My Nationals report for April 12th and 13th. I had a good trip this year although I didn't score as well this year as in the years past. I left Friday night from BWI flying Southwest with the wife. Long as you check in online 24 hours before you flight leaves you'll get A group or early B group which is important if you want to have any choice on where to sit. Also Southwest is one of the few that doesn't charge for bags which saves $70 bucks right there if your checking in 4 bags. I took 3 three ball rollers with two balls in each (to stay under 50 pounds each), and checked in on suitcase, and had two carry ons. Flight was only $99 each way too from BWI which wasn't bad.
The flight itself was really full of turbulence coming in for landing at stopover in Albuquerque, and after fighting the controls of the 737 for 20 minutes and finally touching down the pilot came on the speaker and just said "Whew"Â. Everybody on the plane just started cracking up. The subsequent
landing in Vegas I'm surprised the landing gear didn't break off we hit that hard. Same pilot came back on and said "As I taxi what's left of the aircraft to the terminal you free to use your cell phones and electronic devices.
Picked up rental car and headed to Southpoint (same place I stayed at megabucks a couple of months ago). I really like that hotel but you'll need a rental car as it's about 4 miles south of Mandalay Bay on Las Vegas Blvd. I think anybody that goes to Vegas should get a rental car though, just makes the whole trip that much easier, especially if you haven't been there before (maybe my 30th trip to Vegas so wasn't that new to me anymore).
Day 1 first thing I did was exchange my rental car for a new one as the RAV4 I got had a leak in the door and wind was pouring inside. Somehow a Jeep Grand Cherokee was in the same rental group as a Rav4 (wtf), so I exchanged it for that in a heartbeat. The Jeep was only about 100x better and was so new didn't even have tags yet.
After breakfast the next morning the wife and I headed the outlet center right up the street off Las Vegas Blvd, (about a mile south of Mandalay Bay) and picked up more clothes as there isn't an outlet mall like that back on the East coast back home. It's that good. Next headed to Fry's across the street and picked up a laptop. Again, I wish we had Fry's on the east coast. A guy could literally live in that store. It's like Best Buy but 4 times as big, with about 10x more stuff and 20 times the selection.
After getting the shopping part out of the way heading to the Gold Coast (across the street from the RIO) to see about setting up lesson with Jasnau and bowl the BJ. Jasnau was working with a team when I arrived and had laptop and a couple of cameras out. Unfortunately he said he was pretty much booked solid for the next two weeks so no lessons. Anyone planning to see Jasnau better call at least a few weeks in advance before going out or you won't get to work with him. I watched as he worked giving a individual lesson and it looked liked about an hour to hour and half session. Maybe I'll try catching him again when I go out in July for megabucks again.
I went ahead and bowled the BJ (at the same center) with one two other guys as you have to wait until there is at least one other person to bowl. Actually the shot wasn't that bad, but the approaches on the day I was there were beyond horrible. They were worse than walking on ice. 250 first game then a bunch a of 170/180 games as I couldn't stand up on the rest of the pairs. My feet were literally just slipping underneath me on the 2nd and 3rd steps (imagine moon walking moving forward on the approach). The guy running the tournament said they had a contractor that cleaned the carpets in the center the day before and dust and settled down on the approaches and he admitted they were really bad. Might not bother some people but for me that made them unplayable. I was throwing a HYroad and had a great reaction around 15 at the arrows.. guys scoring were playing 15 and left, no further out than about 10 11 at arrows. Anything right of that was not hooking, and nothing on the gutter looked good at all. I'm pretty sure that was temporary deal though and not a long term problem. Oh well, got my $85 dollar subscription to the BJ check.
The next day we headed to the Silver Nugget and bowled the BTM tournament. Center has synthetics with wood approaches. Lanes were little tighter than BJ, so the Hyroad was out. I started out using one of my two Pin Slashers. Got off to decent start 246/190 but as we crossed the center the pairs were just different enough to really give you a different ball reaction. Had a bunch of splits over the next couple games and just couldn't catch a double. Generally speaking the backends were pretty jumpy, so smooth reacting balls were better than flippy balls. Finished out with 160 160 something for 760, blah. $85 dollar subscription to BTM Check.
Since the Convention center was right up the street we headed there to watch a little bit. Paid the $9 bucks for a three day pass otherwise you have to pay $3 every time you exit and go back in the lot. As others had mentioned the convention setup is the best ever that I've been to (since 2001 when I started going). From watching the pattern seem pretty close to what I had been practicing on back home.
We didn't bowl till 8:30 so went out got some lunch and came back around 7:15 and got ready. Our group has 6 teams total ours being the "best" one but most on our team aren't tournament bowlers and usually just bowl THS. It had been discussed to play the lanes the "right way" and break them down 7-8-9 but I knew for a couple of guys on our team it was a just a waste of time as they couln't play straight if there life depended on it. In the squad room we noticed that the MoRich team wasn't there and they normally bowl on our squad so that was a good sign. Got in $1930 worth of brackets but the bracket lady said that the reverse brackets wouldn't fill so would probably get refunds. While waiting to go out on the lanes they did the typical squad room announcements and mentioned that PBA champion Dale Traber was on our squad.. WTF? Yep, team Linds was now on our squad. Great...
