i bowled the pba midwest/southwest regional in belton, missouri, this weekend and have several comments to make.

first, thanks go out to the staff at aaron's family fun center----they treated all the players like family. second, congrats to david beres on winning the title on a very demanding pattern( to see how low the scores were go to www.pba.com ). i would like to say it was a pleasure to meet ballreviews own mike austin who made it to the round of 16. great job mike----my hat's off to you !

this tournament was contested on the viper pattern on fairly new brunswick proanvilane synthetic lanes. i had practiced for several weeks on accuracy to prepare for this tournament as there was suppossed to a down and in shot between the 1st and 2nd arrows. the lanes were very slick and if you missed right early it wouldn't come back. if you pulled the ball there was no help in the center of the lane. i saw players playing all over the lane trying anything to see if it would work. my dull mammoth wasn't enough ball for a line outside the 1st arrow. and it wouldn't really hold going down 7-8. my smooth sanded awesome hook worked pretty good at this angle of attack----for a while. eventually, it was too much ball for this area and i found my best method of attack was with my polished rampage and playing a very slight swing shot. standing at appx. 25, hitting 16 at the arrows and the ball going out to 10. this was with medium speed and appx. 30 degrees of axis rotation. i had been left of this but there was some carrydown that came into play so i squared up a little more.

i was pretty happy with my spare shooting until the 8th game----i started with back-to-back open frames by missing the 7 pin and then the 10 pin. tacky synthetic approaches caused me to really stick for the first and second time all day----great timing !! i didn't think i bowled all that well until i looked at the scores. there were many players who struggled----including pba exempt players.

while we're on the subject of pba exempt players there was one to my left all day who really showed a lack of class. i won't mention his name but he threw a temper tantrum at a player on my pair and then one at me later. there was a player on my pair who was very deliberate in his set-up and approach( very time consuming ). everyone else in the area tolerated him and went on with their business. the exempt player at one point put his ball down hard on the ball return and shouted, " je*** ch****, will you go ahead and throw the ball already !! ". later he "tried to speed me up" as well, but i wasn't going for that. i kindly reminded him that i was guilty of "double jumping" at my first pba regional and i was merely making sure i was bowling in order. to this pba exempt player: i probably won't be as good a bowler as you are but i'm sure i'm a better human being.

all in all it was a good outing. i will try to absorb what i learned about this pattern and work harder to correct both the mental and physical mistakes i made.

IT had to be pete weber or billy oatman right?

PDW has some of the best sportsmanship in the game.
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well...not that you will say...but...

One of the testy Traber bros? In the one regional I bowled in, one of them just went off on a tirade...

i won't respond to who it was or wasn't but his actions were very unprofessional to say the least.

Glad to meet you Greg, but we didn't get to talk much.  Must have been my ADD, you said you would be right back, I started talking and the next thing I knew I was bowling.  Not your fault.

Was not Pete Weber, I crossed next to him on B squad, and he was a little angry at times, but not at anyone around him, he was joking with some with other guys.  He was only upset with himself, and a lady that was taking his picture as he walked off the approach, no flashes during competition.  That's not exactly what he said, but....  The lovely Traber brothers were on B squad also I think, I know Dave was, because he was standing down behind my pair, bI$$ing up a storm  because he couldn't play on the lane where I was.  Dale couldn't either, they are both too straight. Definitely not Mark Scroggins, he would handle it like a true pro, he and Mike are both gentlemen on the lanes.  There are some other guys that are slow, I'm not super fast.  As long as they are up when they are supposed to be, I don't care.

That leaves newly exempt Chad Kloss, I don't know what squad he was on and not saying it was him, unless Greg is talking about a former exempt player, then I would have to go back and look at the roster again.  I don't know Chad and/or the players Greg is referring to.

Didn't see Greg bowl, as he was bowling A squad, which started earlier than I thought.  I was expecting to arrive when they were bowling about game 4 or 5, but they were finishing game 8.  Greg shot -95 which is not a bad score for that condition.  It took -33 to cash, and there were some good players that didn't cash, some champions that shot less than Greg did.

I was the leader off B squad and 2nd overall, with +114.  They were very slick, I heard Pete Weber say this was the slickest Viper he had ever bowled on.  I did play out though, standing around 9-14 with my feet looking at 2-5 at the arrows.  I used my Fury all 8 games on Saturday.  I used my box Scorchin Inferno on Sunday in the semis, taking the lead with 1 game to go and hit a really slick pair and shot 149.  I got a bad lane draw for the match play.  They ran all 32 lanes for the semis, but 31-32 did not get used.  They re ran all 32 lanes again for the match play and I drew 31 and 32, I could not get the ball off the edge.  I had been able to most all of the first 13 games, and that's what the Trabers were watching, my ball come off the edge.  I was just too stubborn to move in, and struggled alot searching all during my match with Bret Cooper.  He was struggling some too, letting me taking him to 5 games, but -9 and -9 in back to back frames did me in.  I'll give more details in my Myspace blog.

Greg is right about the bowl, super nice place, nice people, going out of their way for us.  Lots of spectators and pro ams, would like to go back there again!
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Driller to many "Stars" and Tony Melendez too!

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Edited on 6/25/2007 11:01 PM

I believe that only leaves Sean Swanson?