2014 USBC Open Championship

This will hopefully be the beginning of my posting more often again. I used to try to post once per week; then tried to make sure I posted at least once a month.  Now I don't even necessarily rush to get an 11th-hour post on the last day of the month just to keep that going.

The main reasons for the fewer posts are: 1) I've run out of ideas that take more than a couple of sentences to cover, and 2) I've used Facebook to express my couple-sentence thoughts. 

It's a lot like the songwriting I used to try to do.  When I was younger, I would just write, and even if I felt the writing sucked, I'd just go with it.  It eventually, however, turned into less and less writing because instead of just going with it, I'd wait to write until I had a complete thought to go with.  Those became less and less frequent until I did virtually no more writing.

I don't want blogging to go that route.  So instead of, say, waiting until I have my complete post about technology and hobby sports (bowling, softball, and golf, for example), I'll start the thought here and just go with it.  I won't complete it today, but hopefully will piecemeal it until it's a "finished product."

I had remembered an old newspaper clipping a friend of mine had saved on the sudden increase of sanctioned 300 bowling games.  It was largely due to advances in ball technology, lane technology, and relaxed rules. 

You might think the article was from the early 2000s. It could also be from circa 1992 when reactive equipment became the norm.  Or perhaps you remember the short-oil trend of the late '80s that saw a spike in perfectos. (My first and only sanctioned 300 was from this era.)

In fact, the article was from circa 1983, and when I find the image in my old cell phone, I'll reproduce it on this blog (or have my friend re-send it). The reason at the time was the advent of urethane balls like the original AMF Angle, and I would also guess that lanes, even though still nearly 100% natural wood, were much more consistent with their resurfacing.

So look for that in the near future.  

I also wanted to discuss my 2014 experience at the USBC Open Championship, which was my most successful yet.  Even though scores are up this year, I was quite pleased with my 1857 score in all events. Some of the success came from bowling with bowlers who were more on the same page with regard to how we were playing the lanes.  Part of it was the slightly easier conditions. Part of it was that I truly have become more educated and just better at bowling on a sport shot.

While it was by far my best Open Championship yet, by 153 pins in fact, I have plenty of reason for optimism in future tournaments as well.  I attribute that largely to the education I've received from bowlers like my Pro and old friend, who gave me post-tournament tips in starting out better.  You'll see from my scores that I had poor starts in each of my events, largely due to leaving splits, either of the wash-out type (e.g., a 2-8-10 split), or from going through the nose.

Cashing in every event was very gratifying.  Doing so despite averaging 166.33 in my first games gives me hope for better things to come.  

Here is my final scoresheet:

2013 USBC Open Championship

It's 5:01 AM PDT, and I'm in my room at the Sands Regency in Reno, Nevada, logged in to look at work emails for the bargain price of $12.99.

That's for the WiFi, not the room.  The room was a nice $32 even after taxes, but I only stayed the one night, because the Friday and Saturday night rates were much higher.  So I opted for the cheaper, in every meaning of the word, Motel 6 for the first two nights of my trip.

After getting about 3 hours of low-quality sleep, thinking about having to pack, check out, check in for my flight, and return the rental car, I decided that as long as I'm going to get poor sleep, no sleep can't be much worse, and perhaps I'll get a few productive things done. So I went through my "urgent" work e-mails and other tasks, but not until after reconsidering what items I consider "urgent" from my hotel room at 5:01 on my day off.

I figured I might as well instead blog about the Open Championship bowling tournament I just completed, my third now, and best so far ('though still not quite where I want to be). I will get some money back, although certainly not enough to pay for next year's entry fee again. I just about broke even in the brackets department; a 136 to start doubles kept it from being profitable.

Before I post the scores, here are the top good and bad takeaways from this year:

- I'm getting better at reading lanes.  I just need to do them more quickly.
- I also need to know my equipment better as far as what each ball will do in comparison to each other.
- Spare shooting still needs improvement.  This will be, and I mean it this time (no, really I do), a top priority over the summer and next year.
- Another priority will be to work on hand positions at release.
- As much fun as I had this year, being on a team of ten guys who are all on the same "page" will be a goal of mine. Next year would be nice, but it may take more time than that.
- Consistent with what I think about my league bowling, I need to better focus in the earlier frames of my games.

