The Personal Blog

So tonight was the beginning of the PBA Experience Sport League over at Bartlett Lanes. I have heard quite a bit about the league and tried to keep up with it, but completely forgot when it started, until my friend Tommy told me that it started tonight. I wasn't planning on bowling in it, until I got there. There was no way I could sit there and watch as everyone else got to bowl. We selected our lanes and got ready to roll. Luckily, I had a couple people I knew bowling on my pair. We started practice, and threw two strikes right off the bat. I smiled so big, I just knew that I had a good shot. As it went on, I started noticing that there's NO room for error on this pattern.

Take a look at the picture to the left. It shows the Viper oil pattern graphically. Basically, the striped area in the middle is where there is less oil, and the outside has more. This means, if you pulled the ball, it either went brooklyn (to the opposite side of the head pin) or it missed the head pin completely. It also meant that if you threw the ball outside a little, it would slide and not make it to the pocket. This means, Dustin gets to work on his accuracy.

The first game started out as good as it could. A turkey (3 strikes in a row) to start the first 3 frames, but it would soon prove to be quite a struggle to do it again. I threw my Hammer Black Widow Pearl, which I had drilled pretty strong. I'm sure glad I had that ball re-drilled because I definately needed it. I finished up the first game with a 203, which isn't bad at all in a sport bowling league. The other two games went downhill after the shot started to go away. My problem is that I didn't have the equipment to play the line that I wanted. If I moved over to the left a little and tried to play more of the lane, the ball would lose most of it's power before it even got close to the pin deck. Either that, or I couldn't get the ball through the middle of the lane enough and it would hook past the head pin. This pattern really keeps you on your toes.

I was suprised to see the scores by some of the more skilled players that I've met during my life. Some of these guys knew me back when I was just a little kid running around Big Daddy's in the Poplar Plaza. It really shocked me to notice that I had beaten a lot of them. Not only that, but I had only missed making the 16 man bracket final by only 20 pins.

The league will go on for 15 weeks, with each sport pattern being put down for 3 weeks. If you want to see what the pros go through every single week, I'd suggest going up to Bartlett Lanes on Thursday night. Tonight was the first week, and I never actually found out what time practice starts, but it's either 6:30 or 6:45. I'll definately be up there every week, at least watching. Feel free to stop by and say hi!