a few spots and ended the day in 10th place. Friday: This was the last day of competition. Sixteen more games today and then Team USA would be announced. We started on the long pattern once again and I was able to use my Trifecta. They were real tight but this time I could square up more and get the Trifecta back to the pocket. I had a pretty good reaction and gained a lot of pins on the field. I climbed my way back into 6th place heading into the final eight games. Today the short pattern was real tight on the gutter, but you could still not square up too much without the ball over-hooking. Since I used my Ragin' for every game so far on the short pattern I thought I could use it again. I was wrong. I had the wonderful 2-10/Big 4 reaction. If I gave it away it never hooked, but once I squared up it hooked at the arrows. So after a horrendous start I changed to my Super Sport Pearl which rolls a little more than my Ragin' and allowed me to play more direct in the oil without leaving a 2-10. After 51 games I was in ninth place and about 100 pins out of fifth place. I knew I needed to make a run and win my matches if I wanted a chance to make the top five. In Game 52 I bowled PJ Haggerty and needed to win as we were both neck-and-neck battling for the fifth spot. I got off to a slow start in the match but had to mark in the 10th to win and gain the extra 20 pins. I struck out for 230 and was getting pretty comfortable with my reaction. The next game I bowled Tony Manna Jr. and started off with a solid 7-10 split. I continued to hit the pocket and pulled out a 225 game to win. I was starting to get closer to the top five and knew I needed to finish strong. I bowled Ivan Miyasato next and shot 227, but it wasn't enough to win. He had to mark in the 10th and made the 3-6-10 to shut me out. These last two games were going to be critical as there were about five people battling for one spot. In Game 55 I bowled Ronnie Sparks Jr. He bowled well on the short pattern the whole tournament so I knew I needed a big game. Other than leaving a solid 7-10 in the second frame I bowled well and figured out how to carry after that hit. I shot 247 to win which put me back in 6th place with one game to go. The last match was position round and it was real close between spots five and 10. I needed to win and not let anyone below me beat me by more than 20 pins. I bowled Ronnie again and I knew I would have to bowl at least 220 to win. The match was close until I opened in the 9th frame. All he had to do was mark in the 10th frame and the fifth spot was his. He struck on the first ball to shut me out. I ended up bowling 201, losing to his 218. After all was said and done I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I ended up finishing seventh and, unfortunately, only the top five finishers are awarded automatic spots on Team USA. They do select three more bowlers, but unfortunately I wasn't one of them. I am disappointed I did not make the team, but I bowled well and there is always next year. I wish the team good luck this year in Korea, may they bring home lots of medals. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the lanes being too easy this past week. I can assure you they were not. I see no problem with the winner averaging 216. When you have 151 of the best amateur bowlers in the country and the cut is a 202 average, I think the conditions were fair. As I mentioned earlier, the oil ratio on the men's side was about 1.5:1. To put this in perspective, the 2005 USBC Masters in Milwaukee was 2:1. I know some people said the pattern at the Masters was too easy. Our intent is to not make the lanes ridiculously hard. Research has shown that with a 2:1 ratio oil pattern your bowling ball will not be steered to the pocket, requiring good shot making to score well. One thing most people don't understand is how good some of these bowlers are, particularly the PBA exempt bowlers. They will find a way to score well (relative to your typical "house" bowler) on any pattern. For those of you who did not bowl and thought the lanes were too easy at the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, I challenge you to come bowl next year. November 27, 2005 PBA Chicago Classic After the Masters the PBA went to Chicago for the Chicago Classic at Hawthorn Lanes. I wasn't planning on bowling the TQR (Tour Qualifying Round, formerly the PTQ) until the day before the event. I was bowling well at the time and thought, why not? So I drove down that morning to Chicago not really knowing what to expect. It was the Scorpion pattern which is 41 feet. They played pretty tight but not that bad. In practice for the TQR I didn't really have a very good ball reaction. So the first frame I made a guess and pulled the trusty ACE out of my bag and started with the front nine before leaving a 10-pin for 279. That was definitely the start I needed as I proceeded to average 249 for the seven games to become the high amateur and win a spot in the tournament the next day (Thanksgiving day). I spent Turkey Day bowling 14 games of qualifying. It was a very long day. The lanes played tighter than the TQR which allowed me to throw my Trifecta and have a similar look to what I had yesterday. With the lanes being tighter it affected my carry just enough to where I could not throw a big game. So I battled away and averaged about 219 for the 14 games to qualify 25th. For the record, the five traditional PBA patterns are not Sport patterns. Sport Bowling ratios are a maximum of 3:1 depending on the age of the surface and type of lane surface. I don't know the exact ratio of the five PBA patterns, but they are not Sport compliant. I was lucky enough to draw Jason Couch (sense the sarcasm) in the 32 person bracket, arguably the best left hander on tour. I got off to a fast start because his ball reaction wasn't great and mine was similar to the day before. I went up two games to none before disaster hit. I steadily lost my ball reaction and was searching the whole time for something. After losing the next three games by a lot I decided to try one more ball (Fired Up) as I had not thrown it all week or even the week before. I was surprised at how good of a reaction I had with it bowling over 260 the next game to force Game 7. Game 7 started out just like Game 6 ended, except this time Jason was striking right along with me. Going into the 10th frame if he threw the first strike he shuts me out. The way he was throwing the ball I thought for sure he was going to strike. After he left a solid seven pin, I had a chance. I needed to throw all three strikes to win by one pin. I knew if I threw it good I was going to strike out. After throwing the first one, the second one crept a little high for a 4 pin. He won game seven 258-248. It was a good match and great experience for me. By the way, Jason also went on to win the title that week. This past month has been a great experience for me bowling against the best bowlers in the world. I learned a lot about my game and bowling in the Sport Leagues I bowl in has really helped me work on my weaknesses and become a better bowler. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season. My next adventure will be trying out for Team USA at the USBC Team USA Championships in January. Wish me luck!! November 23, 2005 USBC Masters The month of November was a busy month for me as I bowled the USBC Masters and the PBA Chicago Classic. I started preparing for the USBC Masters in October knowing that it would be contested on a Sport Bowling pattern. The Sport Bowling league I bowl in and local tournaments prepared me for these events. I began by winning a qualifying event to receive a free entry into the Masters. At the qualifying event the lanes were brutal. I started out slow but eventually made a ball change (I had to throw my Tropical Storm as the lanes were really dry) and ended up winning the tournament. Finally the week of the Masters arrived and I was ready to bowl. I bowled in the practice session on Monday to get a feel for how the lanes were going to play. The practice session turned out to really help me as I shot 1,129 the first qualifying block for five games. The next day I bowled on fresh oil for the first time. The lanes were tighter so I just started farther right and threw the same ball (Diablo) as the night before and shot 1,105. This put me in 13th place going into the next five games before they make the cut to match play. I ended up needing all the pins I could get as I really struggled in the semi-final five games. The lanes were much tighter for me and I could not match up all day. The last game I switched to my Vertigo and threw six out of the last seven strikes to end up being the cut number for the top 63. Before match play started I drilled a Trifecta to help me on the fresh. Every time they have oiled, the lanes have gotten tighter and tighter. My Diablo was just not making the corner. In my first match I bowled Ken Muscato and we had a good match that came down to the later frames in game 3. Unfortunately I was not able to stay with him as he beat me 673-663. My next match I bowled another left-hander in Chris Sand. The whole match I was fighting an uphill battle as I never really had a good ball reaction. I ground out a 610 which was not nearly enough as he shot 667. The USBC Masters – conducted on Sport Bowling lane conditions – was a lot of fun. The lanes were challenging but you were rewarded by hitting the pocket when you made a good shot. Bowling in Sport leagues these past couple of years has definitely helped me read the lanes better and make decisions on not only how to attack the lane but what ball to throw. Feel free to e-mail me (sportbowling@bowl.com) with any questions about USBC Sport Bowling or anything you want me to discuss in my upcoming blogs.
July 27, 2007 PBA Experience league Is it just me, or has this summer really gone fast? It seems like it just started and it is almost time for the new bowling season. The Sport Bowling team here at USBC has been really busy this summer. With more than 100 percent growth from last season the PBA Experience has really taken off. This past month I had the chance to work Bowl Expo and the 2007 USBC Junior Gold Championships. It was my first trip to Bowl Expo and it was a neat experience to see how that show works. It was also great to meet a lot of people in the bowling industry and put faces with names. Sport Bowling had a booth. We had a lot of traffic and good discussions with proprietors about how we can make Sport Bowling better. Recently I was in Buffalo, N.Y., working the Junior Gold tournament. We had a booth at registration and I held two seminars, one on Monday and Tuesday discussing lane play strategies for Team USA patterns and the PBA patterns. On Friday David Garber (High Performance Director at USBC) ran an on-lane seminar. I was one of the instructors and the goal was to educate the bowlers how short, medium and long patterns should be played. We used the same patterns they bowled on during the week and helped them strictly with lane play strategies. I focused on the long pattern with Bill Hoffman and Brad Angelo. Other instructors were Shannon O'Keefe, Dan Patterson, Diandra Asbaty, Kevin Dornberger, Bob Learn Jr. and Jack Jurek. Congratulations to everyone who made USBC Junior Team USA. They have a big year next year, bowling the World Championships in Orlando, Fla. They have a year of hard work ahead of them to hopefully bring home some gold medals. My summer PBA Experience league has a couple of weeks left. Recently on the Cheetah pattern I bowled 752. I used a Secret Agent and took some of my hand out of the ball and tried to go as straight up the lane as I can. As the lanes broke down I could move a little left but they started to get funny. I shot 220 my last game and if I had to bowl more games I would probably change to a weaker ball and stay to the right. When I moved left on this pattern my ball has trouble reading the same break point consistently. Until next time, have a great summer. June 6, 2007 AZCDerek strikes gold (three times!) in first Team USA competition Derek talks about his success at the American Zone Championships May 17, 2007 PBA Experience league It has been a busy spring in the USBC Sport Bowling department. Bowling centers and leagues are registering daily. We already have more leagues this summer than we did all of last season. I am participating in one of those leagues, a PBA Experience singles league at Olympic Lanes in Milwaukee. For the first time ever, I decided to bowl in a summer league. I am using this league to stay sharp throughout the summer and to help prepare myself for upcoming tournaments. We have bowled two weeks, both on the Chameleon pattern. The first week I shot 708 and used a Storm Thunderstruck. I started playing at 15 with a break point of 6 or 7 and just chased the pattern left. As long as I stayed soft with my ball speed I had a good ball reaction. The second week I shot 635. For some reason our left lane was much tighter than the right lane. I started with the Thunderstruck again on both lanes, but I was playing the left lane four boards tighter than the right lane. I left three 4 pins on the right lane for a 207. The second game I went to a Special Agent on the right lane. I needed to control the back of the lane so my Special Agent rolls a little sooner than the Thunderstruck and this seemed to work as I shot 222. The last game the lanes started to break down in a hurry. I lost the left lane and struck every time on the right lane for 206. The neat thing about our league is it is a position round every game, so you always bowl someone of similar average to you. They also leave the lanes on for unlimited practice after league is over. I use that session to try other equipment and different hand positions to see what works. Next week I will be off to Guatemala to bowl in the American Zone Championships. I have been looking forward to this trip for a while now. Wish me luck and hopefully I can bring back some gold medals. I will update the blog as much as I can while competing in Guatemala. Follow along in the Team USA section of bowl.com. March 4-12, 2007 USBC Team USA Training Camp March 12, 2007 Saturday is our last day here as everyone departs tomorrow. This morning David Garber led our last classroom session. He wanted everyone to know who he is and what he does. For those of you who do not know, David is the new High Performance Director for USBC Team USA. Basically he is the director of Team USA. After class we were headed to Kingpin Lanes for a Pro-Am. It was a pretty special pro-am as it was for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There was a young girl there whose wish was to go to Disneyland. So this event raised money for the foundation. It was fun and great to interact with all the kids and adults who were bowling with us. After the pro-am we headed to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. They gave us enough food for a small army. It was really good, but wow, was it a lot of food. After dinner we headed back to the training center. We had one last meeting and it was the Freddie Awards. The Freddie Awards go to all team members, recognizing something each of us did all week at camp. We all had a good time with the awards. I can't remember the exact title of my award, but it had something to do with smoothies. In the cafeteria they had a smoothie bar, so I made myself a smoothie for every meal of the day. As the week went on it was a running joke about me making smoothies all the time, so my Freddie award was for making smoothies for every meal. The week has drawn to a close. It was a very busy and fun week. I learned a lot of great information and I look forward to putting it all to use. Now it is time for bed as I have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight. March 9, 2007 We started the day in the classroom and had the pleasure of listening to a certified strength and conditioning specialist who works with all the Olympic athletes here at the training center. He discussed what he does and how strength, conditioning and nutrition can help athletes. It was very informative and I need to make a strength plan for myself. After class we headed to the bowling center to bowl on the long pattern today. We bowled for an hour or so and then took a break for lunch as they re-dressed the lanes. After lunch we had another competition against the women. After our first game we took a break to discuss how the lanes were playing and what we were seeing. We then bowled the other two games working on getting soft with the ball speed to allow the ball to read the proper break point. We ended up beating the women tonight and they once again had to carry our dinner trays. I can thank Tina tonight. