well i''''m rooting for my ball driller randy weiss to try and regain his exemption by finished atop the rpi this week.  He''''s doing all right i guess at +46 but he called me up and told me something interesting.  He said he practiced for 2 days on all 5 patterns, cheetah was today, and his ball was bouncing off the gutter every shot no problem, but when he started practiced, he threw a couple gutters, 3 off the right...wtf is going on?  Apparently the pba lane machine ran the viper pattern on the low end of the center while it ran cheetah on the high end of the center.  Not sure exactly where it stopped and it wasn''''t on purpose, but randy got a raw deal here starting on the longer pattern.  The guys were whacking the cheetah while he was shooting clean on viper.  He said he saw so many times where bowlers would go 250-250 and then come to the low end, dump a few gutters/washouts and go 140.  

Now, this is the way i see.  Yeah all bowlers have to eventually go to the lower end of the house, but at what point makes a big deal.  If they hit it early, like he did, 200 is a good score, but the other guys are whacking them on cheetah shooting 240. For some they caught viper when the lanes had opened up, and there wasn''''t much difference and word of mouth spreads through the center that the low end is tighter.  Advantage higher end starters, disadvantage lower end.  Now I know there are lots of games left, but it doesn''''t seem fair.  One of the biggest tournaments for the regional players and this happens?

I would also like to know how this could have happend.  I don''''t know much about lane machines, but i thought once you program the pattern in, it should be good to go.  The pba directors claimed half the house whined, while the others were fine with it so they kept the scores.  The later ran tapes on the lanes and it was in fact the viper pattern.

Just wanted to vent cause I want him to do well, sorry for the long post.  Any thoughts?

*Edit* On pba.com, the standing are up and there is an article talking with the leader today, you can kinda get what I''m talking about by reading it
--------------------
www.bowlingsolutions.com

Bowl to win!!!

Move left, hook it more.....

Tommy Jones and Kenny Simard are Gamecock fans...are you???

Edited on 12/16/2009 1:21 AM

Edited on 12/16/2009 1:25 AM

846 is right.  You aren't going to just just make a miracle adjustment and start lighting up a low scoring pace pattern.  Chameleon is one of, if not the hardest pattern the pba uses right now.  Randy ended up finishing 9th, so only a few spots out of the number.  If he bowled more games on cheetah like he was supposed to...maybe he makes it in.  I feel bad for him
--------------------
www.bowlingsolutions.com

Bowl to win!!!

Move left, hook it more.....

Tommy Jones and Kenny Simard are Gamecock fans...are you???