Local Mixed Tournament

[PSBA10]

I had a wild experience this weekend. My wife, another couple and I participated in our local county mixed tournament. The tournament was held in a remote 10 lane house. This was a serious trip into yesteryear. The house has manual scoring, above lane ball returns and the most interresting feature of this house are the wood lanes with 3/4 inch boards. Talk about culture shock. About 15 years ago I bowled league in this house. The owner is very anal about maintenance. I have been in numerous times for certification inspections. It is always perfect.

Now for the tournament. I have never bowled anywhere that I could not move the ball 5 boards (3/4 inch boards at that). Well I can't say that anymore. This house was 60 feet of oil. We had so many out of range pins that the mechanic was constantly busy resetting them. There were 2 regional pros bowling who didn't break 500, infact one shot a 427. My 519 and 521 actually looked pretty good. The only way I could score was to use my spare ball and point it off the corner. I didn't have many strikes, but I had mostly makable spares. With my scores it's obvious that I missed many. The 3/4 inch boards make targeting next to impossible. My spare shooting system was worthless. All I could do was guess.

Anybody have any other ideas of how I could have played these lanes?

[TN_Valley]

First instinct is that you need a heavy oil ball drilled exclusively for that, or resurface the one that you might already have.

I personally bowl best on scorched lanes, or really broken down patterns. I think I'm a tweener, but much closer to a stroker than a cranker. I throw my strike ball in the high 17 mph range.

Three boards of hook is better than none. If you could point, from the corner, rather successfully, why didn't you use the ball that would give you that little bit of hook to increase your drive potential. Also, since bowling in the PBAX League this summer, I realized that the carry is better if your mark is somewhere around 12 and your break point is around 15 if the lanes are flooded. (See Shark Pattern)

I've also noticed that a wood house is not going to give you as sharp a backend reaction as a standard synthetic house. I know it gets frustrating not being able to strike, then it affecting your spare game. The 3/4" boards would be interesting to see in person, but some simple math should have been able to supply you with where to stand to adjust to that. 1 board extra for every 4 boards moved. 6 1/4 boards vs 5 boards between the arrows.

I had the same kind of issue bowling in the SBA tournament last year. The reason that my lanes were flooded was because they didn't clean the backends when they laid the new condition on the lanes before my squad. Watching the ball hop was an interesting thing to see. ~35 oil ->1 foot clean backend at the end of the pattern where the machine stopped -> 60 games of tournament carrydown. I scraped out a 540 with a few missed spares. Having two breakpoints was a not so easy task. That's why I like to bowl the first squad of the day if I can. I get an unpolluted lane condition.

[hipcheck]

Your bowling experience reminds me of the times I bowled in the Peterson Classic in Chicago during the 60's and 70's. One lane was oiled. I used a bath towel to wipe the ball off because of so much oil. The other lane was dry. My recommendation would be to play off the corner right at the pocket. Release the ball and hope and pray. That's all about you can do. Everyone that entered this yearly tournament was aware of the extreme lane conditions but that was the fun of bowling in this tournament.

[Iceman]

These kind of tournaments should be fun and a great way to see progress - it would focus on accuracy - wish they designed something like that around here.