To that last point, consider these stats for my nine games:

Open Frames: 18
Open Frames after the 5th frame: 7
Of the 7 open frames, amount in the 136 game: 3
Of the 7 open frames, number in the 11th frame (and thus, not critical): 2

So except for the 136, I'm pleased with how I was able to "hunker down" to get the most of my games despite some rough starts. I was also generally pleased with my ability to focus on most of my shots.  The goal of course is 100%...someday.

OK, enough geek stuff, here's the image of every game, frame-by-frame, from the opening nerve-induced three-count (which I converted), to the closing missed spare, that even though I just got done saying wasn't critical, it did cost me $7.50 in brackets, as I ended up tying one of them.

One thing I can't figure out: An asterisk on the sheet means it was a split. So why, in game two of my singles event, is there an asterisk before my strike in the tenth frame? Perhaps readers from the bowling community can help me out with that.

Bowling balls and fortified candy bars

My equpiment is all set, and the latest changes to my game are in place, so all that is left is the packing and anticipation. I look for a much better USBC Open Championship than last year's debacle in Baton Rouge. Team event is Saturday the 27th; S&D on Sunday.

Yes, I've bought new equipment before.  Yes, I've made changes to my game before.  So I will not post on those until after I return from Reno.

I'm munching on a MetRX protein bar right now, and will be packing plenty for my trip. I'm trying to budget well, so I won't be doing to many traditional meals in Reno.  Although it's a relatively expensive bar at $3.49 at my company store and other convenience stores, Walmart carries them for $1.98/bar.  Cheaper than Micky D's in Reno for sure.

Hard to believe MetRx has been around for over 20 years now.  So many supplement companies come and go, primarily because people eventually realize the latest and greatest is nothing but the same stuff (or no more effective than the stuff) that other companies are selling.

I've seen so many of these companies come and go, and many of them went with some of my money.  Cybergenics. Hot Stuff. Weider, back when he was king. EAS is barely hanging on, or so it seems.

I like protein bars only for the convenience.  It's too inconvenient to get my daily intake of protein, so there you go. But I do laugh at the mere thought of them selling what is basically a fortified candy bar, or clump of cookie dough in the case of my personal favorite offering.

When MetRx first came out, it was as a powder that came in two parts, perfectly formulated so that you mix them together to form the perfect food and only supplement you would ever need. My bullshit detector was not as sharp back then, so I only questioned to myself casually why, if this was the perfect combination of milk and whey protein, was it OK per the directions to mix it with either water or milk?

Anyway, now it's a sugar-sweetened clump of cookie dough, so perhaps the original product wasn't so perfect after all.  And of course, Bill Phillips, of Body-for-Life fame, who co-promoted the product, spun off his own company and competitive product (EAS/Myoplex), and touted his as the superior product. My naivete of yesteryear was a trigger point to future financial issues.  I bought over $500 of the stuff on a credit card, back when I was a rookie DJ making $6/hour.  I justified it by kidding myself into believing I would hardly need any other solid food, so the cost would be offset somewhat. The credit card balance would grow and grow for more than just a few years, and led to some seriously lean and turbulent times ahead for me and my soon-to-be first wife.

I have never tried, nor intend to try, recreational/anabolic steroids, but I've spent many a dollar trying to find the perfect natural supplement.  Hint: It doesn't exist.  I still like to try new products, but more for the convenience of them, and the workout energy. Nothing works anywhere close to steroids - a lesson I wish I had fully learned many years and dollars ago.

Tenpin Daycare

I promised a friend that I would make a long post about equipment advances in sports such as bowling, softball, and golf, and this was about two months ago.  Still haven't done it yet.  I've touched on the subject more than once, but still fell like I have a lot left to share for anyone who cares to read about it. It will have to wait a little more, but I'm hoping to do it within the next couple of weeks, or at least for sure when I have some down-time in Reno at the end of April.

For now, I just have a few bowling comments, as I was feeling nostalgic tonight.  Not about old Yellow Dots and Black Beauties, but rather something that was a sign of the times in more than one way: bowling alley nurseries.

My first memory of a bowling alley was being walked by my babysitter/day care provider to the bowling center's nursery, and seeing the pins in the distance. I was practically hooked on the game right then and there.

League bowling was popular enough back then, and enough women were homemakers, to make it work. The bowling alley I worked at in the early/mid-eighties had such a nursery, run by Vivian. I used the crib mattress in it once in between my college classes and league time.

