In the long ago past I had some success at nationals but since the advent of resin balls, newer oils, and lane patterns at nationals I haven’t really had much success since around 1995.
Team event.
I had some sticking issues on the approaches even using a slide sock with a red leather heel. But I was able to adjust my approach to compensate for that. The next thing that happened is we had a lane break down during practice and lost about a minute on that lane. Then they shorted us 2 minutes of practice. Three of us had noted the time when practice had started and they shut us down 2 minutes early so it wasn’t just me. The squad (8:30) was a little late getting on the lanes but not much but I think they were trying to recover some of that time.
No one on either team seemed to find a good look in practice. My best look (I thought) was with a Storm Paradigm playing 12 at the arrows to about 7 or 8. The lanes did allow you to play further out than in years past but I still had issues with either splitting or washing out when making a bad shot. I had my typical start at nationals big 4 in the first, 2-8-10 in the second, ten pin spare, Greek Church, strike, 4-9. Behind the eight ball even before I get started. I stagger out of the game leaving a couple more ten pins feeling like I was throwing ok but getting nothing and ended up with a 138.
The next two games I just kept moving left as the lanes broke down. I could get to the pocket but a stone 8 or solid seven or ten pins galore kept breaking up and string. A couple of splits and I ended up shooting 532 for the event. I finished up throwing at 18 at the arrows out to about 12.
No one in our group really hit them and we had some former national touring pros with us. The best anyone shot was 615. And everyone seemed to have at least one down game. The lanes changed so fast it was tough to keep up with them and you had to hope when you got caught you left something you could pick up.
Doubles and Singles.
The doubles set (5:30) started off drier than what we had ended up in team the previous night. We had a couple of Classic division teams on in front of us all throwing new dull sponges they had just bought. I tried the Paradigm again but it was hooking too early. Went to a Triple X but it didn’t have enough pop to carry. Finally went back to the Paradigm with more speed. Ended up with a decent look but again carry, the occasional split, and some bad spare shooting did me in and could only muster a 542.
Singles the lanes were much drier yet. I went to in to 22 at the arrows swinging it to about 14. I finally changed back to the Triple X and could move back to 22 swinging to 15. Same story as before I could get to the pocket but carry was iffy at best. I managed to grind out a 569.
The other members of our teams got caught in a bad situation. They started on a pair that had two teams on it. The lanes they were to move to didn’t have any teams on them so they were fresh other than what the doubles group would shoot on them. On top of that the pair they were to move too broke down for 30 minutes so they had a 30 minute wait between sets.
In summary my scoring pattern a Nationals has really hasn’t changed even with this years lane conditions. I don’t seem to match up well to get enough carry to overcome my splits. This year was a little worse than normal in that my spare shooting was a little worse than in the past coupled with several chopped spares. It really hurt in that I had worked all the last year on using plastic for all my spares and had a good year for spares going in.
A lot still depends on your release and matching up. The best scoring I saw while there came from a couple of styles.
One was a group who threw pretty hard and straight with just a rolling ball and they seemed to get their fingers on the side of the ball. We had a good bowler who fits this other than he has more end over end roll and doesn’t get on the side and he just couldn’t carry. These bowlers seemed to like the fresh conditions better. Unless they had really hard speed doubles and singles become an issue.
The other was the higher rev players who could throw hard from the deep inside. This seemed to work best in the doubles and singles events. In team they had some trouble.
As far as brackets go, we had a guy in Senior brackets in team with 40 brackets ($200) and won 320 back with a set of 180, 200, 180.
But in the doubles event he shot 200, 200, 250 and only won 2 brackets for $50. We had a pretty strong squad but that was surprising to me for Seniors.