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and tonight the men's team has a bonding session where we all will learn more about each other. This week has gone by pretty fast and I can't believe tomorrow is our last day. March 8, 2007 This morning we again had a classroom discussion. We discussed the shot cycle with Gordon Vadakin. It was very interesting; everything tied in with the pre-shot routine we discussed earlier in the week. I have not worked with any coaches about the shot cycle, so that was refreshing and gave me new things to work on. After the classroom we headed to the bowling center again to practice on the short pattern. Most of us have drilled urethane bowling balls because they give us a better and more consistent reaction on the shorter pattern with less volume. Once I got close enough to the gutter and stopped going left to right with the shot, my reaction was much better. It is hard training the eye to see the ball path a urethane ball makes versus a reactive ball. I grew up on urethane, but that was before I really started to learn how to bowl. At the end of the practice session we had a competition against the women. Each bowler rolled two games and the team with the highest average (because we were down one player) won. The loser had to carry the dinner trays for the winning team tonight after dinner. I don't know what the final score was, but the guys won, so the ladies had to carry our dinner trays when we were done eating. Thanks, Lynda. After dinner we had a classroom discussion about lane conditions. Team USA's own John Janawicz gave the presentation. Since John works for Kegel and has applied lane conditions all over the world, he decided to share his knowledge of oil patterns and what to look for when bowling tournaments and studying the lane condition being used. That's all for today, now it's time for bed. March 7, 2007 This morning we had a short classroom gathering before our photo session. We went to the aquatic center in a small room to take our individual head shots. We then headed outside for the team photos. It was pretty sunny out, so it was hard not to squint. After photos we headed to the bowling center to work on more drills and get action shots taken while we bowl. It was a shorter day on the lanes, but we got a lot accomplished. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and a classroom session. Tonight we discussed equipment for long and short oil patterns. In recent years, all the patterns used in international events are short and long with lower volumes. So we discussed what we use and what has worked for the team in the past. Tonight will be a late night as we head over to a different bowling center to bowl against the Colorado Springs All-Star team starting at 9:30 p.m. March 6, 2007 Today we had an early classroom session with Fred Borden and Gordon Vadakin speaking to us. Fred discussed our master plan and practice plan. The master plan was about our physical game, lane play, bowling balls, mind and body. The practice plan dealt with angles, equipment, changing speeds and rotation and loft. Gordon discussed our pre-shot routine and how important it is to our success. We then headed to the lanes and did some drills working on changing ball speed, loft and rotation. The patterns we bowled on were short and long and tapes were put on the lane from the foul line to about 40 feet down the lane. We had to lay the ball down and keep it between the tapes and hit the pocket side of the headpin for any shot to count. It was a pretty challenging drill; I definitely had to use loft and different releases on the different lanes. When I was finished the drills I sat down with Gordon and talked more about the pre-shot routine and the importance of it. It was very informative and it is something I sometimes do, and need to do all the time. I just finished eating dinner with the team and tonight we have a classroom discussion with USBC Technical Director Neil Stremmel about lane surfaces and oils and how they affect ball motion. March 5, 2007 After competing in the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev., I caught a flight to Colorado Springs, Colo., for USBC Team USA Training camp for the week. It was a tight connection but I made it to Colorado Springs Monday night. The training camp at Colorado Springs is the Olympic training facility where most of the Olympic athletes train in there respective sports. Some athletes even live here for months at a time. We are sharing a floor with the archery team in our dorm. Tonight we bowled the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev. We had the 11:40 a.m. squad and I planned on starting where I ended in team event with the same ball. But the lanes were a bit drier and I started four boards left with the T-Road Pearl. In the third frame I switched balls to the Shift because I didn't like how early the T-Road Pearl was hooking. This turned out to be a good decision. I shot 226 the first game with a few taps. The next game I found a way to carry and was fortunate enough to bowl 300. It was exciting, something I never thought I would do at nationals. My partner and I were about 160 over and had a go another 100 over to take the lead. We both started striking and in the 7th frame I knew we had a chance to take the lead. My partner, Rick Volhard, shot 278 and doubled in the 10th. Now I knew I had to double for 228 and to take the lead in doubles. I threw three really good shots and carried for Rick and me to take the lead. The next game we moved a pair to the right and I moved three boards left and left a Big 4. So I moved another three boards and finally found a good reaction, still using the Shift. I shot 192, 246, 240 for a 678 in singles and a 2,075 for All-Events. March 4, 2007 Today I bowled the team event at the Open Championships at the beautiful National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I go with a group of college friends that I bowled with at Nebraska. It's really good to see all the guys as I only get to see some of them once a year. We bowled the team event at 8:30 pm. I heard the lanes were pretty tight from other people that have already bowled and from looking at the graph the shape of the pattern looked similar to last year, except there was more oil this year. In practice it took me a few shots to get loose and find a reaction. I had a few opens the first game for 197, not a bad start, but could have been better. I made a ball change from a Pearl Thunderstruck to a T-Road Pearl to start the second game and I had a much better reaction. I shot 215 with a few bad shots. The last game I moved in a little as the lanes started to break down and shot 231. Our team shot 3,050. February16-17, 2007 Derek Eoff SportBlog: Pan Am Trials February 17, 2007 Today we finished the first event for Team USA 2007. It was a unique event because we competed against each other. Two men and two women will represent the United States in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, later in the year at the Pan American games. For those of you who do not know, the Pan America games are a big deal for bowling - the closest thing bowling has to the Olympics. The Pan Am games are a continental version of the Olympic Games. To learn more about the Pan Am games, visit http://www.cob.org.br/pan2007/ingles/jogos_historico.asp. The four people chosen to represent the USA in the Pan Am games were based on a point system from major tournaments throughout the 2006 calendar year, this past Team USA Trials and the Pan Am team trials held from Feb. 15-18 in Milwaukee. Today we came back and bowled six games instead of five because we moved to the USBC Specifications and Certification facility here in Greendale, Wis., to conclude the tournament. The test facility has eight lanes with seven different surfaces and both wood and synthetic approaches. The coaches decided it would be best to bowl six games instead of five so everyone would bowl on every pair we used twice. We were not using lanes 5 and 6 because they had Lane Shield and Guardian surfaces. The oil pattern today was the World Youth Championships long pattern. It was 42 feet with 19.44 milliliters of oil. I started on 7 and 8 which were both Pro Anvilane surfaces with lane 7 having a wood approach and lane 8 with a synthetic approach. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track area. I had a really good reaction and other than a bad shot in the ninth frame for an open I shot 240. I then moved to lanes 3 and 4. Both had the same synthetic approach but lane 3 was a wood with 100 percent Solid Top coat and lane 4 was wood with a double urethane finish. I knew this pair would hook more being wood so I moved five boards left and left a 3-10 split to start the game on lane 4. On lane 3, I moved another three boards left and went light flush for a strike. I went back to lane 4 and it appeared to hook more than 3 so I moved another two boards left from lane 3 and went flush. Lane three was definitely tighter, but I had lane 4 hooking about ten more boards than 7 and 8 and lane 3 two boards tighter than lane 4. I ended up shooting 215 and was pleased with that score. I then went to lanes 1 and 2 which had the same approach as 3 and 4 but lane 1 was HPL and lane 2 was wood with a urethane top coat. I knew lane 1 would be tighter, so I moved four boards back to the right and still went light for a 2-4-5. On lane 2 I decided not to move off my adjustment from lane 1 and it worked, I went flush. I went back to lane 1 and moved another three boards to the right and the ball barely got back to go light flush. I ended up shooting 224, but lane 1 was the tightest lane in the building. The back end was so tight I even left a 5-pin, something I have not done in a long time. In game 5 I had to switch to my Thunderstruck pearl as the lanes started to break down and my Special Agent was hooking too early. I just chased the pattern left and tried to remember what each lane was doing and I ended up going plus 207 for the six games to lead on that pattern. I ended up finishing second for the weekend and seventh overall. I didn't have many points coming into the weekend because of my lower finish at the Team USA trials which comprised 40 percent of the point total, so that hurt my chances of finishing in the top two. The top two men were Rhino Page and Cassidy Schaub. Joining them will be Diandra Asbaty and Tennelle Milligan for the women. That group sounds like plenty of gold medals to me. I wish them the best of luck and I know they will represent the U.S. well. For complete results please visit the following link. http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments/PanAm/panamRankMens.pdf February 16, 2007 The first day of competition today we bowled 15 games, five games on three different patterns. The first pattern was 44 feet long with 21.88 milliliters. This pattern was the 2006 World Ranking Masters long pattern in Kuwait. The scoring pace was pretty high for this pattern. I attacked it like the Shark pattern on the Denny's PBA Tour and the PBA Experience (you had to play inside), but I used a pearl ball to get the ball through the heads easier because of the lower oil volume. I started with a Shift and then switched to a Thunderstruck Pearl and just chased the pattern left. I finished fourth on this pattern at plus 143. After lunch we bowled on a slightly revised version of the USBC Masters pattern, 39 feet long with about 27 milliliters of oil. This pattern was tricky because the gutter did not play very well and there was a lot of out of bounds to the right if you played inside. I started playing the track area and used the Shift the first game. This turned out to be the wrong line. After shooting 176 the first game I decided to move farther left and switch to my pearl Thunderstruck. This ball allowed me to clear the front of the lane and give me a little hold. After shooting 230-plus the next three games and finishing with a 200 game, I was plus 89, good for third on that pattern. The last pattern today was the short one. This pattern was 34 feet long with only 19.48 milliliters and was the 2006 World Ranking Master Kuwait short pattern. Needless to say you had to play right. I am normally hit or miss on short patterns, so I decided to try some different layouts for shorter patterns. I drilled an Agent with the pin in my track for some length and I also drilled a solid Jolt with the pin two inches from my axis so I could try and eliminate the over/under reaction I normally get. I used the Jolt and it worked great. I could square up more to the gutter instead of having to move left and throw it at the gutter. The first game I opened in the 10th frame for 196. Then I shot a 250 game and back to back 230s. The last game I had to bowl on the pair I started on and shot 170, that pair was not much fun. I ended up at 95 over and fourth on that pattern. January 10... later Anxious moments Now everything was out of my control. I decided to leave the stadium, get lunch and rest for a bit before going back over and watching the women finish. Once the women were done bowling it was time to sit and wait. To ease my nerves about being selected, my dad and I went to the sports bar in the stadium and played ping pong. After beating up on my dad in ping pong, it was time to see who was going to represent the U.S. on USBC Team USA 2007. I sat in the back of the room, anxiously awaiting the selections. They announced the men and women who bowled their way onto the team first and then went into the selections. They were down to the last person to be selected and, fortunately for me, my name was called. I really could not believe it at first, but I was excited. I want to congratulate David O’Sullivan and Lynda Barnes for winning national amateur titles. They both bowled great all week. It should be an exciting year and I very much look forward to it. A big thank you goes out to everyone who supported me while I was in Reno bowling. Until next time, bowl well. January 10, 2007 Making a move on the Masters pattern The last day of qualifying we bowled on the USBC Masters pattern and I had a lot of pins to make up. I did bowl the Masters this year in Milwaukee, so I had an idea of what I was going to see. Obviously with a different surface at the National Bowling Stadium, the pattern will play different. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track and had a really good reaction. I shot 276 with a bad shot in the middle of the game. The next three games I slowly lost my reaction; I could not believe how fast the pattern carried down. I tried switching to my more aggressive Thunderstruck and my Domination. After a couple of bad games trying to find a reaction, I decided to move in and slow my ball speed down with the Domination. I found a pretty good reaction and realized I needed to bowl some big games and wanted to at least get into the top 15. After a 235 and 214, I was confident I could bowl some big games moving down to the low end of the stadium. With only four games left I decided to leave it all on the table. I threw the ball well and made some good adjustments to bowl back to back 267 games. I was very confident in my ball reaction, until I threw a shot on 29-30. In the first frame I left a 2-8-10. So I moved right and went light flush for a strike in the second. Then, I left another 2-8-10. I was looking at 30 in the third and bowling on a much tighter pair. I moved right but could not get the 10 pin out and started to bowl tight knowing I needed to start striking. In the 10th frame after already moving six boards right, I decided to move back one board to the left and slow my ball speed down and trust that it would get back. I threw three good shots and struck out for 179. With one game to go I wasn’t sure if I should stay in the same part of the lane or move left and play this pair like every other pair other than 29-30. I decided to move a couple boards left. It was a good decision. I hit the pocket every shot, leaving three 10 pins and doubling in the 10th for 247. This put me in decent position to finish in the top 15. There were still a lot of bowlers that could pass me, but I knew I would finish anywhere from 10th to 20th. I didn’t watch any of the last bowlers finish because it was out of my control and I bowled the best I could today. It turns out that I finished 13th. January 9, 2007 Trying to get back in the hunt Tuesday we bowled early on the Shark pattern. This has been the toughest scoring pattern on the Denny’s PBA Tour this year, and I didn’t expect it to play any different. It was tighter than the practice session, but you had to play inside with an aggressive ball. I started with a Special Agent and was waiting for the pattern to open up a little. Once the pattern did open up I switched to a solid Thunderstruck and used that until the last game, when I went back to the Special Agent. I just kept moving left as the lanes broke down and had a decent reaction. I went 108 over and this put me in position to make a run Wednesday on the Cheetah pattern. The Cheetah is not my favorite pattern, but it was on the schedule and we bowled on it for Day 3. I knew the scores were going to be high and then the women bowled early and the scores were really high. I started with a Double Agent and had a decent reaction. I was trying to grind it out until the lanes carried down and then I thought I could start to strike. The one major problem I had was getting my ball to enter the pocket at the correct angle. I could get there, I just could not strike as much as everyone else. I had an over/under reaction with most of my bowling balls so I kept using the Double Agent working on my speed to control my entry angle to the pocket. Nothing really seemed to work, and as the lanes broke down my reaction got worse. I think I left some variation of the 2-10 every game. I just could not get my ball to read the pattern properly to face the pocket the correct way. Later on in the block I did switch to a Thunderstruck (a second one, not the same one I used on the Shark pattern) and had a good reaction but still had some over/under. I felt like I bowled OK, but just bowling OK on the Cheetah pattern means you lose a couple of hundred pins to the field. I went 79 over and lost a lot of pins to the field. January 8, 2007 Competition starts On Monday the women bowled early, the guys late. I slept in and had lunch, then went to the bowling center ready to bowl on the modified Viper pattern. In practice I still could not get comfortable with what I was seeing and what the lane was giving me. You had to play right but you could not just throw it at the gutter. I started with a Double Agent (trying to go right up first arrow) because this ball burned off all its energy early and controlled the back of the lane for me. Once the lanes carried down I was lost for a couple of games. I threw everything from a Ragin Banshee to a solid Thunderstruck and T-Road Pearl. I ended up moving farther right with a pearl Thunderstruck. My reaction still wasn’t great and I was bowling tight; I could not get loose and make good shots. The last game I had 70 in the fifth frame and decided to move left and use a Paradigm Domination. I ended up striking to the 10th frame to pull out a 212 game and get to 52 under. This was definitely not how I wanted to start the tournament. January 7, 2007 Practice session Sunday night was the practice session; they put out all four oil patterns for a 90-minute session. I had a good idea how the Shark and Masters pattern would play so I focused most of my attention on the two short patterns, the Cheetah and modified Viper (they shortened the Viper from 37 feet to 34 feet). I didn’t like my look on either of the short patterns. I could not get the ball to come off the outside boards the way I wanted it to, so I was forced farther left. I threw some shots on the Shark and Masters patterns and was pretty comfortable with what I saw. I also worked on my swing with Storm’s PBA Tour rep Chris Schlemmer. I have been having some problems recently hitting up on shots way too often, so I want to thank him for his help. Never under estimate the value of good coaching. January 6, 2007 Reaching Reno As many of you know, the 2007 USBC Team USA Trials were held Jan. 6-12 at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I was there competing on four tough USBC Sport Bowling lane oil patterns for 40 games to earn a spot on Team USA 2007. I arrived Saturday afternoon with no real plans other than to go check in and just kind of relax. There was a sweeper, but I decided bowling 40 games plus practice and the practice session was enough bowling for me. I didn’t want to wear myself out before the actual tournament started. Sunday I got up early to watch the PBA telecast live. The pros were in Reno the week prior. What a great show with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Jason Couch and Patrick Allen. Congratulations to Patrick Allen for defeating Walter Ray in the title match. After the live telecast I went back to my room and waited for my parents to arrive from Seattle. Nov. 1, 2006 Welcome back to another exciting year of bowling. Hopefully everyone had a great summer and is ready to lace up the shoes for another great season. This year started off with a bang, with the first stop on the Professional Bowlers Association tour being The USBC Masters, one of the PBA's four "major" tournaments. As many of you know, the USBC Masters is conducted on a Sport Bowling compliant lane oil pattern. This year, however, the majors will not be the only Sport Bowling compliant patterns used on the PBA Tour. Hopefully many of you watched the Masters show this past Sunday and heard about the "big secret." If you did not see the ESPN finals, the announcement was that Sport Bowling is partnering with the PBA. Starting Jan. 1, the Sport Bowling program will be promoting PBA Experience leagues that will allow bowlers to compete on the same patterns as the professionals. You may have heard of the five PBA patterns, which are known by animal names: Cheetah, Chameleon, Scorpion, Shark and Viper. This is an exciting opportunity for both the PBA and the Sport bowling program. In what other environment can you compete in the same atmosphere as the professionals? You can't hit a Roger Clemens fastball or tee it up at Augusta National under the same conditions the pros golf on. But with the PBA Experience, you can bowl on the exact lane conditions as USBC Sport Bowling spokesperson Chris Barnes, Norm Duke, Patrick Allen, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Kelly Kulick and all your favorite PBA stars. How exciting! Be sure to watch the telecast Sunday afternoon and then bowl on the same pattern that was used that week. Find out more about the PBA Experience or contact me and I will send you free promotional materials. As I mentioned earlier, the PBA Tour season kicked off with the USBC Masters. With the tournament in Milwaukee for the third straight year, I once again bowled in the event. It was a challenging week for me. I felt like I bowled OK, but I just could not get anything going. The pattern was very challenging and you had to match up well and make good shots. I started on "C" squad so I bowled first on fresh oil. My goal was to just stay clean and wait until the lanes opened up. I started with a pearl Thunderstruck playing out toward the channel. Looking back on it, I probably should have started with my solid Thunderstruck or Diablo. Those balls would have given me an earlier roll, allowing my bad shots to still hit the pocket. So after grinding out the first two games going 30 under, I decided to move in and change balls. I went to a Double Agent with a little shine and moved in to the 17 board at the arrows. I then went from the low end of the center to the high end (the center is split with 24 lanes on the low end) and had a much different reaction. I had to change to a Spit Fire and move a few boards left. I ground out a clean 206 and ended with 209 to get to minus 4. The cut was plus 30 so I knew I had some work to do the following day. On day two of qualifying I got to bowl on "D" squad on the break down condition. I thought I was going to have a good ball reaction based on how I finished the previous day, but my reaction was not as good as I had hoped. I could not use my Spit Fire because the back ends were much tighter and I had trouble getting it to hit. So I started with the pearl Thunderstruck and ended up using my Paradigm Domination to finish the first game and for the next four games. I could not get anything going and bowled nine over to get my total to plus five for the tournament. The cut was plus 35, so I missed by 30 pins. I am disappointed but I did learn a lot and with the help of Storm rep Chris Schlemmer. I now have several things to practice for the next time I see this type of pattern. I would like to congratulate Doug Kent for winning the USBC Masters. He bowled great all week and was fun to watch. I hope everyone enjoys our revamped Sport Bowling section of bowl.com and wants to participate in a PBA Experience league starting in January. Questions about the new leagues? E-mail me. 2005-2006 Season April 13, 2006 SportBlog from the USBC Open Championships The 2005-06 fall/winter bowling season is almost over. This means a couple of things: that we are registering summer leagues almost on a daily basis and that warm weather will be heading our way here in Wisconsin. Although this hasn't been a bad winter, it will be nice to see some warm weather for a change. I did get to see some warm weather last month when I was in Corpus Christi, Texas, competing in the USBC Open Championships. Read the full story... March 2, 2006 Challenging conditions tested all bowlers at mega-bucks events, U.S. Open This past month was great for competitive bowling. We had the so-called "mega-buck" tournaments in Las Vegas and the U.S. Open, a major tournament on the Professional Bowlers Association tour. These tournaments have one thing in common: challenging lane conditions. Let's start with the mega-bucks in Las Vegas. While I could not bowl this past month, I have bowled enough of these events to know what goes on out there. One thing I would like to address is the difference between international and American bowlers. Recently there has been a lot of talk about the international bowlers and who is better, us or them? Every year a handful of international bowlers make the trip to Las Vegas to compete against some of the best amateurs we have to offer. Every year the international bowlers do really well. Is that because they are better than the American bowlers? In my opinion the international bowlers do well for a combination of reasons. First, they are talented athletes. Secondly, they bowl on lane conditions that most Americans consider too difficult. They are not as shocked when they arrive in Vegas and the lanes are not easy. This helps prepare them for tournaments like the mega-bucks and other major events where the lane conditions are challenging. When it comes to lane conditions, it seems that there will be no happy medium for lane conditions. If the conditions are made playable, some people say they are too easy. If the conditions are challenging, others say they are too hard. What people don't understand is that the more you bowl on challenging lane conditions the better bowler you will become. The international bowlers are proof of that. Speaking of challenging lane conditions, did anyone see Tommy Jones win the U.S. Open last week? As I sat at home watching the U.S. Open on TV, I was pleased to see some of the world's best bowlers performing well on the toughest pattern of the year. It was a 40-foot, 1:1 USBC Sport Bowling pattern. Bowlers had to make quality shots and the correct adjustments to score well, something bowling should always be about. If you have never bowled on a flat oil pattern, I recommend at least practicing on it. Not only will it make you better, but it will give you a new appreciation for how good the pros are. The U.S. Open and the USBC Masters are perfect examples of how top bowlers can bowl well on Sport Bowling patterns. There has been a lot of talk about the lanes being too easy for a PBA Major, but when you have the best bowlers on the planet all coming together to bowl at the best of their ability, you are going to have good scores. January 20, 2006 2006 USBC Team USA Championships Greetings fellow USBC Sport Bowling enthusiasts. I hope everyone had a great holiday break. I know I did. Today I will discuss the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships in Reno, Nev. Before I get into that I just want to remind everyone that if you are not currently bowling in any Sport leagues, feel free to start a short-season league today. If you are competing in the USBC Open Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas, or the USBC Women's Open Championships in Reno, Nev., bowling in a Sport league is a great way to prepare for those tournaments. It can be a singles, doubles or team league. Check out the "Unique League Formats" section of the Sport Bowling section of bowl.com to get some ideas about how to run a short-season league. Well, I am back from Reno after bowling the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, the tournament that determines Team USA. I am just going to go through what took place each day. Sunday: Today was registration day, two sweepers and a practice session. I decided not to bowl the sweepers because I knew it was going to be a long week and felt the practice session would be good enough for me to get ready for the tournament. During the practice session, half the house was the short pattern (35 feet) and half the house was the long pattern (42 feet). To clarify, all the patterns used at the tournament were Sport Bowling compliant. The women did bowl on a different pattern, but it was also Sport compliant. The women's pattern was right at a 2:1 oil ration and the men's was about 1.5:1. The first thing I noticed in the practice session was that the short pattern was not hooking nearly as much as I thought it would. It took me a while to get lined up and put the right ball in my hand, but once I did I could hit the pocket a lot. The long pattern was about what I expected, I could use my Trifecta or Paradigm and get to the pocket. Monday: Today was the first day of qualifying on the long pattern. It played pretty close to what I had at the practice session so I was comfortable to start. One thing about the National Bowling Stadium is that from pair to pair, the lanes always seem to play just different enough where you don't have the same ball reaction. Having many bowlers play all over the lane doesn't help either. In my opinion, the women scored higher because they all started out playing the same part of the lane so the lane transitioned properly. When guys are starting anywhere from five to 30, it's anyone's guess how the lanes are going to break down and from pair to pair makes it very difficult to predict what you are going to see. Overall I was pleased with Day one. I used my Trifecta and Fired Up to go 86 pins over and was in 22nd place. Tuesday: Today was the first day on the short pattern. As I mentioned above, the short pattern didn't play anything like a traditional short pattern. Normally you can throw it at the channel on a short pattern and watch it fly back to the pocket. If you did that on this pattern you either missed the head pin right or left a 2-8-10. So you had to square up, but still play out. The fresh condition was very challenging because you didn't have the hook to the right, but since the pattern was short you didn't have any hold either. As the oil carried down, the lanes became much easier as you could see by the scores if you were following along. I used my Ragin' Banshee all eight games and went 203 over for the day and 289 over for the tournament. Wednesday: Today we were back on the long pattern and they were hard. For some reason the lanes seemed to hook earlier, even on the fresh. The first few games I was just trying to get a comfortable reaction and could not find anything. Finally, I moved deep inside and used my Trifecta and had a decent look. It was a day of grinding. I went 43 over to put me at 332 for the tournament and in seventh place heading into match play. I used my Trifecta most of the eight games. Thursday: Today we bowled 16 games (eight on the short and eight on the long) of match play with 20 bonus pins going to the winner of each game. For some reason we also switched sides of the stadium. They have never done this in the past. Normally the men always stay on the high side and the women always stay on the low side. So now the men were on the low end and the women were on the high end. For some reason I had the low end a bit tighter than the high end. I couldn't use my Trifecta because the back of the lane was very tight and I could not get it to recover. So I used the Paradigm and attacked the lanes the