Well, practice started, and I noticed they were slightly tighter than the USBC pattern back home, maybe couple boards. I had a dull Gamebreaker with me @360 abarlon, then hit with 4000 to knock down the grooves a little. Started playing out 6-7 pretty straight and had a decent reaction wasn't hooking early and wasn't rolling out. I ended up blowing two single pins on good hits in the first game from 204 after a decent start. Nice way to take a 240 to 204 game.. But going into the 2nd game the lanes were not opening up either was the game continued we also had two shimwreckers swinging 20 to 6 which wasn't helping matters at all. I was hoping by the second game I could change balls and move left maybe 12 to 8 but was still way, way too tight around 9 10 to do that with my roll.
2nd game was a disaster, was little trapped where I was and couldn't move left yet. Was grinding until I chopped a 3-6 (I made chopping the 3-6 my job this week). I quickly followed that up with grabbing one and getting another un-makeable split and not getting a double anywhere in the game. Ended up shooting 170 and hoping there were going to be a LOT of refunds in brackets.
Last game in team I changed balls moved left 4 boards moved target into 8. Don't know if the lanes really opened up or not but finally had a little more mid lane reaction with my Pin Slasher and ended up shooting 243. But 3 missed spares and a middle 170 was not going do anything today. Meanwhile Teams Linds and their companion team were annihilating them. They were all paying 12-13 to 8-9 zone towards the end of the 2nd game, and I guess all of the third game. They were 20 lanes way so was a little too far of walk to keep close eye on them. In the end got back $300 in brackets, and $750 in refunds so I ended up only losing $850. To me the lanes were tighter this year in team than any year so far so. Unless you have stupid hand, it's pretty hard to get left of 12 or 13 in team with angle through the front and have any chance of getting the ball back. If you do it's hard to get three decent games lot of 240-200 140 games from the whackers. In all our team shot 2940 which for us actually isn't that bad.
Next day went back to the BTM as I wanted to warm up again for the minors, and to work on my tempo more. I made a ball change to a CG out Pin Slasher as I didn't need any help creating backend reaction there. The CG out Pin Slasher is much more even on the back and I was hoping that help with over under I was getting the day before there. Bowled with two other guys again, and actually started out pretty good front 10 for 288 (300 would have been nice, darn). Moved to the next pair and had the same look and shot 256. The leader was 996 so had a chance to get there which I didn't think was really possible after bowling the day before. However the dream was short lived. The next pair was not even close to last two. Couldn't get a double but I managed to throw a few splits and grind out a 149. Wasn't making bad shots really, other than chopping a 3-6, imagine that. Made the turn back and again the pair wasn't close to the first two, couple early splits again, but finally made the right moves for a turkey, then a washout conversion to finish for 189 881 which at the time was 4th. Was frustrating though to come out of the gate with 544 and not post anything better than that though.
Off to the minors now which I was looking forward to posting some better scores as I was hoping they would be a little more open than in team event. Watched the team in front of us and it didn't look promising. They all were throwing shiny balls down 10, blah. I only got in 20/20 brackets as they weren't going to fill much more than that anyway. Well after a couple of warm up shots immediately became apparent that the lanes were 3-5 boards TIGHTER than where we started in team great. Not looking forward to shooting much on this pair and we didn't. Heads were too try to even think about throwing the Game breaker. Anything from 8 to 12 never ever hooked.. so ended up moving right out to 2-3 with CG in Pin Slasher. Tried a few shots the first game with virtual playing out but againi, at 1000 was too early. Ended up shooting 170 214 193. Carry was amazingly bad on this pair, lots of 7's, 10's, 4's 9's. Again, scoring this year more than most really depends on who's in front of you. If a bad team is front of you, you really have no chance to post a big number.
For singles as good as out played the set before the last couple games, the out didn't play on this pair. After struggling badly the first game for 166 chopped 6-10, and a 3-6 and no doubles, figured another block of brackets toasted. Moved 20 boards left and played fall back from 21 no further out than about 14 or so. I finally had a decent look which wasn't there at all in team or in doubles and closer to where I usually play in nationals. Had a ton of hold at 21, almost too much at times as I actually plaqued a couple of 10s by getting it left early. Again, carry wasn't great though (worst ever at nationals for me, even worse than in Reno with those god awful twister pins where all you left were 4 pins). Ended up 214 -193 last two games for 572 /1770 all events. Got back $300 in brackets so only lost a $100 in minors, down 1k overall. My worst nationals score wise in 6 years.
Next day we went to Grand Canyon and did the Skywalk which was pretty cool although it's not cheap either. It's $75 each to for the park and skywalk. Least I had I the Jeep which came in handy for the 20 mile trek down the dirt road with boulders, lol. It's 121 miles from Vegas to the Grand canyon west park. Cool trip though and I would recommend it, although it's better if you have a SUV for the dirt road section. Just watch the weather, as when we were there the wind was blowing 25 to 40 mph. And if the rains the dirt road isn't even passable. There is tour buses that leave from Vegas so you can always go that route to get there. So that wraps up 2009 nationals, hopefully 2010 will be better.
Of course the next day back in league I shoot 300/826. Yeah the USBC definitely has scoring issues.
Edited on 4/18/2009 2:04 PM
