I bowled the PTQ in Wichita yesterday, didn’t do real well but here are my observations of the experience.

There was a meeting the night before for non-members. They went thru what products were allowed, dress code, expected behavior, and lane pattern. I was surprised at how many didn’t know they had to have shirts with their names on the back and how many didn’t seem to own a pair of slacks. Several were in trouble because the used wrist devices not approved, a couple of guys withdrew at this point.

The other thing stated was that pattern during the PTQ was not the same as the tournament pattern. The tournament pattern is symmetrical the PTQ is not. They shift the pattern to the right and dry out the left side some and put more oil on the right. They felt because of the predominance of right handed players this evened out the play.

They also announce that there would be a practice session in the morning before the PTQ. The PTQ was on lanes 7 thru 28 and the practice lanes were 36 thru 48. Practice would be 10 AM to 11:30.

I decided to go to the practice. The lanes were very tight with some much more so that others. I was able to get a pretty good reaction using a V2 clean hitting 8 and going to 4, on the slicker lanes I ended up playing straight down 4. After about 20 minutes I would sit down for 15 minutes and then throw a couple of shots to see how they transitioned.

The allowed entries up to 11:00 AM and they had a couple come in. Roll call was 11:30 and they went over the rules again.

Practice started at 11:45. I throw my first shot like I did in practice and I hit the 4 pin. The lanes are nothing like they were in practice. I move deeper and start hitting the hole, no big problem. At the end of practice I start to lose my reaction and need to make a move.

Now we start and I’m lost. I either wash out or split 8 of the first 9 shots, 2 were pocket 7 – 10’s, I pick up several, change balls in the 6th, long story short 146 and I’m pretty much done. I’ve moved inside the 3rd arrow at this point.

After that I bowl OK. I can’t seem to string more than a couple strikes and somewhere end up throwing a split. I keep shooting 180 to 200. I run out of room on the right lane and have to throw hard and force the ball. The left lane I finish up on 5th arrow.

I crossed with Kelly Bonta who won the amateur slot. He and the others that did well were all in the drift left throw right with soft releases. They didn’t get the overreaction and were able to get deep enough to keep finding oil. One player who ended up 10th can play extremely straight, he was far enough away I didn’t see how he was playing the lanes but I doubt if he was deeper than 3rd arrow at the end.

All in all a good experience, I thought play was very slow 5 hours for 9 games with only 4 on a pair. The pair courtesy made shooting spares a little more difficult for me because you might wait a couple of minutes to shoot your spares. I was a little disappointed in that I missed around 8 spares (4 were ten pins) that I should have picked up but it wouldn’t have gotten me much closer. I was also disappointed that the practice pairs seemed so different to the qualifying pairs. I haven’t had a chance to talk to other bowlers I know who tried the PTQ to ask them how they felt they differed. I would have been better off not practicing early.

It reinforced what I already knew that my style doesn’t match up well to these conditions. I obviously need more oil and more taper to the pattern than they gave. My style lends me to jam the ball in the hole and my mistakes tend to be inside and I need some oil to lean on, here the better mistakes were to miss right.