same as I had all week on the long pattern. I had a decent look but nothing great. That afternoon we came back and bowled eight more games on the short pattern. The short pattern seemed tighter as well and you could tell as the scores were a lot lower. I could still use my Ragin' Banshee but my look was not as good as Tuesday. I once again went 5-3 but dropped a few spots and ended the day in 10th place. Friday: This was the last day of competition. Sixteen more games today and then Team USA would be announced. We started on the long pattern once again and I was able to use my Trifecta. They were real tight but this time I could square up more and get the Trifecta back to the pocket. I had a pretty good reaction and gained a lot of pins on the field. I climbed my way back into 6th place heading into the final eight games. Today the short pattern was real tight on the gutter, but you could still not square up too much without the ball over-hooking. Since I used my Ragin' for every game so far on the short pattern I thought I could use it again. I was wrong. I had the wonderful 2-10/Big 4 reaction. If I gave it away it never hooked, but once I squared up it hooked at the arrows. So after a horrendous start I changed to my Super Sport Pearl which rolls a little more than my Ragin' and allowed me to play more direct in the oil without leaving a 2-10. After 51 games I was in ninth place and about 100 pins out of fifth place. I knew I needed to make a run and win my matches if I wanted a chance to make the top five. In Game 52 I bowled PJ Haggerty and needed to win as we were both neck-and-neck battling for the fifth spot. I got off to a slow start in the match but had to mark in the 10th to win and gain the extra 20 pins. I struck out for 230 and was getting pretty comfortable with my reaction. The next game I bowled Tony Manna Jr. and started off with a solid 7-10 split. I continued to hit the pocket and pulled out a 225 game to win. I was starting to get closer to the top five and knew I needed to finish strong. I bowled Ivan Miyasato next and shot 227, but it wasn't enough to win. He had to mark in the 10th and made the 3-6-10 to shut me out. These last two games were going to be critical as there were about five people battling for one spot. In Game 55 I bowled Ronnie Sparks Jr. He bowled well on the short pattern the whole tournament so I knew I needed a big game. Other than leaving a solid 7-10 in the second frame I bowled well and figured out how to carry after that hit. I shot 247 to win which put me back in 6th place with one game to go. The last match was position round and it was real close between spots five and 10. I needed to win and not let anyone below me beat me by more than 20 pins. I bowled Ronnie again and I knew I would have to bowl at least 220 to win. The match was close until I opened in the 9th frame. All he had to do was mark in the 10th frame and the fifth spot was his. He struck on the first ball to shut me out. I ended up bowling 201, losing to his 218. After all was said and done I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I ended up finishing seventh and, unfortunately, only the top five finishers are awarded automatic spots on Team USA. They do select three more bowlers, but unfortunately I wasn't one of them. I am disappointed I did not make the team, but I bowled well and there is always next year. I wish the team good luck this year in Korea, may they bring home lots of medals. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the lanes being too easy this past week. I can assure you they were not. I see no problem with the winner averaging 216. When you have 151 of the best amateur bowlers in the country and the cut is a 202 average, I think the conditions were fair. As I mentioned earlier, the oil ratio on the men's side was about 1.5:1. To put this in perspective, the 2005 USBC Masters in Milwaukee was 2:1. I know some people said the pattern at the Masters was too easy. Our intent is to not make the lanes ridiculously hard. Research has shown that with a 2:1 ratio oil pattern your bowling ball will not be steered to the pocket, requiring good shot making to score well. One thing most people don't understand is how good some of these bowlers are, particularly the PBA exempt bowlers. They will find a way to score well (relative to your typical "house" bowler) on any pattern. For those of you who did not bowl and thought the lanes were too easy at the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, I challenge you to come bowl next year. November 27, 2005 PBA Chicago Classic After the Masters the PBA went to Chicago for the Chicago Classic at Hawthorn Lanes. I wasn't planning on bowling the TQR (Tour Qualifying Round, formerly the PTQ) until the day before the event. I was bowling well at the time and thought, why not? So I drove down that morning to Chicago not really knowing what to expect. It was the Scorpion pattern which is 41 feet. They played pretty tight but not that bad. In practice for the TQR I didn't really have a very good ball reaction. So the first frame I made a guess and pulled the trusty ACE out of my bag and started with the front nine before leaving a 10-pin for 279. That was definitely the start I needed as I proceeded to average 249 for the seven games to become the high amateur and win a spot in the tournament the next day (Thanksgiving day). I spent Turkey Day bowling 14 games of qualifying. It was a very long day. The lanes played tighter than the TQR which allowed me to throw my Trifecta and have a similar look to what I had yesterday. With the lanes being tighter it affected my carry just enough to where I could not throw a big game. So I battled away and averaged about 219 for the 14 games to qualify 25th. For the record, the five traditional PBA patterns are not Sport patterns. Sport Bowling ratios are a maximum of 3:1 depending on the age of the surface and type of lane surface. I don't know the exact ratio of the five PBA patterns, but they are not Sport compliant. I was lucky enough to draw Jason Couch (sense the sarcasm) in the 32 person bracket, arguably the best left hander on tour. I got off to a fast start because his ball reaction wasn't great and mine was similar to the day before. I went up two games to none before disaster hit. I steadily lost my ball reaction and was searching the whole time for something. After losing the next three games by a lot I decided to try one more ball (Fired Up) as I had not thrown it all week or even the week before. I was surprised at how good of a reaction I had with it bowling over 260 the next game to force Game 7. Game 7 started out just like Game 6 ended, except this time Jason was striking right along with me. Going into the 10th frame if he threw the first strike he shuts me out. The way he was throwing the ball I thought for sure he was going to strike. After he left a solid seven pin, I had a chance. I needed to throw all three strikes to win by one pin. I knew if I threw it good I was going to strike out. After throwing the first one, the second one crept a little high for a 4 pin. He won game seven 258-248. It was a good match and great experience for me. By the way, Jason also went on to win the title that week. This past month has been a great experience for me bowling against the best bowlers in the world. I learned a lot about my game and bowling in the Sport Leagues I bowl in has really helped me work on my weaknesses and become a better bowler. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season. My next adventure will be trying out for Team USA at the USBC Team USA Championships in January. Wish me luck!! November 23, 2005 USBC Masters The month of November was a busy month for me as I bowled the USBC Masters and the PBA Chicago Classic. I started preparing for the USBC Masters in October knowing that it would be contested on a Sport Bowling pattern. The Sport Bowling league I bowl in and local tournaments prepared me for these events. I began by winning a qualifying event to receive a free entry into the Masters. At the qualifying event the lanes were brutal. I started out slow but eventually made a ball change (I had to throw my Tropical Storm as the lanes were really dry) and ended up winning the tournament. Finally the week of the Masters arrived and I was ready to bowl. I bowled in the practice session on Monday to get a feel for how the lanes were going to play. The practice session turned out to really help me as I shot 1,129 the first qualifying block for five games. The next day I bowled on fresh oil for the first time. The lanes were tighter so I just started farther right and threw the same ball (Diablo) as the night before and shot 1,105. This put me in 13th place going into the next five games before they make the cut to match play. I ended up needing all the pins I could get as I really struggled in the semi-final five games. The lanes were much tighter for me and I could not match up all day. The last game I switched to my Vertigo and threw six out of the last seven strikes to end up being the cut number for the top 63. Before match play started I drilled a Trifecta to help me on the fresh. Every time they have oiled, the lanes have gotten tighter and tighter. My Diablo was just not making the corner. In my first match I bowled Ken Muscato and we had a good match that came down to the later frames in game 3. Unfortunately I was not able to stay with him as he beat me 673-663. My next match I bowled another left-hander in Chris Sand. The whole match I was fighting an uphill battle as I never really had a good ball reaction. I ground out a 610 which was not nearly enough as he shot 667. The USBC Masters – conducted on Sport Bowling lane conditions – was a lot of fun. The lanes were challenging but you were rewarded by hitting the pocket when you made a good shot. Bowling in Sport leagues these past couple of years has definitely helped me read the lanes better and make decisions on not only how to attack the lane but what ball to throw. Feel free to e-mail me (sportbowling@bowl.com) with any questions about USBC Sport Bowling or anything you want me to discuss in my upcoming blogs.
July 27, 2007
Is it just me, or has this summer really gone fast? It seems like it just started and it is almost time for the new bowling season. The Sport Bowling team here at USBC has been really busy this summer. With more than 100 percent growth from last season the PBA Experience has really taken off. This past month I had the chance to work Bowl Expo and the 2007 USBC Junior Gold Championships. It was my first trip to Bowl Expo and it was a neat experience to see how that show works. It was also great to meet a lot of people in the bowling industry and put faces with names. Sport Bowling had a booth. We had a lot of traffic and good discussions with proprietors about how we can make Sport Bowling better. Recently I was in Buffalo, N.Y., working the Junior Gold tournament. We had a booth at registration and I held two seminars, one on Monday and Tuesday discussing lane play strategies for Team USA patterns and the PBA patterns. On Friday David Garber (High Performance Director at USBC) ran an on-lane seminar. I was one of the instructors and the goal was to educate the bowlers how short, medium and long patterns should be played. We used the same patterns they bowled on during the week and helped them strictly with lane play strategies. I focused on the long pattern with Bill Hoffman and Brad Angelo. Other instructors were Shannon O'Keefe, Dan Patterson, Diandra Asbaty, Kevin Dornberger, Bob Learn Jr. and Jack Jurek. Congratulations to everyone who made USBC Junior Team USA. They have a big year next year, bowling the World Championships in Orlando, Fla. They have a year of hard work ahead of them to hopefully bring home some gold medals. My summer PBA Experience league has a couple of weeks left. Recently on the Cheetah pattern I bowled 752. I used a Secret Agent and took some of my hand out of the ball and tried to go as straight up the lane as I can. As the lanes broke down I could move a little left but they started to get funny. I shot 220 my last game and if I had to bowl more games I would probably change to a weaker ball and stay to the right. When I moved left on this pattern my ball has trouble reading the same break point consistently. Until next time, have a great summer.
Is it just me, or has this summer really gone fast? It seems like it just started and it is almost time for the new bowling season. The Sport Bowling team here at USBC has been really busy this summer. With more than 100 percent growth from last season the PBA Experience has really taken off.
This past month I had the chance to work Bowl Expo and the 2007 USBC Junior Gold Championships. It was my first trip to Bowl Expo and it was a neat experience to see how that show works. It was also great to meet a lot of people in the bowling industry and put faces with names. Sport Bowling had a booth. We had a lot of traffic and good discussions with proprietors about how we can make Sport Bowling better.
Recently I was in Buffalo, N.Y., working the Junior Gold tournament. We had a booth at registration and I held two seminars, one on Monday and Tuesday discussing lane play strategies for Team USA patterns and the PBA patterns. On Friday David Garber (High Performance Director at USBC) ran an on-lane seminar. I was one of the instructors and the goal was to educate the bowlers how short, medium and long patterns should be played. We used the same patterns they bowled on during the week and helped them strictly with lane play strategies. I focused on the long pattern with Bill Hoffman and Brad Angelo. Other instructors were Shannon O'Keefe, Dan Patterson, Diandra Asbaty, Kevin Dornberger, Bob Learn Jr. and Jack Jurek.
Congratulations to everyone who made USBC Junior Team USA. They have a big year next year, bowling the World Championships in Orlando, Fla. They have a year of hard work ahead of them to hopefully bring home some gold medals.
My summer PBA Experience league has a couple of weeks left. Recently on the Cheetah pattern I bowled 752. I used a Secret Agent and took some of my hand out of the ball and tried to go as straight up the lane as I can. As the lanes broke down I could move a little left but they started to get funny. I shot 220 my last game and if I had to bowl more games I would probably change to a weaker ball and stay to the right. When I moved left on this pattern my ball has trouble reading the same break point consistently.
Until next time, have a great summer.
June 6, 2007
Derek talks about his success at the American Zone Championships
May 17, 2007
It has been a busy spring in the USBC Sport Bowling department. Bowling centers and leagues are registering daily. We already have more leagues this summer than we did all of last season. I am participating in one of those leagues, a PBA Experience singles league at Olympic Lanes in Milwaukee. For the first time ever, I decided to bowl in a summer league. I am using this league to stay sharp throughout the summer and to help prepare myself for upcoming tournaments. We have bowled two weeks, both on the Chameleon pattern. The first week I shot 708 and used a Storm Thunderstruck. I started playing at 15 with a break point of 6 or 7 and just chased the pattern left. As long as I stayed soft with my ball speed I had a good ball reaction. The second week I shot 635. For some reason our left lane was much tighter than the right lane. I started with the Thunderstruck again on both lanes, but I was playing the left lane four boards tighter than the right lane. I left three 4 pins on the right lane for a 207. The second game I went to a Special Agent on the right lane. I needed to control the back of the lane so my Special Agent rolls a little sooner than the Thunderstruck and this seemed to work as I shot 222. The last game the lanes started to break down in a hurry. I lost the left lane and struck every time on the right lane for 206. The neat thing about our league is it is a position round every game, so you always bowl someone of similar average to you. They also leave the lanes on for unlimited practice after league is over. I use that session to try other equipment and different hand positions to see what works. Next week I will be off to Guatemala to bowl in the American Zone Championships. I have been looking forward to this trip for a while now. Wish me luck and hopefully I can bring back some gold medals. I will update the blog as much as I can while competing in Guatemala. Follow along in the Team USA section of bowl.com.