As radical (laughable? ridiculous?) as it may sound today, I think the concept could work again. Perhaps bowling center proprietors would fear liability too much, but assuming that could be worked out with insurance or what have you (waivers?), I don't see why it couldn't be popular again.  Sure, not as much as it once was, nowhere near in fact, and not necessarily during weekdays. But if a couple of centers in a given Metro area offered it, I think it would have a chance, and here's why:

1) Bowling centers in states with indoor smoking bans, like Minnesota, are child-friendly now
2) Thanks in large part to #1, but other factors as well, bowling centers don't have the seedy "bowling alley" reputation of yesteryear
3) Every-other week leagues, or shorter seasons, could help remedy the big problem most people who are turned off by league bowling complain about, and that is the time commitment required

I'm sure I could think of a few more.  Perhaps my readers who are into bowling could chime in with a few as well.

Bowling Update

To date, I haven't talked too much of my bowling season, either here, Facebook, among work colleagues, etc., because it was, for a while, going horribly.  But I've averaged 228 over my last 7 weeks, raising my average to 213.

Yep, that's how bad it was going.  203 at the low point.

The changes I made started to pay dividends, spare shooting has improved, and now I'm genuinely excited for the trip to Reno because I am having some work done on my equipment.  I am also shopping for a new ball.

I have no illusion that I'll shoot for an Eagle, or even profit from the trip.  But I'd like to think my chances of cashing in some events is much better now than a few months ago.

The thing I find interesting about my equipment changes is that, for the first time since reaching adulthood, I will be narrowing my span by about a quarter inch.  I tested a ball today with a span about 3/8 inch less span than mine, and it went great.  Oddly, no loss in revs, a natural increase in speed, and a nice, effortless roll off my fingers were the results.  Not to mention 8 strikes in 12 shots starting cold.

It's sad that I've been self-taught so many years.  Had I sought the advice of a pro (and this goes for golf, too), I probably would have discovered long ago that a wider span does not necessarily equate to a better, more powerful roll. Yes, to some degree, as compared to a conventional grip, it does.  But there is a point of diminishing returns where one has to start squeezing more and work harder for no better results.

At nearly 47 years of age, I'm glad to know that I can still learn (quite) a few things.  But it's embarrassing some of the things that I should have learned long ago.  And it's a bit upsetting to think that stubbornness and/or whatever else causes me to always want to be self-taught has cost me several years of better results, and the enjoyment that comes with them.

Bowling Update

In my never-ending quest to be find the "right" way for me to bowl, I've recently had a little success with some minor changes. Previous changes I've blogged about worked some, then didn't work, even failing miserably a couple times.

The last two times out I've bowled sets of 707 and 656. I'm highly encouraged (again...surprise!), because the scores could have been even better, and hopefully will be better.

I went away from "less turn," as mentioned in a previous post, to simply not starting with my hand position so far inside. Since I am keeping my follow-through hand position the same, this amounts to "less turn" of the hand during the shot, without having to think about it.

I have also changed my push-off so that it is an actual push-away, and right on line with the target.  I met with a pro last year who suggested a certain starting position, which I still use, but from there he suggested that I simply let the hand start dropping. Before that, when I wasn't playing with the Del Ballard starting position, I was holding it a higher to start (think Mike Aulby), but not pushing off, or at least very little.

I prefer the feel of the push-off, and my current hypothesis is that if I do it on-line to the target, it helps with accuracy and consistency.  This is why I'm encouraged and feel my recent scores could have been better, and should be if I stick to this. I was more consistent with my direction, release, and speed on both nights.  All that wasn't working was carry, and spare-shooting.

Before the trip to Reno this year, I'll be working on the spare-shooting.  In particular, ten pins on the right-hand lane.  I have my thoughts as to what I need to do, but this is largely a mental issue, so I'm going to want to seek an expert. If I can't throw at a ten pin with confidence at my age, what makes me think I'm going to figure it out on my own anytime soon?

Nothing. So yeah, I'll be seeing a pro about that, and I'll have him look a little at my newer strike form, too.

Worst Night of League Bowling in Years

I bowled a 491 series tonight.  My final game was 134.  I have been racking my brain to find reasons, not excuses, so that I can learn from this and never allow it to happen again.

I had 702 last week, which was only that low because I inexplicably threw a seven count, after 19 strikes in 21 shots, and then whiffed the spare, in my final frame. 

