"Bowling Blind"-The PBA Experience

PBA Xperience-Farmingdale Lanes

I'm bacccccckkkkk....

Yes folks, fellow readers, you thought you had me on summer vacation but I have returned with a notion: a notion to all the bowlers across this great nation (for which I think if 20 people know this blog exists is good enough) to summarize my weekly outings on the PBA Experience at Farmingdale Lanes.

Quick summary on the league: Thursday night, 4 games (two games on one pair, two on the pair to the right), 4 bowlers on each pair, bowling match play against one another, winner in each game gets 3 points, second gets two, third is one point, and last gets zero. For total wood, the format goes 5, 3, 1, 0 to truly reward the overall best bowler for the night in the group. Makes every shot very important as well as getting as many pins as you can. It also makes for interesting dynamic from pair to pair as well. Being left handed, it sometimes is irrelevant because there are fewer lefties or no lefties on your pair and on the pair to the right of you so you have the lanes to yourself. That can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what is transpiring out on the lanes and what pattern it is.

This past week's pattern: Cheetah. As we all know, this pattern brings out the big numbers due it short length and friction zone outside first arrow, maximizing angle from the outside part of the lane and producing wide open pocket strikes. The pros call it 'bumper bowling', the rest of us mere mortals call it, 'the tough pattern on the experience'. Often too many times, I hear a lot of people say that the Cheetah plays nothing like it does when they watch it on TV when they bowl on it. The tricky subject is always what they expect to happen.

Most league bowlers assume that just because there is friction to the right and left, that they an whip it to the gutter and revel in it rebounding back to the pocket for strikes all night. The assumption is wrong based on what I feel are two visual mistakes by most players. First off, we all see the length of the pattern (36 feet) and tell ourselves, 'okay, we gotta throw it hard and fast to the gutter'. A fine theory but what happens if you are hooking it and miss in? Overreaction occurs and your ball goes runaway brook or misses the head pin running away. The natural adjustment is to just throw it further right to the gutter. The only problem with that if you get it to the spot too early, it could either hook too hard or go in the gutter or even worse, never hook at all off it and you are stuck with 2-8-10 all night. The only other visual I can infer is what bowlers throw. Most people go under the assumption that they need a ball that hooks later downlane to combat what is early friction in the heads. Again, this is another big visual misread I feel. The front part of the lane is heavily oiled on most Cheetah patterns and you do need to get the ball started earlier to make the ball roll sooner on the oil, but also mellow out all the backend reaction downlane to make it a smooth look.

The most important thing I feel that is important on the Cheetah is to actually carry down the oil a bit to the right of where I want to play (me being left handed of course) then in the last few shots, get lined up. Ok, enough chit-chat, let's get into scoring.

201-235-208-202=846

Bowling ball used: Columbia 300 U-Turn Pearl/Particle, 1.5 pin, leverage drilling , pin below the fingers. Allows the ball to roll soon and mellow out the backend reaction downlane. The trick of all this though for me was touch. I had a hand position right up the back, fingers spread wide to enable me to get more end-over-end roll to start.

In practice, I took the U-Turn and played around second arrow with little belly at all-just trying to get a feel for the ball path and how much they are hooking, which to say was a LOT!!! About 7 minutes into practice throwing it up 10 my ball went solid 8 and I smiled. I had carried some oil down to where it was time to move left and get on the gutter. And when I mean gutter, I mean the 1-2-3 board and yes I had that kind of room. I also did not have that kind of carry to put up big numbers, but 9, spares at Farmingdale can win most games and sneak in a 3 bagger somewhere to get it over 200 which I did for a solid 201 game. My lone mistake was pulling in the 8th frame leaving a split, but strike, 9, spare, 8 was enough for the win. Game two played great for me shooting 235 with the 10th being an experiment shot resulting in an open. The reason: I had two lefties to follow on the next pair in Darren Andretta and Frank Montgoris and Frank was further right with his laydown point so it was worth getting a few shots before I bowled from a little further right just in case the gutter wasn't there. I also had game two wrapped up early so it was worth a test run which went like this...runaway brook for a 5 pin, then whiffed the 5 pin. Yeah, in wasn't there yet...oh well.

In the second block of games it was evident that the gutter had kinda been beat up by Darren but considering the scoring pace on the right, 200 was needed to win. Nothing too over the top and I figured I could get that out of myself. The last two games were 208 and 202 both wins, and a clean 17 point sweep for the night. I was upset that I flagged a 2 pin (to the right amazingly) and also failed to cover a 2-4-7-8 in the 3rd and 4th game respectively. In retrospect, I probably needed to move a little right and go to a ball with some more angularity downlane in my shiny Wrath High Flush or a Perfect Rival. Had I needed a 220-240 game, that might have been the move to make but it was not necessary in winning all 4 games using the U-Turn which is always a good night to use just one ball. The harsh scoring pace showed in my group: I shot 846 but no one else in my group shot 800...or even 700 for the 4 games. Tony Cipriano was the second high man with 664 and his method of attack was pretty similar to mine. The other two righties (Steve Schnieder and Christ Liotta) fell into the hook trap that kills a lot of amateurs on the Cheetah pattern and when they make the move, they have not set up the lanes well enough to get away with their bad shots. It indirectly killed Tony's look after the first game and he failed to shoot above 190 after the first game.

Overall, it was a good night for me bowling wise (car-wise...not so much) but I know that only two weeks in, the bowlers are still trying to figure out the lanes and the better bowlers are still not bowling against each other every game at this point, but there are a lot of good bowlers in this league and I hope to keep bowling well.

For now, my readers, enjoy your summer and for all kids who watched Luis Castillo drop the potential game ending pop up Friday night...TWO HANDS!!! And for all kids who watched Mark Texieria not take the play for granted and ran it out...RUN IT OUT!!! Enjoy bowling and remember folks: "Strike for show, Spare for dough!"

Namaste...

Next Week: the Scorpion