March 4-12, 2007
March 12, 2007 Saturday is our last day here as everyone departs tomorrow. This morning David Garber led our last classroom session. He wanted everyone to know who he is and what he does. For those of you who do not know, David is the new High Performance Director for USBC Team USA. Basically he is the director of Team USA. After class we were headed to Kingpin Lanes for a Pro-Am. It was a pretty special pro-am as it was for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There was a young girl there whose wish was to go to Disneyland. So this event raised money for the foundation. It was fun and great to interact with all the kids and adults who were bowling with us. After the pro-am we headed to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. They gave us enough food for a small army. It was really good, but wow, was it a lot of food. After dinner we headed back to the training center. We had one last meeting and it was the Freddie Awards. The Freddie Awards go to all team members, recognizing something each of us did all week at camp. We all had a good time with the awards. I can't remember the exact title of my award, but it had something to do with smoothies. In the cafeteria they had a smoothie bar, so I made myself a smoothie for every meal of the day. As the week went on it was a running joke about me making smoothies all the time, so my Freddie award was for making smoothies for every meal. The week has drawn to a close. It was a very busy and fun week. I learned a lot of great information and I look forward to putting it all to use. Now it is time for bed as I have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight. March 9, 2007 We started the day in the classroom and had the pleasure of listening to a certified strength and conditioning specialist who works with all the Olympic athletes here at the training center. He discussed what he does and how strength, conditioning and nutrition can help athletes. It was very informative and I need to make a strength plan for myself. After class we headed to the bowling center to bowl on the long pattern today. We bowled for an hour or so and then took a break for lunch as they re-dressed the lanes. After lunch we had another competition against the women. After our first game we took a break to discuss how the lanes were playing and what we were seeing. We then bowled the other two games working on getting soft with the ball speed to allow the ball to read the proper break point. We ended up beating the women tonight and they once again had to carry our dinner trays. I can thank Tina tonight. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and tonight the men's team has a bonding session where we all will learn more about each other. This week has gone by pretty fast and I can't believe tomorrow is our last day. March 8, 2007 This morning we again had a classroom discussion. We discussed the shot cycle with Gordon Vadakin. It was very interesting; everything tied in with the pre-shot routine we discussed earlier in the week. I have not worked with any coaches about the shot cycle, so that was refreshing and gave me new things to work on. After the classroom we headed to the bowling center again to practice on the short pattern. Most of us have drilled urethane bowling balls because they give us a better and more consistent reaction on the shorter pattern with less volume. Once I got close enough to the gutter and stopped going left to right with the shot, my reaction was much better. It is hard training the eye to see the ball path a urethane ball makes versus a reactive ball. I grew up on urethane, but that was before I really started to learn how to bowl. At the end of the practice session we had a competition against the women. Each bowler rolled two games and the team with the highest average (because we were down one player) won. The loser had to carry the dinner trays for the winning team tonight after dinner. I don't know what the final score was, but the guys won, so the ladies had to carry our dinner trays when we were done eating. Thanks, Lynda. After dinner we had a classroom discussion about lane conditions. Team USA's own John Janawicz gave the presentation. Since John works for Kegel and has applied lane conditions all over the world, he decided to share his knowledge of oil patterns and what to look for when bowling tournaments and studying the lane condition being used. That's all for today, now it's time for bed. March 7, 2007 This morning we had a short classroom gathering before our photo session. We went to the aquatic center in a small room to take our individual head shots. We then headed outside for the team photos. It was pretty sunny out, so it was hard not to squint. After photos we headed to the bowling center to work on more drills and get action shots taken while we bowl. It was a shorter day on the lanes, but we got a lot accomplished. We then headed back to the training center for dinner and a classroom session. Tonight we discussed equipment for long and short oil patterns. In recent years, all the patterns used in international events are short and long with lower volumes. So we discussed what we use and what has worked for the team in the past. Tonight will be a late night as we head over to a different bowling center to bowl against the Colorado Springs All-Star team starting at 9:30 p.m. March 6, 2007 Today we had an early classroom session with Fred Borden and Gordon Vadakin speaking to us. Fred discussed our master plan and practice plan. The master plan was about our physical game, lane play, bowling balls, mind and body. The practice plan dealt with angles, equipment, changing speeds and rotation and loft. Gordon discussed our pre-shot routine and how important it is to our success. We then headed to the lanes and did some drills working on changing ball speed, loft and rotation. The patterns we bowled on were short and long and tapes were put on the lane from the foul line to about 40 feet down the lane. We had to lay the ball down and keep it between the tapes and hit the pocket side of the headpin for any shot to count. It was a pretty challenging drill; I definitely had to use loft and different releases on the different lanes. When I was finished the drills I sat down with Gordon and talked more about the pre-shot routine and the importance of it. It was very informative and it is something I sometimes do, and need to do all the time. I just finished eating dinner with the team and tonight we have a classroom discussion with USBC Technical Director Neil Stremmel about lane surfaces and oils and how they affect ball motion. March 5, 2007 After competing in the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev., I caught a flight to Colorado Springs, Colo., for USBC Team USA Training camp for the week. It was a tight connection but I made it to Colorado Springs Monday night. The training camp at Colorado Springs is the Olympic training facility where most of the Olympic athletes train in there respective sports. Some athletes even live here for months at a time. We are sharing a floor with the archery team in our dorm. Tonight we bowled the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev. We had the 11:40 a.m. squad and I planned on starting where I ended in team event with the same ball. But the lanes were a bit drier and I started four boards left with the T-Road Pearl. In the third frame I switched balls to the Shift because I didn't like how early the T-Road Pearl was hooking. This turned out to be a good decision. I shot 226 the first game with a few taps. The next game I found a way to carry and was fortunate enough to bowl 300. It was exciting, something I never thought I would do at nationals. My partner and I were about 160 over and had a go another 100 over to take the lead. We both started striking and in the 7th frame I knew we had a chance to take the lead. My partner, Rick Volhard, shot 278 and doubled in the 10th. Now I knew I had to double for 228 and to take the lead in doubles. I threw three really good shots and carried for Rick and me to take the lead. The next game we moved a pair to the right and I moved three boards left and left a Big 4. So I moved another three boards and finally found a good reaction, still using the Shift. I shot 192, 246, 240 for a 678 in singles and a 2,075 for All-Events. March 4, 2007 Today I bowled the team event at the Open Championships at the beautiful National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I go with a group of college friends that I bowled with at Nebraska. It's really good to see all the guys as I only get to see some of them once a year. We bowled the team event at 8:30 pm. I heard the lanes were pretty tight from other people that have already bowled and from looking at the graph the shape of the pattern looked similar to last year, except there was more oil this year. In practice it took me a few shots to get loose and find a reaction. I had a few opens the first game for 197, not a bad start, but could have been better. I made a ball change from a Pearl Thunderstruck to a T-Road Pearl to start the second game and I had a much better reaction. I shot 215 with a few bad shots. The last game I moved in a little as the lanes started to break down and shot 231. Our team shot 3,050.
March 12, 2007
Saturday is our last day here as everyone departs tomorrow. This morning David Garber led our last classroom session. He wanted everyone to know who he is and what he does. For those of you who do not know, David is the new High Performance Director for USBC Team USA. Basically he is the director of Team USA.
After class we were headed to Kingpin Lanes for a Pro-Am. It was a pretty special pro-am as it was for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There was a young girl there whose wish was to go to Disneyland. So this event raised money for the foundation. It was fun and great to interact with all the kids and adults who were bowling with us.
After the pro-am we headed to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. They gave us enough food for a small army. It was really good, but wow, was it a lot of food.
After dinner we headed back to the training center. We had one last meeting and it was the Freddie Awards. The Freddie Awards go to all team members, recognizing something each of us did all week at camp. We all had a good time with the awards. I can't remember the exact title of my award, but it had something to do with smoothies. In the cafeteria they had a smoothie bar, so I made myself a smoothie for every meal of the day. As the week went on it was a running joke about me making smoothies all the time, so my Freddie award was for making smoothies for every meal.
The week has drawn to a close. It was a very busy and fun week. I learned a lot of great information and I look forward to putting it all to use. Now it is time for bed as I have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight.
March 9, 2007
We started the day in the classroom and had the pleasure of listening to a certified strength and conditioning specialist who works with all the Olympic athletes here at the training center. He discussed what he does and how strength, conditioning and nutrition can help athletes. It was very informative and I need to make a strength plan for myself.
After class we headed to the bowling center to bowl on the long pattern today. We bowled for an hour or so and then took a break for lunch as they re-dressed the lanes. After lunch we had another competition against the women. After our first game we took a break to discuss how the lanes were playing and what we were seeing. We then bowled the other two games working on getting soft with the ball speed to allow the ball to read the proper break point. We ended up beating the women tonight and they once again had to carry our dinner trays. I can thank Tina tonight.
We then headed back to the training center for dinner and tonight the men's team has a bonding session where we all will learn more about each other.
This week has gone by pretty fast and I can't believe tomorrow is our last day.
March 8, 2007
This morning we again had a classroom discussion. We discussed the shot cycle with Gordon Vadakin. It was very interesting; everything tied in with the pre-shot routine we discussed earlier in the week. I have not worked with any coaches about the shot cycle, so that was refreshing and gave me new things to work on.
After the classroom we headed to the bowling center again to practice on the short pattern. Most of us have drilled urethane bowling balls because they give us a better and more consistent reaction on the shorter pattern with less volume. Once I got close enough to the gutter and stopped going left to right with the shot, my reaction was much better. It is hard training the eye to see the ball path a urethane ball makes versus a reactive ball. I grew up on urethane, but that was before I really started to learn how to bowl.
At the end of the practice session we had a competition against the women. Each bowler rolled two games and the team with the highest average (because we were down one player) won. The loser had to carry the dinner trays for the winning team tonight after dinner. I don't know what the final score was, but the guys won, so the ladies had to carry our dinner trays when we were done eating. Thanks, Lynda.
After dinner we had a classroom discussion about lane conditions. Team USA's own John Janawicz gave the presentation. Since John works for Kegel and has applied lane conditions all over the world, he decided to share his knowledge of oil patterns and what to look for when bowling tournaments and studying the lane condition being used.
That's all for today, now it's time for bed.
March 7, 2007
This morning we had a short classroom gathering before our photo session. We went to the aquatic center in a small room to take our individual head shots. We then headed outside for the team photos. It was pretty sunny out, so it was hard not to squint.
After photos we headed to the bowling center to work on more drills and get action shots taken while we bowl. It was a shorter day on the lanes, but we got a lot accomplished.
We then headed back to the training center for dinner and a classroom session. Tonight we discussed equipment for long and short oil patterns. In recent years, all the patterns used in international events are short and long with lower volumes. So we discussed what we use and what has worked for the team in the past.
Tonight will be a late night as we head over to a different bowling center to bowl against the Colorado Springs All-Star team starting at 9:30 p.m.
March 6, 2007
Today we had an early classroom session with Fred Borden and Gordon Vadakin speaking to us. Fred discussed our master plan and practice plan. The master plan was about our physical game, lane play, bowling balls, mind and body. The practice plan dealt with angles, equipment, changing speeds and rotation and loft. Gordon discussed our pre-shot routine and how important it is to our success.
We then headed to the lanes and did some drills working on changing ball speed, loft and rotation. The patterns we bowled on were short and long and tapes were put on the lane from the foul line to about 40 feet down the lane. We had to lay the ball down and keep it between the tapes and hit the pocket side of the headpin for any shot to count. It was a pretty challenging drill; I definitely had to use loft and different releases on the different lanes.
When I was finished the drills I sat down with Gordon and talked more about the pre-shot routine and the importance of it. It was very informative and it is something I sometimes do, and need to do all the time.
I just finished eating dinner with the team and tonight we have a classroom discussion with USBC Technical Director Neil Stremmel about lane surfaces and oils and how they affect ball motion.
March 5, 2007
After competing in the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev., I caught a flight to Colorado Springs, Colo., for USBC Team USA Training camp for the week. It was a tight connection but I made it to Colorado Springs Monday night. The training camp at Colorado Springs is the Olympic training facility where most of the Olympic athletes train in there respective sports. Some athletes even live here for months at a time. We are sharing a floor with the archery team in our dorm.
Tonight we bowled the Doubles and Singles events at the USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev. We had the 11:40 a.m. squad and I planned on starting where I ended in team event with the same ball. But the lanes were a bit drier and I started four boards left with the T-Road Pearl. In the third frame I switched balls to the Shift because I didn't like how early the T-Road Pearl was hooking.
This turned out to be a good decision. I shot 226 the first game with a few taps. The next game I found a way to carry and was fortunate enough to bowl 300. It was exciting, something I never thought I would do at nationals. My partner and I were about 160 over and had a go another 100 over to take the lead. We both started striking and in the 7th frame I knew we had a chance to take the lead. My partner, Rick Volhard, shot 278 and doubled in the 10th. Now I knew I had to double for 228 and to take the lead in doubles. I threw three really good shots and carried for Rick and me to take the lead.
The next game we moved a pair to the right and I moved three boards left and left a Big 4. So I moved another three boards and finally found a good reaction, still using the Shift. I shot 192, 246, 240 for a 678 in singles and a 2,075 for All-Events.
March 4, 2007
Today I bowled the team event at the Open Championships at the beautiful National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I go with a group of college friends that I bowled with at Nebraska. It's really good to see all the guys as I only get to see some of them once a year.