That final frame was pretty much how my night went tonight. I've been experimenting with some changes (again) and after last week, which included a 279 game (perfection missed due to a ringing 10-pin in the 9th), I thought I was making progress.

Some of it was beyond my control.  Most of it was not. I am trying to use the Anthony Robbins mind trick of asking myself, "What is great about what happened tonight?"

One answer, if I try seriously, is that it is an opportunity to truly learn so that it never happens again.  Oh, I'm sure it will happen again on a sport shot in some tournament some time.  But not on a house shot on league night.  Since starting up bowling again five seasons ago, it's my only sub-500 series.  My second lowest was somewhere in the 540s.  The 134 is, I think, my lowest league game since starting up again.

I should probably do it now, but I am going to wait until I've cooled down a bit more to think more clearly, to start the brainstorming session.  The downside of waiting is that I may forget some things, but I doubt I'll forget much of the important stuff.  As surreal as it was, I think it's been planted in my brain pretty firmly for a while.

To Another Bowling Season

I haven't posted much about bowling since the Baton Rouge debacle that almost made me retire.  Not even sure I posted at all about it.  But it's a new season, and I'm off to my best league start (for 6 games) ever. It may be nothing, but after Baton Rouge, I vowed to make some changes in my game.  Namely:

1. Come from behind the ball better, instead of around it
2. Improve timing
3. Increase ball speed by about 1 mph (success in #1 and #2 should make this happen, or at least much more easily)
4. Improve spare shooting: throw a straight ball at the vast majority of my simple spares (went 11-for-11 in week 2)

One way I plan to make such improvements is to work with an old friend who happens to be a local pro.  He's a guy who seems to enjoy talking bowling as much as I do, so I'm looking forward to picking his brain.

Oh, and about that switch to the Del-Ballard-Style I wrote about last year: it didn't last. I can sometimes get success with it, but it limits my already shorter-than-average back swing, and in today's game, that isn't going to cut it.

Baton Rouge Breakdown

The trip to Baton Rouge a month ago for the USBC Open Championship couldn't have gone much worse, and yet I see nothing but silver linings.

For the tournament, I averaged 60 pins below my league average.  That's ten pins per game worse than I did last year, except last year my average was ten pins higher. (So it's really 20 pins worse per game.)

For the second year in a row, I had thumb swelling issues.  You'd think I would have learned to get the balls re-drilled to be large enough in the thumb holes to avoid this.

Don't get me wrong; I doubt I would have done well regardless.  The thumb hole wasn't sticking for the entire 90 frames, although it sure felt like it in afterthought. And my spare ball wasn't quite as bad, yet I couldn't pick up spares to save my life.

But it wasn't just the bowling that went wrong.  From having to wait around several hours after the flight landed due to some communication mix-ups, to United Airlines losing two of my bowling balls on the return flight (I got them back eventually), it was a comedy of errors. "Comedy" is a good word for it, too, as I am able to have a laugh at it all now, and I even managed to laugh at it while it was all happening.

So I'm looking forward to the things I need to work on already, beyond equipment issues. And I'm looking forward to redemption in Reno next year.

If any team will have me after this year's debacle, that is.

Bowling a 300: An Exercise in Probability and Statistics

February 8 will mark the 24th anniversary of my first and only sanctioned 300 game of bowling. I like to tell people I got mine back when it "meant something," which is mostly true, although most bowling historians (can I get a job like that?) will tell you that even in 1988, a 300 meant less than it did even only years prior, and in 1983, it meant less than five years prior to that. But at least it meant enough to feel like a once-in-a-lifetime event when it happened to this 21-year-old, a whole house full of bowlers stopped what they were doing to watch, and the 12th strike strike was met with a huge roar.

The problem with joke-boasting about having done it when it "meant something" is that one would expect that I'd have no trouble doing it again (and again, and again, ...). I expect it will come, but the closest I've come since "getting back into" bowling in recent years and actually keeping up with technology has been a 296 game (left the bucket...too much speed on the final shot). I've also had 15 in a row over the course of two games (Andy Veripapa, anyone?)

So the other day I was wondering, what would the mathematical odds be of me bowling a 300 game on any particular night? If I treated my bowling like a dice game, I could calculate this. Luckily, if a bit geekily, I keep stats for fun, and can indeed calculate this.

