February 10, 2023 - Day 2... I got to the bowl with a fresh mind and game plan. I knew I needed more than 200 over so I wanted to be aggressive and try and make a run. I really wanted to try and stay in urethane longer if possible and then switch to reactive once the lanes carried down and use it without it over hooking down lane.
I started practice with my pin down purple urethane and just like round 2, it hooked very quickly and moving left, it seemed to not want to hook at all. I am not sure if I just didn’t have the right surface on it or I wasn’t doing something the same way I was doing in round one.
I went to my pin up purple to start game one and it gave me really bad over-under (complete mess of over hooking, under hooking). If I missed right, it over hooked... if I missed left, it didn’t hook. I wanted to do my best to stick with my game plane because I knew I needed a big number and couldn’t wait to get going. Unfortunately, it was a terrible idea and I Big 4'd twice and pocket 7-10'd twice and that essentially ended my chances with a 150 game 1 start. Awesome.
I decided I would use this opportunity to try and learn more about this pattern and myself. The shorter patterns (Wolf 34ft and Cheetah 35ft) over time, have really been an issue for me. I have the skills to succeed on them, but I haven’t had success seeing the right picture. Maybe it is mental, maybe I just need to work harder to be better.
I tried reactive fame 2, and it went in the gutter 2 of the first 3 times I tried it. So I went back to my purple urethane and tried different angles. I was able to save 170 after opening the first 4 frames and then proceeded to bowl 240 game 3 which gave me a lot of confidence thinking maybe being a little softer with urethane was what I needed to do.
Unfortunately, the next game the over-under showed back up and I had to get in reactive. I didn’t really bowl any score better than 210 the next 3 but I was able to throw both aggressive and weaker balls to see what I can do to be successful on the pattern.
The day ended with my ball not hooking in the oil down the lane again. Which tells me I am absolutely using the wrong surface on all of my bowling balls. I was using balls with too much shine and needed more surface than I think and I need to use less hand than I would like.
This week is hard to quantify because I am so beyond disappointed with how I played. I felt very uncomfortable in practice and was really proud of how I worked with Dino and came up with a game plan that had me in the cut after half of qualifying. However, I have to rank the week on all of the tournament I have to give it a ranking of an F. I failed in finding a good game plan, I failed on executing any plan and allowed myself to fall too far behind pace, and essentially was not in contention.
I feel really good about how I am bowling overall and excited to start a new week in Oklahoma. Bad weeks don't determine how you will bowl moving forward. They only help you learn on how you will face it in the future. My main objective is to learn from the mistakes and use them to be better. Onto OK!