First of all, if you have spectators going, make sure they take sweaters to the lanes. If you think you are going to bowl well, think again. The shot is someting I have NEVER seen in all of my years of bowling. It is flat across the lanes with back-ends that hook really hard. Miss your mark 1 board right the ball stays right. Miss your mark one board left the ball misses left. You won't see any sloppy strikes or flying pins off the side boards. Spares are a guessing game of wether or not the ball will miss left or right.  The best scoring seems to be right down the middle where there is a slight bit of more oil. If you have a plastic ball, take it with you. This maybe the best ball for this condition.
We parked in the Belle parking garage and walked to the lanes through the Belle Atrium. It is a little farther but it is free.

Well said Russell. And the pattern was not flat. It was difficult but it was not flat. I fyou check the lane pattern it was a 2.something to 1.

Lefties have more room on the gutter from what I observed while bowling on our pair.

My trip was a bit different than described. To start we live in the Dallas area other than one bowler, so made the trip to Arlington to practice at the ITRC. Money well spent. As far as the shot. This year showed how important the team approach is to success. Like many we practiced with surface for the first 7 minutes are close to the 7 board as our games allowed. Now for some this was 8,9,10 or even 12-15. We have one power player. Key was we worked to burn the break point. Can't say we lit it up, but we had a decent shot if we executed and it opened up faster than expected. Personally I made horrific shots in the 10th all three games and paid for it with tough spares and a couple bad chopped shots. No pattern to blame, I made bad shots. Where we saw the benifit of teams playing at least close together and outside 10 for as long as possible was doubles and singles. We caught good teams and decent crosses. We were OK in doubles as we had some carry issues, but could hit the pocket pretty easy. In singles we had 3 700 plus series out of our 10 guys, with one setting in 5th. In game two we had two of our bowlers with the front 9. None of us are PBA tour and all of us just bowl in the Dallas area bowlers bowling out a 16 lane center and traveling league. We do travel and bowl multiple tournaments together as well.  Key this year and based on watching Riggs, you have to play togther and the shot was not up the middle and those that started there destroyed their opportunity to score.  We are going to continue to push to get 10 bowlers, playing together with a common goal and break down the correct area for the pattern length and volume. If we can accomplish that, we hope to have our picture on the site someday. Many of us are over 50 or getting close so need to get it together pretty soon. See you in Reno.....

I don't know why everyone is thinking this years shot is tougher then any other year. This year is my best year at USBCs. To me it was pretty open compared to all the other times I went, which has only been 4 other times. I didn't shoot a big number,but my first 1800 though.

What's going to happen to scores in singles/doubles next year when they reoil before every squad. Are the scores going to skyrocket or plummet?

Y

Quote from: Bowl_Freak on June 27, 2012, 01:54:27 PM

What's going to happen to scores in singles/doubles next year when they reoil before every squad. Are the scores going to skyrocket or plummet?

In my estimation, the highs will be higher and the lows will be lower.

Yep.  It's really how it should be.  We should all be starting on the same playing field, or at least as close as humanly possible.  I'm also an advocate for bowling team on one lane instead of alternating.  This is only because there is no 10-player team award, but the way team is bowled these days, it's a 10-player team.  Some teams don't have 10-players that can work together.  If you just bowled on one lane, you wouln't have to worry about random companion teams.  I don't know, the idea may seem way out of the box and not within the tradition alternating lanes, but we're all pretty much aware at this point that lane oil manipulation is a key strategy to victory and you really need all 10 guys on the same gameplan.  But there is NO 10-Player team award... Maybe there should be...

You can't bowl team on one lane, never been like that and should,never be like that. If you do that, then league should,be like that. Plus, if you are only bowling on one lane, award scores wouldn't count, or should have an asterisk next to it stating bowled on one lane. Then you could argue bowling doubles on one lane also. Really, how could u even consider bowling just on one lane.