Among stats I keep are strike percentage and double percentage (how often I follow a strike with another strike). Over the past two season, with 72 games logged, my strike percentage is 64.71%. My double percentage is 63.25% (which means I might be inclined to let the nerves get to me knowing how important it is to follow a strike with another one).

So, if we had a 10,000-sided die to roll (take that, D&D fans), we could mimic my game by saying that everything between 1 and 6471 would be a strike, and in a frame following a strike, everything between 1 and 6325 would be a strike.

The odds, then, of a 300 game would be .6471 * .6325^11 = .004194, or .42% rounded off. Put another way, you could expect a 300 game every 238 games or so.

There was a time in my life where I bowled that many sanctioned games in a season. If I still were, I might be one of those guys with several 300 games to his credit. Still, the top bowlers in the Twin Cities area have scores of 300 scores (see what I did there?), so they are doing more than just bowling more. They are indeed bowling better. The former does tend to beget the latter, but there's more to bowling closer to your potential than simply bowling more.

If I were to improve my strike and double percentages to 65% each, my likelihood of a 300 game becomes 1 in 176. Improve them to 66.67% each (2 strikes in every 3 shots), and it's 1 in 130. At 70% each, it's 1 in 72.

The "dice" game version of course does not factor in the human element of pressure. The die would not know that it had just rolled 11 strikes in a row. So how does a human combat this? Knowledge is power, I say. Knowing that my time will come if I am just patient should, in theory, allow me to relax more when a game gets into the "nervous zone" of 8 or 9 strikes in a row. I just need to wait it out, and it will happen. Maybe not within the 238-game span, but it will, eventually.

Yeah, I know, easier said than done.

One other thing is clear from the statistics: Since I'm not likely to get permission from the better half to bowl 238, 176, or even 130 games a year, it behooves me to try to improve with the relatively few games I am able to bowl and practice, if I am to not only get that next 300 soon, but even more to come.

Second League Session With New Style

I rolled a 683 with my new-old "Del Ballard" style last Tuesday. Scored 247, 201, and 235 for a 683. While better than average, there was a good deal of disappointment in it.

I started game one with seven straight strikes, then left a ringing 10-pin, and proceeded to Mika my spare shot right in the channel. I beat my man by five pins (one pin actual, as I get four sticks on him, since he averages over 240), so that was OK, but a seven pin in the 10th kept me from getting my team the win.

Game two I got a little lost, striking only five times, whiffed another 10-pin, this time to the left, but still managed to tie my opponent actual, thus winning with my handicap. Our team won our game as well. Game three was odd, and was not looking good, but I benefited from a 10-pin by my opponent in the tenth, while I went sheet from the 8th frame for a 235. It tied my opponent actual, giving me the win with my sticks, plus another team win.

Pretty cool tying my guy twice and beating him by one pin in the other in actual pin count. You don't see that too often.

So while my new form definitely worked in leading me to the pocket, my poor spare shooting and occasional brain cramping kept me from having a real fine series. Still, all in all, I'm encouraged.

League scores 2011-12 so far

Just posting scores to date for the season. I doubt it will last, but I've got a good string of 200+ games going. In fact, 199 is my low, which I did twice in the first week. Both games involved a big split in the 10th. Nine total in both games would have been good enough for 200s. Ah well...

199, 211, 199 = 609
222, 226, 202 = 650
212, 269, 229 = 710
204, 217, 234 = 655
201, 236, 242 = 679

A Different Bowling Model

I tried a new bowling style in league last night, and while I didn't have my best night, it was certainly promising. I ended the first game with a solid ten pin in the ninth, after a strike in the eighth, and then left a 2-8-10 in the tenth for a disappointing 201 game. I followed that with a 236 and 242 for a 679 set, which brought my average up to 220. Not quite to last year's final average, but I've only bowled 15 games to date because of my back injury.

The change I made was to start with the ball hanging lower, and my body slouched a little, head-down. I'm not sure exactly how it looks, but I imagine it's something like Del Ballard, Jr., with a tad less slide.

Previously, I had been trying a more classic style, like a Brian Voss, only with a 5-step delivery, and without the model-good looks. My local bowling pro got me to lower my ball position at set-up to about midpoint. Previously I started it higher, like Mike Aulby would often do.