We bowled the team event at 8:30 pm. I heard the lanes were pretty tight from other people that have already bowled and from looking at the graph the shape of the pattern looked similar to last year, except there was more oil this year. In practice it took me a few shots to get loose and find a reaction. I had a few opens the first game for 197, not a bad start, but could have been better. I made a ball change from a Pearl Thunderstruck to a T-Road Pearl to start the second game and I had a much better reaction. I shot 215 with a few bad shots. The last game I moved in a little as the lanes started to break down and shot 231. Our team shot 3,050.
February16-17, 2007
February 17, 2007 Today we finished the first event for Team USA 2007. It was a unique event because we competed against each other. Two men and two women will represent the United States in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, later in the year at the Pan American games. For those of you who do not know, the Pan America games are a big deal for bowling - the closest thing bowling has to the Olympics. The Pan Am games are a continental version of the Olympic Games. To learn more about the Pan Am games, visit http://www.cob.org.br/pan2007/ingles/jogos_historico.asp. The four people chosen to represent the USA in the Pan Am games were based on a point system from major tournaments throughout the 2006 calendar year, this past Team USA Trials and the Pan Am team trials held from Feb. 15-18 in Milwaukee. Today we came back and bowled six games instead of five because we moved to the USBC Specifications and Certification facility here in Greendale, Wis., to conclude the tournament. The test facility has eight lanes with seven different surfaces and both wood and synthetic approaches. The coaches decided it would be best to bowl six games instead of five so everyone would bowl on every pair we used twice. We were not using lanes 5 and 6 because they had Lane Shield and Guardian surfaces. The oil pattern today was the World Youth Championships long pattern. It was 42 feet with 19.44 milliliters of oil. I started on 7 and 8 which were both Pro Anvilane surfaces with lane 7 having a wood approach and lane 8 with a synthetic approach. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track area. I had a really good reaction and other than a bad shot in the ninth frame for an open I shot 240. I then moved to lanes 3 and 4. Both had the same synthetic approach but lane 3 was a wood with 100 percent Solid Top coat and lane 4 was wood with a double urethane finish. I knew this pair would hook more being wood so I moved five boards left and left a 3-10 split to start the game on lane 4. On lane 3, I moved another three boards left and went light flush for a strike. I went back to lane 4 and it appeared to hook more than 3 so I moved another two boards left from lane 3 and went flush. Lane three was definitely tighter, but I had lane 4 hooking about ten more boards than 7 and 8 and lane 3 two boards tighter than lane 4. I ended up shooting 215 and was pleased with that score. I then went to lanes 1 and 2 which had the same approach as 3 and 4 but lane 1 was HPL and lane 2 was wood with a urethane top coat. I knew lane 1 would be tighter, so I moved four boards back to the right and still went light for a 2-4-5. On lane 2 I decided not to move off my adjustment from lane 1 and it worked, I went flush. I went back to lane 1 and moved another three boards to the right and the ball barely got back to go light flush. I ended up shooting 224, but lane 1 was the tightest lane in the building. The back end was so tight I even left a 5-pin, something I have not done in a long time. In game 5 I had to switch to my Thunderstruck pearl as the lanes started to break down and my Special Agent was hooking too early. I just chased the pattern left and tried to remember what each lane was doing and I ended up going plus 207 for the six games to lead on that pattern. I ended up finishing second for the weekend and seventh overall. I didn't have many points coming into the weekend because of my lower finish at the Team USA trials which comprised 40 percent of the point total, so that hurt my chances of finishing in the top two. The top two men were Rhino Page and Cassidy Schaub. Joining them will be Diandra Asbaty and Tennelle Milligan for the women. That group sounds like plenty of gold medals to me. I wish them the best of luck and I know they will represent the U.S. well. For complete results please visit the following link. http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments/PanAm/panamRankMens.pdf February 16, 2007 The first day of competition today we bowled 15 games, five games on three different patterns. The first pattern was 44 feet long with 21.88 milliliters. This pattern was the 2006 World Ranking Masters long pattern in Kuwait. The scoring pace was pretty high for this pattern. I attacked it like the Shark pattern on the Denny's PBA Tour and the PBA Experience (you had to play inside), but I used a pearl ball to get the ball through the heads easier because of the lower oil volume. I started with a Shift and then switched to a Thunderstruck Pearl and just chased the pattern left. I finished fourth on this pattern at plus 143. After lunch we bowled on a slightly revised version of the USBC Masters pattern, 39 feet long with about 27 milliliters of oil. This pattern was tricky because the gutter did not play very well and there was a lot of out of bounds to the right if you played inside. I started playing the track area and used the Shift the first game. This turned out to be the wrong line. After shooting 176 the first game I decided to move farther left and switch to my pearl Thunderstruck. This ball allowed me to clear the front of the lane and give me a little hold. After shooting 230-plus the next three games and finishing with a 200 game, I was plus 89, good for third on that pattern. The last pattern today was the short one. This pattern was 34 feet long with only 19.48 milliliters and was the 2006 World Ranking Master Kuwait short pattern. Needless to say you had to play right. I am normally hit or miss on short patterns, so I decided to try some different layouts for shorter patterns. I drilled an Agent with the pin in my track for some length and I also drilled a solid Jolt with the pin two inches from my axis so I could try and eliminate the over/under reaction I normally get. I used the Jolt and it worked great. I could square up more to the gutter instead of having to move left and throw it at the gutter. The first game I opened in the 10th frame for 196. Then I shot a 250 game and back to back 230s. The last game I had to bowl on the pair I started on and shot 170, that pair was not much fun. I ended up at 95 over and fourth on that pattern.
February 17, 2007
Today we finished the first event for Team USA 2007. It was a unique event because we competed against each other. Two men and two women will represent the United States in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, later in the year at the Pan American games. For those of you who do not know, the Pan America games are a big deal for bowling - the closest thing bowling has to the Olympics. The Pan Am games are a continental version of the Olympic Games. To learn more about the Pan Am games, visit http://www.cob.org.br/pan2007/ingles/jogos_historico.asp.
The four people chosen to represent the USA in the Pan Am games were based on a point system from major tournaments throughout the 2006 calendar year, this past Team USA Trials and the Pan Am team trials held from Feb. 15-18 in Milwaukee.
Today we came back and bowled six games instead of five because we moved to the USBC Specifications and Certification facility here in Greendale, Wis., to conclude the tournament. The test facility has eight lanes with seven different surfaces and both wood and synthetic approaches. The coaches decided it would be best to bowl six games instead of five so everyone would bowl on every pair we used twice. We were not using lanes 5 and 6 because they had Lane Shield and Guardian surfaces.
The oil pattern today was the World Youth Championships long pattern. It was 42 feet with 19.44 milliliters of oil. I started on 7 and 8 which were both Pro Anvilane surfaces with lane 7 having a wood approach and lane 8 with a synthetic approach. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track area. I had a really good reaction and other than a bad shot in the ninth frame for an open I shot 240. I then moved to lanes 3 and 4. Both had the same synthetic approach but lane 3 was a wood with 100 percent Solid Top coat and lane 4 was wood with a double urethane finish. I knew this pair would hook more being wood so I moved five boards left and left a 3-10 split to start the game on lane 4. On lane 3, I moved another three boards left and went light flush for a strike. I went back to lane 4 and it appeared to hook more than 3 so I moved another two boards left from lane 3 and went flush.
Lane three was definitely tighter, but I had lane 4 hooking about ten more boards than 7 and 8 and lane 3 two boards tighter than lane 4. I ended up shooting 215 and was pleased with that score. I then went to lanes 1 and 2 which had the same approach as 3 and 4 but lane 1 was HPL and lane 2 was wood with a urethane top coat. I knew lane 1 would be tighter, so I moved four boards back to the right and still went light for a 2-4-5. On lane 2 I decided not to move off my adjustment from lane 1 and it worked, I went flush. I went back to lane 1 and moved another three boards to the right and the ball barely got back to go light flush. I ended up shooting 224, but lane 1 was the tightest lane in the building. The back end was so tight I even left a 5-pin, something I have not done in a long time. In game 5 I had to switch to my Thunderstruck pearl as the lanes started to break down and my Special Agent was hooking too early. I just chased the pattern left and tried to remember what each lane was doing and I ended up going plus 207 for the six games to lead on that pattern.
I ended up finishing second for the weekend and seventh overall. I didn't have many points coming into the weekend because of my lower finish at the Team USA trials which comprised 40 percent of the point total, so that hurt my chances of finishing in the top two. The top two men were Rhino Page and Cassidy Schaub. Joining them will be Diandra Asbaty and Tennelle Milligan for the women. That group sounds like plenty of gold medals to me. I wish them the best of luck and I know they will represent the U.S. well. For complete results please visit the following link. http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments/PanAm/panamRankMens.pdf
February 16, 2007
The first day of competition today we bowled 15 games, five games on three different patterns. The first pattern was 44 feet long with 21.88 milliliters. This pattern was the 2006 World Ranking Masters long pattern in Kuwait. The scoring pace was pretty high for this pattern. I attacked it like the Shark pattern on the Denny's PBA Tour and the PBA Experience (you had to play inside), but I used a pearl ball to get the ball through the heads easier because of the lower oil volume. I started with a Shift and then switched to a Thunderstruck Pearl and just chased the pattern left. I finished fourth on this pattern at plus 143.
After lunch we bowled on a slightly revised version of the USBC Masters pattern, 39 feet long with about 27 milliliters of oil. This pattern was tricky because the gutter did not play very well and there was a lot of out of bounds to the right if you played inside. I started playing the track area and used the Shift the first game. This turned out to be the wrong line. After shooting 176 the first game I decided to move farther left and switch to my pearl Thunderstruck. This ball allowed me to clear the front of the lane and give me a little hold. After shooting 230-plus the next three games and finishing with a 200 game, I was plus 89, good for third on that pattern.
The last pattern today was the short one. This pattern was 34 feet long with only 19.48 milliliters and was the 2006 World Ranking Master Kuwait short pattern. Needless to say you had to play right. I am normally hit or miss on short patterns, so I decided to try some different layouts for shorter patterns. I drilled an Agent with the pin in my track for some length and I also drilled a solid Jolt with the pin two inches from my axis so I could try and eliminate the over/under reaction I normally get. I used the Jolt and it worked great. I could square up more to the gutter instead of having to move left and throw it at the gutter. The first game I opened in the 10th frame for 196. Then I shot a 250 game and back to back 230s. The last game I had to bowl on the pair I started on and shot 170, that pair was not much fun. I ended up at 95 over and fourth on that pattern.
January 10... later
Now everything was out of my control. I decided to leave the stadium, get lunch and rest for a bit before going back over and watching the women finish. Once the women were done bowling it was time to sit and wait. To ease my nerves about being selected, my dad and I went to the sports bar in the stadium and played ping pong. After beating up on my dad in ping pong, it was time to see who was going to represent the U.S. on USBC Team USA 2007. I sat in the back of the room, anxiously awaiting the selections. They announced the men and women who bowled their way onto the team first and then went into the selections. They were down to the last person to be selected and, fortunately for me, my name was called. I really could not believe it at first, but I was excited. I want to congratulate David O’Sullivan and Lynda Barnes for winning national amateur titles. They both bowled great all week. It should be an exciting year and I very much look forward to it. A big thank you goes out to everyone who supported me while I was in Reno bowling. Until next time, bowl well.
Now everything was out of my control. I decided to leave the stadium, get lunch and rest for a bit before going back over and watching the women finish. Once the women were done bowling it was time to sit and wait. To ease my nerves about being selected, my dad and I went to the sports bar in the stadium and played ping pong. After beating up on my dad in ping pong, it was time to see who was going to represent the U.S. on USBC Team USA 2007.
I sat in the back of the room, anxiously awaiting the selections. They announced the men and women who bowled their way onto the team first and then went into the selections. They were down to the last person to be selected and, fortunately for me, my name was called. I really could not believe it at first, but I was excited.
I want to congratulate David O’Sullivan and Lynda Barnes for winning national amateur titles. They both bowled great all week. It should be an exciting year and I very much look forward to it. A big thank you goes out to everyone who supported me while I was in Reno bowling.
Until next time, bowl well.
January 10, 2007
The last day of qualifying we bowled on the USBC Masters pattern and I had a lot of pins to make up. I did bowl the Masters this year in Milwaukee, so I had an idea of what I was going to see. Obviously with a different surface at the National Bowling Stadium, the pattern will play different. I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track and had a really good reaction. I shot 276 with a bad shot in the middle of the game. The next three games I slowly lost my reaction; I could not believe how fast the pattern carried down. I tried switching to my more aggressive Thunderstruck and my Domination. After a couple of bad games trying to find a reaction, I decided to move in and slow my ball speed down with the Domination. I found a pretty good reaction and realized I needed to bowl some big games and wanted to at least get into the top 15. After a 235 and 214, I was confident I could bowl some big games moving down to the low end of the stadium. With only four games left I decided to leave it all on the table. I threw the ball well and made some good adjustments to bowl back to back 267 games. I was very confident in my ball reaction, until I threw a shot on 29-30. In the first frame I left a 2-8-10. So I moved right and went light flush for a strike in the second. Then, I left another 2-8-10. I was looking at 30 in the third and bowling on a much tighter pair. I moved right but could not get the 10 pin out and started to bowl tight knowing I needed to start striking. In the 10th frame after already moving six boards right, I decided to move back one board to the left and slow my ball speed down and trust that it would get back. I threw three good shots and struck out for 179. With one game to go I wasn’t sure if I should stay in the same part of the lane or move left and play this pair like every other pair other than 29-30. I decided to move a couple boards left. It was a good decision. I hit the pocket every shot, leaving three 10 pins and doubling in the 10th for 247. This put me in decent position to finish in the top 15. There were still a lot of bowlers that could pass me, but I knew I would finish anywhere from 10th to 20th. I didn’t watch any of the last bowlers finish because it was out of my control and I bowled the best I could today. It turns out that I finished 13th.