The change helped me with direction, but didn't help as much as I wanted with ball speed. With the previous two styles, the only way I could generate acceptable ball speed (in my mind, anyway, to keep up with how the power game has become more commonplace), was to either bring my back swing way back high, or to muscle it on the downswing. The former was difficult for me to control my accuracy with, and the latter seemed to give me difficulty keeping consistent with my release.

Here's what the "Ballard" change seems to have done for me:

1) Keeps my head low the whole time. I tend to otherwise be too upright, causing me to loft it too much at times, unless I bring my head and body lower during the approach, which gives me consistency problems.
2) Gives me the ball speed I need because I walk more quickly to the line now. Standing more upright made walking faster more awkward.
3) Allows me to not think too much about my backswing. I've never been comfortable with a big backswing. I can let it be as short as comes naturally now, and still get over 16 mph on my ball because of my faster (yet more in control) approach.
4) I don't know if this has anything to do with the new style, but the ball was coming off my thumb better than any previous league night this season, even though the hole was fitting just as snugly as ever.

As much as it seems like a lot of changes, all I really do differently is drop down to the "Ballard position" at set-up, and everything else comes together. This style isn't actually new to me. I used it for a few years in the late '90s/early '00s. I had what I think was an old 14 pound blue resin Hammer drilled for someone else (only a semi-fingertip span for me), so while I had some success with that style, I also had a lot of struggles. I didn't buy my first new and custom-fit reactive ball until about three years ago when I got back into bowling after a lengthy layoff. I went back to my older style then for whatever reason.

I'll update regularly how it goes. I also hope to post some before/after videos. I was encouraged at how well I threw it, despite just a decent score for the night. I probably would rather look like Voss when I bowl (I even used to sport the wavy brown hair when I grew it out more), or maybe take the ball back like Michael Fagan. But pretty is as pretty does, and I'm getting too old to look good, anyway.

Why I Bowl (Because I HAVE To)

There's a bowling forum(www.mrbowling300.net) I frequent, and one of the discussions was opened with the question, "What is it that you like about bowling?" It's an interesting way to phrase the question, and I would expect a plethora of answers from a community of avid bowlers.

Here was my response:

I can think of so many things, but my enjoyment of the game must be hard-wired. I remember being a toddler and my neighborhood daycare mom bowled in one of those women's leagues where the center would have a nursery on site. She walked us kids past the lanes to the nursery.

It was the coolest sight I'd ever seen, and I really only remember her doing it once or twice, but I was so drawn to it. The pins looked not like they were set up in triangles, but just straight lines across, for my young depth perception from that distance must not have been developed yet. Seeing the grownups knock them down and watch them scatter about was amazing!

So I guess my answer to the question would be something about how the pins fly, and while ours is a game of repetition, we all know from experience how many different ways the pins can actually fly, topple, mix, etc. Don't tell us bowlers that there's no variety in this game; we know all too well the nuances.

I even liked the smell of the old bowling alleys as a child, stale smoke from the night before and all. Maybe because it's a unique smell that triggered a neurological association to something I really liked.

Anyway, I've "quit" bowling off and on over the years, but now that I'm mature enough (finally...at 45!) to handle the bad nights, I'm back for good. When I came back this last time, I remember saying, "You can take the boy out of bowling, but you can't take the bowling out of the boy."

I meant it. It's been in me probably since birth.

My No-Show at the 2011 Minnesota State Mid Amateur Golf Tournament

For the first time in five years, I did not compete in the Minnesota State Mid Amateur golf tournament. Open to 240 golfers, with the top 60 (and ties) making the cut to the third and final round, it's a tournament I've come to look forward to every September.

This year, however, due to lack of consistency in playing frequency, which led to inconsistency in playing quality, I decided to pass. Plus, it was at a couple courses that I wasn't too excited to play - Dellwood Hills and Tanners Brook. I've only played Dellwood, a private course, once, and that was nearly 30 years ago. I've never played the other. Still, from word of mouth, I was OK with missing out. Not to mention I would have had to withdraw because of my back injury (which is still healing well, thanks).

Apparently, I wasn't alone. There were no fewer than 200 entries in the past four State Mid-Ams, but this year, unless I'm reading it wrong, there were only about 160, and several of them no-showed. It looks like a lot of the scores are missing from the first two rounds, but the cut line was a two-day total of 161, which happens to be one stroke higher than my lowest two-day total of the four times I've entered. So you're telling me I had a chance.... (Final Results here)

It's sad to see the drop in competitors, but I'm used to this kind of disappointment. The same thing has happened in bowling and softball locally. The state championship I was so proud to share in just ten years ago no longer even exists. The local Central Bowler's Alliance, which 20 years ago saw about 100 or more of the top scratch bowlers in the state (and some from surrounding states) compete every month. Nowadays, it's typically around 45 during "peak" season.

I'm sincerely hoping this year's drop in interest was for much the same reason I skipped it: apathy about the specific courses, and their less-than-exciting-or-convenient locations.

Next year's tournament will be hosted by Midland Hills and Town and Country. Midland is the home course of my high school alma mater, Alexander Ramsey (now Roseville Area), and the other is where my Vice President at work is a member. So I'll be looking forward to that one, and will try to train weeks in advance in a serious attempt to make the cut.

Both are centrally located, private courses, so there's no reason to expect the same apathy as this year from Minnesota's elite 30-and-over amateur golfers. But as Yogi Berra once said, if people don't want to come out to the golf course, how are you gonna stop them? (He actually said "ball park.")

If they don't come out, at least I'll have a better chance to make the cut, and the free round on a private course that would come with doing so.

"Just hop on my back...no wait, don't!"

It's been a roller coaster past few days for me. I was unable to fix our water softener, so I planned on taking it apart to give it one more try. "After the golf tournament, Dear, I promise!"

The golf tournament was Saturday. On Friday, I achieved a 24-yr-or-so goal of bench pressing 315 pounds - "three wheels" as my old lifting buddies and I would call it, because it represents three 45-lb. plates on each side of the lifting bar. A nice aside, I thought to myself, was that my joints and tendons felt terrific compared to the last time I got close to doing 315.

It was fairly short-lived, however. Oh, Saturday went great. My playing partner and I won the two-man best-ball tournament at Troy Burne Golf Club. I shot a plus-three 39 on the front nine, which included a triple bogey on hole 2.

By the ninth hole, my already iffy lower back started to hurt. I barely made through the round and didn't say a thing to my partner, not wanting to make excuses. I shot a plus-eleven 46 on the back. Thankfully, he shot 37, good enough to carry us to victory, like Kirby Puckett in Game 6 of the '91 Series. The old joke in such situations is to tell the guy who carried the team, "I sure hope your back doesn't hurt." Oh, but I wish I could say that mine did only figuratively.

While my back was hurting bad when we putted out, and I was looking forward to relaxing at home. But by the time I was done relaxing, my back hurt so bad, Felix Unger would've said, "Man, I'm sure glad I'm not you!"

Thankfully, it's getting better, although I did have to postpone my start to the 2011-12 bowling season. For a while Saturday, I was seriously wondering if I'd ever play any sports even semi-competitively again, including bowling. Ironic because I started lifting years ago to improve my softball power.

I'm still a bit down about it all, so to cheer myself up a bit, I'll post last year's league bowling results. I kept more complete stats, even frame-by-frame, but for now, I'll keep it simple below. I never got around to it this past spring, and then summer league went horribly (after a decent start), so I've been pretty down on bowling as well.

It was a good season last year, here's hoping my back, wrist, and fingers all get to nearly 100% by the time I get to start this season.

My Golf and Bowling Wishes/Fantasies

I played some golf this Labor Day Weekend in Alexandria, Minnesota. If I could only play one course the rest of my life, I might just pick the Alexandria Golf Club.

Speaking of impossible, hypothetical scenarios, I was reading the new issue of Golf Magazine, which has a reader survey full of such questions. One is, "Which Golf Superpower would you most like to possess?"

Here are the reader survey results:

1. Split every fairway with a 270-yard drive - 41%
2. Win every match you ever play - 27%
3. Make every 3-footer for the rest of your life - 26%
4. The ability to execute one hole-out every round - 6%

I would have to go with #3; that would leave the game's fun challenges left to the learning process, while adding the confidence needed to improve on them (imagine how confident you would swing the club knowing you'll never miss a 3-footer!).

Similarly, if I had one bowling superpower to pick from, it would be to never miss another single-pin spare again. Heck, I'd even settle for narrowing it down to the 10-pin. Same reasoning as the 3-foot putt fantasy.

If anyone is still reading this blog, I'd be curious to know what you would pick, and why?