The last day of qualifying we bowled on the USBC Masters pattern and I had a lot of pins to make up. I did bowl the Masters this year in Milwaukee, so I had an idea of what I was going to see. Obviously with a different surface at the National Bowling Stadium, the pattern will play different.
I started using a Special Agent playing a little left of the track and had a really good reaction. I shot 276 with a bad shot in the middle of the game. The next three games I slowly lost my reaction; I could not believe how fast the pattern carried down. I tried switching to my more aggressive Thunderstruck and my Domination. After a couple of bad games trying to find a reaction, I decided to move in and slow my ball speed down with the Domination.
I found a pretty good reaction and realized I needed to bowl some big games and wanted to at least get into the top 15. After a 235 and 214, I was confident I could bowl some big games moving down to the low end of the stadium. With only four games left I decided to leave it all on the table.
I threw the ball well and made some good adjustments to bowl back to back 267 games. I was very confident in my ball reaction, until I threw a shot on 29-30. In the first frame I left a 2-8-10. So I moved right and went light flush for a strike in the second. Then, I left another 2-8-10. I was looking at 30 in the third and bowling on a much tighter pair. I moved right but could not get the 10 pin out and started to bowl tight knowing I needed to start striking.
In the 10th frame after already moving six boards right, I decided to move back one board to the left and slow my ball speed down and trust that it would get back. I threw three good shots and struck out for 179.
With one game to go I wasn’t sure if I should stay in the same part of the lane or move left and play this pair like every other pair other than 29-30. I decided to move a couple boards left. It was a good decision.
I hit the pocket every shot, leaving three 10 pins and doubling in the 10th for 247. This put me in decent position to finish in the top 15. There were still a lot of bowlers that could pass me, but I knew I would finish anywhere from 10th to 20th. I didn’t watch any of the last bowlers finish because it was out of my control and I bowled the best I could today. It turns out that I finished 13th.
January 9, 2007
Tuesday we bowled early on the Shark pattern. This has been the toughest scoring pattern on the Denny’s PBA Tour this year, and I didn’t expect it to play any different. It was tighter than the practice session, but you had to play inside with an aggressive ball. I started with a Special Agent and was waiting for the pattern to open up a little. Once the pattern did open up I switched to a solid Thunderstruck and used that until the last game, when I went back to the Special Agent. I just kept moving left as the lanes broke down and had a decent reaction. I went 108 over and this put me in position to make a run Wednesday on the Cheetah pattern. The Cheetah is not my favorite pattern, but it was on the schedule and we bowled on it for Day 3. I knew the scores were going to be high and then the women bowled early and the scores were really high. I started with a Double Agent and had a decent reaction. I was trying to grind it out until the lanes carried down and then I thought I could start to strike. The one major problem I had was getting my ball to enter the pocket at the correct angle. I could get there, I just could not strike as much as everyone else. I had an over/under reaction with most of my bowling balls so I kept using the Double Agent working on my speed to control my entry angle to the pocket. Nothing really seemed to work, and as the lanes broke down my reaction got worse. I think I left some variation of the 2-10 every game. I just could not get my ball to read the pattern properly to face the pocket the correct way. Later on in the block I did switch to a Thunderstruck (a second one, not the same one I used on the Shark pattern) and had a good reaction but still had some over/under. I felt like I bowled OK, but just bowling OK on the Cheetah pattern means you lose a couple of hundred pins to the field. I went 79 over and lost a lot of pins to the field.
Tuesday we bowled early on the Shark pattern. This has been the toughest scoring pattern on the Denny’s PBA Tour this year, and I didn’t expect it to play any different. It was tighter than the practice session, but you had to play inside with an aggressive ball. I started with a Special Agent and was waiting for the pattern to open up a little.
Once the pattern did open up I switched to a solid Thunderstruck and used that until the last game, when I went back to the Special Agent. I just kept moving left as the lanes broke down and had a decent reaction. I went 108 over and this put me in position to make a run Wednesday on the Cheetah pattern.
The Cheetah is not my favorite pattern, but it was on the schedule and we bowled on it for Day 3. I knew the scores were going to be high and then the women bowled early and the scores were really high.
I started with a Double Agent and had a decent reaction. I was trying to grind it out until the lanes carried down and then I thought I could start to strike. The one major problem I had was getting my ball to enter the pocket at the correct angle. I could get there, I just could not strike as much as everyone else. I had an over/under reaction with most of my bowling balls so I kept using the Double Agent working on my speed to control my entry angle to the pocket.
Nothing really seemed to work, and as the lanes broke down my reaction got worse. I think I left some variation of the 2-10 every game. I just could not get my ball to read the pattern properly to face the pocket the correct way. Later on in the block I did switch to a Thunderstruck (a second one, not the same one I used on the Shark pattern) and had a good reaction but still had some over/under. I felt like I bowled OK, but just bowling OK on the Cheetah pattern means you lose a couple of hundred pins to the field. I went 79 over and lost a lot of pins to the field.
January 8, 2007
On Monday the women bowled early, the guys late. I slept in and had lunch, then went to the bowling center ready to bowl on the modified Viper pattern. In practice I still could not get comfortable with what I was seeing and what the lane was giving me. You had to play right but you could not just throw it at the gutter. I started with a Double Agent (trying to go right up first arrow) because this ball burned off all its energy early and controlled the back of the lane for me. Once the lanes carried down I was lost for a couple of games. I threw everything from a Ragin Banshee to a solid Thunderstruck and T-Road Pearl. I ended up moving farther right with a pearl Thunderstruck. My reaction still wasn’t great and I was bowling tight; I could not get loose and make good shots. The last game I had 70 in the fifth frame and decided to move left and use a Paradigm Domination. I ended up striking to the 10th frame to pull out a 212 game and get to 52 under. This was definitely not how I wanted to start the tournament.
On Monday the women bowled early, the guys late. I slept in and had lunch, then went to the bowling center ready to bowl on the modified Viper pattern.
In practice I still could not get comfortable with what I was seeing and what the lane was giving me. You had to play right but you could not just throw it at the gutter. I started with a Double Agent (trying to go right up first arrow) because this ball burned off all its energy early and controlled the back of the lane for me. Once the lanes carried down I was lost for a couple of games. I threw everything from a Ragin Banshee to a solid Thunderstruck and T-Road Pearl. I ended up moving farther right with a pearl Thunderstruck.
My reaction still wasn’t great and I was bowling tight; I could not get loose and make good shots. The last game I had 70 in the fifth frame and decided to move left and use a Paradigm Domination. I ended up striking to the 10th frame to pull out a 212 game and get to 52 under. This was definitely not how I wanted to start the tournament.
January 7, 2007
Sunday night was the practice session; they put out all four oil patterns for a 90-minute session. I had a good idea how the Shark and Masters pattern would play so I focused most of my attention on the two short patterns, the Cheetah and modified Viper (they shortened the Viper from 37 feet to 34 feet). I didn’t like my look on either of the short patterns. I could not get the ball to come off the outside boards the way I wanted it to, so I was forced farther left. I threw some shots on the Shark and Masters patterns and was pretty comfortable with what I saw. I also worked on my swing with Storm’s PBA Tour rep Chris Schlemmer. I have been having some problems recently hitting up on shots way too often, so I want to thank him for his help. Never under estimate the value of good coaching.
January 6, 2007
As many of you know, the 2007 USBC Team USA Trials were held Jan. 6-12 at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I was there competing on four tough USBC Sport Bowling lane oil patterns for 40 games to earn a spot on Team USA 2007. I arrived Saturday afternoon with no real plans other than to go check in and just kind of relax. There was a sweeper, but I decided bowling 40 games plus practice and the practice session was enough bowling for me. I didn’t want to wear myself out before the actual tournament started. Sunday I got up early to watch the PBA telecast live. The pros were in Reno the week prior. What a great show with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Jason Couch and Patrick Allen. Congratulations to Patrick Allen for defeating Walter Ray in the title match. After the live telecast I went back to my room and waited for my parents to arrive from Seattle.
As many of you know, the 2007 USBC Team USA Trials were held Jan. 6-12 at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev. I was there competing on four tough USBC Sport Bowling lane oil patterns for 40 games to earn a spot on Team USA 2007.
I arrived Saturday afternoon with no real plans other than to go check in and just kind of relax. There was a sweeper, but I decided bowling 40 games plus practice and the practice session was enough bowling for me. I didn’t want to wear myself out before the actual tournament started.
Sunday I got up early to watch the PBA telecast live. The pros were in Reno the week prior. What a great show with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Jason Couch and Patrick Allen. Congratulations to Patrick Allen for defeating Walter Ray in the title match. After the live telecast I went back to my room and waited for my parents to arrive from Seattle.
Nov. 1, 2006
Hopefully everyone had a great summer and is ready to lace up the shoes for another great season. This year started off with a bang, with the first stop on the Professional Bowlers Association tour being The USBC Masters, one of the PBA's four "major" tournaments. As many of you know, the USBC Masters is conducted on a Sport Bowling compliant lane oil pattern. This year, however, the majors will not be the only Sport Bowling compliant patterns used on the PBA Tour. Hopefully many of you watched the Masters show this past Sunday and heard about the "big secret." If you did not see the ESPN finals, the announcement was that Sport Bowling is partnering with the PBA. Starting Jan. 1, the Sport Bowling program will be promoting PBA Experience leagues that will allow bowlers to compete on the same patterns as the professionals. You may have heard of the five PBA patterns, which are known by animal names: Cheetah, Chameleon, Scorpion, Shark and Viper. This is an exciting opportunity for both the PBA and the Sport bowling program. In what other environment can you compete in the same atmosphere as the professionals? You can't hit a Roger Clemens fastball or tee it up at Augusta National under the same conditions the pros golf on. But with the PBA Experience, you can bowl on the exact lane conditions as USBC Sport Bowling spokesperson Chris Barnes, Norm Duke, Patrick Allen, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Pete Weber, Kelly Kulick and all your favorite PBA stars. How exciting! Be sure to watch the telecast Sunday afternoon and then bowl on the same pattern that was used that week. Find out more about the PBA Experience or contact me and I will send you free promotional materials. As I mentioned earlier, the PBA Tour season kicked off with the USBC Masters. With the tournament in Milwaukee for the third straight year, I once again bowled in the event. It was a challenging week for me. I felt like I bowled OK, but I just could not get anything going. The pattern was very challenging and you had to match up well and make good shots. I started on "C" squad so I bowled first on fresh oil. My goal was to just stay clean and wait until the lanes opened up. I started with a pearl Thunderstruck playing out toward the channel. Looking back on it, I probably should have started with my solid Thunderstruck or Diablo. Those balls would have given me an earlier roll, allowing my bad shots to still hit the pocket. So after grinding out the first two games going 30 under, I decided to move in and change balls. I went to a Double Agent with a little shine and moved in to the 17 board at the arrows. I then went from the low end of the center to the high end (the center is split with 24 lanes on the low end) and had a much different reaction. I had to change to a Spit Fire and move a few boards left. I ground out a clean 206 and ended with 209 to get to minus 4. The cut was plus 30 so I knew I had some work to do the following day. On day two of qualifying I got to bowl on "D" squad on the break down condition. I thought I was going to have a good ball reaction based on how I finished the previous day, but my reaction was not as good as I had hoped. I could not use my Spit Fire because the back ends were much tighter and I had trouble getting it to hit. So I started with the pearl Thunderstruck and ended up using my Paradigm Domination to finish the first game and for the next four games. I could not get anything going and bowled nine over to get my total to plus five for the tournament. The cut was plus 35, so I missed by 30 pins. I am disappointed but I did learn a lot and with the help of Storm rep Chris Schlemmer. I now have several things to practice for the next time I see this type of pattern. I would like to congratulate Doug Kent for winning the USBC Masters. He bowled great all week and was fun to watch. I hope everyone enjoys our revamped Sport Bowling section of bowl.com and wants to participate in a PBA Experience league starting in January. Questions about the new leagues? E-mail me.
April 13, 2006
The 2005-06 fall/winter bowling season is almost over. This means a couple of things: that we are registering summer leagues almost on a daily basis and that warm weather will be heading our way here in Wisconsin. Although this hasn't been a bad winter, it will be nice to see some warm weather for a change. I did get to see some warm weather last month when I was in Corpus Christi, Texas, competing in the USBC Open Championships. Read the full story...