A Dress Code Even a Bowling Shirt Would Fail

If any of my kids ever got in trouble at school over policy that I disagreed with, I would hope I would stand up for them. My ex-wife once got into a heated argument with a school official for defending our son for pushing a kid in the snow - a kid who had been picking on our daughter, if I recall correctly. She showed more gall than I would have, but I doubt either of us would go anywhere near where the parent in this story did: http://www.kcra.com/news/29018987/detail.html

From the article, the parent, Pami Gibbs, was "accused of making references to ethnicity during the attack on Fillmore Elementary Principal Evangelina Ramos. Gibbs is white, and Ramos is a Latina.

"Assistant Superintendent Dan Wright said Gibbs became upset Monday morning when Ramos said the 29-year-old woman's son couldn't wear a T-shirt with skulls on it. According to witnesses, Gibbs suddenly began punching Ramos in the face."

Racial slurs, nope. Punches, nope. But is it a silly rule? You betcha (in my best Minnesota Nice), at least if it's one of those "zero tolerance" rules.

I haven't read Minnesota School District 196's bylaws yet, but when my son enters Kindergarten a week from today, I'm not sure I'll be dressing him up in the bowling shirt (yes, bowling shirt) I bought him in Reno this past May.

Here he is yesterday, proudly wearing it. Destined to become a hoodlum, no?













You know, now that I think of it, I wouldn't put it past either my ex- or current wife for doing what that one parent allegedly did, depending on the circumstances.

USBC Open in Reno

I meant to blog during my trip to Reno, but the time I ended up spending on line was mostly spent cleaning up work e-mails. I'm sitting at the gate awaiting my flight to Salt Lake City en route to Minneapolis/St. Paul.

So I'll keep it short. My bowling sucked mostly, save for a decent stretch in the team event from frame 4 in the first game to frame 8 in the third game. I shot a respectable (for me) 581, after starting with 32 after the third, and then finishing the 9th and 10th in game 3 with back-to-back 4-10 splits. Ruined a possible 600-620 series with those dang splits.

The bright spot was our team rolled 2919, which will probably get us about $100 back. The dark spots were plentiful. My final tally: 581, 482 in doubles(my first 400 in ages, but my partner only shot 500, so I don't feel too guilty), and 512 in singles. I totalled 1575 for the nine games, for a 175 average.

Something to improve upon for next year, I guess.

No excuses. Carry could have been better today, but that's not what did me in. I didn't make shots, and was poor on some easy spares. So I will go on record as saying I absolutely must commit myself to three things:

1) Spare shooting
2) Consistency in my strike ball
3) Committing to the shot

There was a decent enough shot on the lanes, but the mistake I made over and over again throughout the weekend was being afraid of getting the ball out too far and thus having it not come back. So I went through the nose time and again. When I didn't leave splits, my spare shooting was poor as well.

So that's the trip report in short. I'm more upset at myself than humbled. I KNEW I was only a house bowler going into this, but I performed very poorly even taking that in consideration.

Good thing I get 100 free games of bowling for joining my sport shot summer league. I hope I take the time to use them, and use them wisely.

Bowling Chick Flick?

For the last five years or so, I've wanted to write a screen play. I have yet to start it, but my idea is around a junior bowler, and it is not a comedy. I know, how boring. And geeky.

Geeky is good...see Star Wars, for one. But the junior bowling geek niche might not be quite strong enough to make up for the potential lack of appeal to the general populous.

That's OK, though, because a good story with characters you care about can be about Tiddly Winks and still be successful.

Now, I hear about this movie in production, entitled Split, and am concerned that someone might be beating me to the punch, even though it is a romantic comedy. Then again, perhaps it will be the start of a new genre of bowling-themed movies, and thereby create a demand for my masterpiece.

At the very least, I hope it's done well enough to represent the sport and its enthusiasts well. Regardless of whether it does either, I can just about guarantee it will feature, at some point in the movie, a bowler getting a Brooklyn strike, and acting like he meant to do it.

As I've written before, I can tolerate bowling movies where the actors are clearly poor bowlers, but Brooklyn strikes shown as the norm? I hate when that happens!

(P.S. After writing the above and then Googling to find a hyperlink to information on the movie, I found an informational trailer, which showed part of the in-progress production. Sure enough, it shows a bowler throwing a Brooklyn strike, not even a solid one at that, and then acting cocky afterward. Arggh!)