March 2, 2006
This past month was great for competitive bowling. We had the so-called "mega-buck" tournaments in Las Vegas and the U.S. Open, a major tournament on the Professional Bowlers Association tour. These tournaments have one thing in common: challenging lane conditions. Let's start with the mega-bucks in Las Vegas. While I could not bowl this past month, I have bowled enough of these events to know what goes on out there. One thing I would like to address is the difference between international and American bowlers. Recently there has been a lot of talk about the international bowlers and who is better, us or them? Every year a handful of international bowlers make the trip to Las Vegas to compete against some of the best amateurs we have to offer. Every year the international bowlers do really well. Is that because they are better than the American bowlers? In my opinion the international bowlers do well for a combination of reasons. First, they are talented athletes. Secondly, they bowl on lane conditions that most Americans consider too difficult. They are not as shocked when they arrive in Vegas and the lanes are not easy. This helps prepare them for tournaments like the mega-bucks and other major events where the lane conditions are challenging. When it comes to lane conditions, it seems that there will be no happy medium for lane conditions. If the conditions are made playable, some people say they are too easy. If the conditions are challenging, others say they are too hard. What people don't understand is that the more you bowl on challenging lane conditions the better bowler you will become. The international bowlers are proof of that. Speaking of challenging lane conditions, did anyone see Tommy Jones win the U.S. Open last week? As I sat at home watching the U.S. Open on TV, I was pleased to see some of the world's best bowlers performing well on the toughest pattern of the year. It was a 40-foot, 1:1 USBC Sport Bowling pattern. Bowlers had to make quality shots and the correct adjustments to score well, something bowling should always be about. If you have never bowled on a flat oil pattern, I recommend at least practicing on it. Not only will it make you better, but it will give you a new appreciation for how good the pros are. The U.S. Open and the USBC Masters are perfect examples of how top bowlers can bowl well on Sport Bowling patterns. There has been a lot of talk about the lanes being too easy for a PBA Major, but when you have the best bowlers on the planet all coming together to bowl at the best of their ability, you are going to have good scores.
January 20, 2006
Greetings fellow USBC Sport Bowling enthusiasts. I hope everyone had a great holiday break. I know I did. Today I will discuss the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships in Reno, Nev. Before I get into that I just want to remind everyone that if you are not currently bowling in any Sport leagues, feel free to start a short-season league today. If you are competing in the USBC Open Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas, or the USBC Women's Open Championships in Reno, Nev., bowling in a Sport league is a great way to prepare for those tournaments. It can be a singles, doubles or team league. Check out the "Unique League Formats" section of the Sport Bowling section of bowl.com to get some ideas about how to run a short-season league. Well, I am back from Reno after bowling the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, the tournament that determines Team USA. I am just going to go through what took place each day. Sunday: Today was registration day, two sweepers and a practice session. I decided not to bowl the sweepers because I knew it was going to be a long week and felt the practice session would be good enough for me to get ready for the tournament. During the practice session, half the house was the short pattern (35 feet) and half the house was the long pattern (42 feet). To clarify, all the patterns used at the tournament were Sport Bowling compliant. The women did bowl on a different pattern, but it was also Sport compliant. The women's pattern was right at a 2:1 oil ration and the men's was about 1.5:1. The first thing I noticed in the practice session was that the short pattern was not hooking nearly as much as I thought it would. It took me a while to get lined up and put the right ball in my hand, but once I did I could hit the pocket a lot. The long pattern was about what I expected, I could use my Trifecta or Paradigm and get to the pocket. Monday: Today was the first day of qualifying on the long pattern. It played pretty close to what I had at the practice session so I was comfortable to start. One thing about the National Bowling Stadium is that from pair to pair, the lanes always seem to play just different enough where you don't have the same ball reaction. Having many bowlers play all over the lane doesn't help either. In my opinion, the women scored higher because they all started out playing the same part of the lane so the lane transitioned properly. When guys are starting anywhere from five to 30, it's anyone's guess how the lanes are going to break down and from pair to pair makes it very difficult to predict what you are going to see. Overall I was pleased with Day one. I used my Trifecta and Fired Up to go 86 pins over and was in 22nd place. Tuesday: Today was the first day on the short pattern. As I mentioned above, the short pattern didn't play anything like a traditional short pattern. Normally you can throw it at the channel on a short pattern and watch it fly back to the pocket. If you did that on this pattern you either missed the head pin right or left a 2-8-10. So you had to square up, but still play out. The fresh condition was very challenging because you didn't have the hook to the right, but since the pattern was short you didn't have any hold either. As the oil carried down, the lanes became much easier as you could see by the scores if you were following along. I used my Ragin' Banshee all eight games and went 203 over for the day and 289 over for the tournament. Wednesday: Today we were back on the long pattern and they were hard. For some reason the lanes seemed to hook earlier, even on the fresh. The first few games I was just trying to get a comfortable reaction and could not find anything. Finally, I moved deep inside and used my Trifecta and had a decent look. It was a day of grinding. I went 43 over to put me at 332 for the tournament and in seventh place heading into match play. I used my Trifecta most of the eight games. Thursday: Today we bowled 16 games (eight on the short and eight on the long) of match play with 20 bonus pins going to the winner of each game. For some reason we also switched sides of the stadium. They have never done this in the past. Normally the men always stay on the high side and the women always stay on the low side. So now the men were on the low end and the women were on the high end. For some reason I had the low end a bit tighter than the high end. I couldn't use my Trifecta because the back of the lane was very tight and I could not get it to recover. So I used the Paradigm and attacked the lanes the same as I had all week on the long pattern. I had a decent look but nothing great. That afternoon we came back and bowled eight more games on the short pattern. The short pattern seemed tighter as well and you could tell as the scores were a lot lower. I could still use my Ragin' Banshee but my look was not as good as Tuesday. I once again went 5-3 but dropped a few spots and ended the day in 10th place. Friday: This was the last day of competition. Sixteen more games today and then Team USA would be announced. We started on the long pattern once again and I was able to use my Trifecta. They were real tight but this time I could square up more and get the Trifecta back to the pocket. I had a pretty good reaction and gained a lot of pins on the field. I climbed my way back into 6th place heading into the final eight games. Today the short pattern was real tight on the gutter, but you could still not square up too much without the ball over-hooking. Since I used my Ragin' for every game so far on the short pattern I thought I could use it again. I was wrong. I had the wonderful 2-10/Big 4 reaction. If I gave it away it never hooked, but once I squared up it hooked at the arrows. So after a horrendous start I changed to my Super Sport Pearl which rolls a little more than my Ragin' and allowed me to play more direct in the oil without leaving a 2-10. After 51 games I was in ninth place and about 100 pins out of fifth place. I knew I needed to make a run and win my matches if I wanted a chance to make the top five. In Game 52 I bowled PJ Haggerty and needed to win as we were both neck-and-neck battling for the fifth spot. I got off to a slow start in the match but had to mark in the 10th to win and gain the extra 20 pins. I struck out for 230 and was getting pretty comfortable with my reaction. The next game I bowled Tony Manna Jr. and started off with a solid 7-10 split. I continued to hit the pocket and pulled out a 225 game to win. I was starting to get closer to the top five and knew I needed to finish strong. I bowled Ivan Miyasato next and shot 227, but it wasn't enough to win. He had to mark in the 10th and made the 3-6-10 to shut me out. These last two games were going to be critical as there were about five people battling for one spot. In Game 55 I bowled Ronnie Sparks Jr. He bowled well on the short pattern the whole tournament so I knew I needed a big game. Other than leaving a solid 7-10 in the second frame I bowled well and figured out how to carry after that hit. I shot 247 to win which put me back in 6th place with one game to go. The last match was position round and it was real close between spots five and 10. I needed to win and not let anyone below me beat me by more than 20 pins. I bowled Ronnie again and I knew I would have to bowl at least 220 to win. The match was close until I opened in the 9th frame. All he had to do was mark in the 10th frame and the fifth spot was his. He struck on the first ball to shut me out. I ended up bowling 201, losing to his 218. After all was said and done I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I ended up finishing seventh and, unfortunately, only the top five finishers are awarded automatic spots on Team USA. They do select three more bowlers, but unfortunately I wasn't one of them. I am disappointed I did not make the team, but I bowled well and there is always next year. I wish the team good luck this year in Korea, may they bring home lots of medals. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the lanes being too easy this past week. I can assure you they were not. I see no problem with the winner averaging 216. When you have 151 of the best amateur bowlers in the country and the cut is a 202 average, I think the conditions were fair. As I mentioned earlier, the oil ratio on the men's side was about 1.5:1. To put this in perspective, the 2005 USBC Masters in Milwaukee was 2:1. I know some people said the pattern at the Masters was too easy. Our intent is to not make the lanes ridiculously hard. Research has shown that with a 2:1 ratio oil pattern your bowling ball will not be steered to the pocket, requiring good shot making to score well. One thing most people don't understand is how good some of these bowlers are, particularly the PBA exempt bowlers. They will find a way to score well (relative to your typical "house" bowler) on any pattern. For those of you who did not bowl and thought the lanes were too easy at the 2006 USBC Team USA Championships, I challenge you to come bowl next year.
November 27, 2005
After the Masters the PBA went to Chicago for the Chicago Classic at Hawthorn Lanes. I wasn't planning on bowling the TQR (Tour Qualifying Round, formerly the PTQ) until the day before the event. I was bowling well at the time and thought, why not? So I drove down that morning to Chicago not really knowing what to expect. It was the Scorpion pattern which is 41 feet. They played pretty tight but not that bad. In practice for the TQR I didn't really have a very good ball reaction. So the first frame I made a guess and pulled the trusty ACE out of my bag and started with the front nine before leaving a 10-pin for 279. That was definitely the start I needed as I proceeded to average 249 for the seven games to become the high amateur and win a spot in the tournament the next day (Thanksgiving day). I spent Turkey Day bowling 14 games of qualifying. It was a very long day. The lanes played tighter than the TQR which allowed me to throw my Trifecta and have a similar look to what I had yesterday. With the lanes being tighter it affected my carry just enough to where I could not throw a big game. So I battled away and averaged about 219 for the 14 games to qualify 25th. For the record, the five traditional PBA patterns are not Sport patterns. Sport Bowling ratios are a maximum of 3:1 depending on the age of the surface and type of lane surface. I don't know the exact ratio of the five PBA patterns, but they are not Sport compliant. I was lucky enough to draw Jason Couch (sense the sarcasm) in the 32 person bracket, arguably the best left hander on tour. I got off to a fast start because his ball reaction wasn't great and mine was similar to the day before. I went up two games to none before disaster hit. I steadily lost my ball reaction and was searching the whole time for something. After losing the next three games by a lot I decided to try one more ball (Fired Up) as I had not thrown it all week or even the week before. I was surprised at how good of a reaction I had with it bowling over 260 the next game to force Game 7. Game 7 started out just like Game 6 ended, except this time Jason was striking right along with me. Going into the 10th frame if he threw the first strike he shuts me out. The way he was throwing the ball I thought for sure he was going to strike. After he left a solid seven pin, I had a chance. I needed to throw all three strikes to win by one pin. I knew if I threw it good I was going to strike out. After throwing the first one, the second one crept a little high for a 4 pin. He won game seven 258-248. It was a good match and great experience for me. By the way, Jason also went on to win the title that week. This past month has been a great experience for me bowling against the best bowlers in the world. I learned a lot about my game and bowling in the Sport Leagues I bowl in has really helped me work on my weaknesses and become a better bowler. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season. My next adventure will be trying out for Team USA at the USBC Team USA Championships in January. Wish me luck!!
November 23, 2005
The month of November was a busy month for me as I bowled the USBC Masters and the PBA Chicago Classic. I started preparing for the USBC Masters in October knowing that it would be contested on a Sport Bowling pattern. The Sport Bowling league I bowl in and local tournaments prepared me for these events. I began by winning a qualifying event to receive a free entry into the Masters. At the qualifying event the lanes were brutal. I started out slow but eventually made a ball change (I had to throw my Tropical Storm as the lanes were really dry) and ended up winning the tournament. Finally the week of the Masters arrived and I was ready to bowl. I bowled in the practice session on Monday to get a feel for how the lanes were going to play. The practice session turned out to really help me as I shot 1,129 the first qualifying block for five games. The next day I bowled on fresh oil for the first time. The lanes were tighter so I just started farther right and threw the same ball (Diablo) as the night before and shot 1,105. This put me in 13th place going into the next five games before they make the cut to match play. I ended up needing all the pins I could get as I really struggled in the semi-final five games. The lanes were much tighter for me and I could not match up all day. The last game I switched to my Vertigo and threw six out of the last seven strikes to end up being the cut number for the top 63. Before match play started I drilled a Trifecta to help me on the fresh. Every time they have oiled, the lanes have gotten tighter and tighter. My Diablo was just not making the corner. In my first match I bowled Ken Muscato and we had a good match that came down to the later frames in game 3. Unfortunately I was not able to stay with him as he beat me 673-663. My next match I bowled another left-hander in Chris Sand. The whole match I was fighting an uphill battle as I never really had a good ball reaction. I ground out a 610 which was not nearly enough as he shot 667. The USBC Masters – conducted on Sport Bowling lane conditions – was a lot of fun. The lanes were challenging but you were rewarded by hitting the pocket when you made a good shot. Bowling in Sport leagues these past couple of years has definitely helped me read the lanes better and make decisions on not only how to attack the lane but what ball to throw.
Feel free to e-mail me (sportbowling@bowl.com) with any questions about USBC Sport Bowling or anything you want me to discuss in my upcoming blogs.
