Originally Published March 15, 2010
Finally the doubles/singles part of this big bowling tournament came and went. Like the team event I scouted the previous squads during this part of the tournament to see how they were playing the lanes in comparison to how I expected the lanes to play as I posted about not too long ago: USBC Open Oil Pattern Analysis.
Unlike my chart based on the actual oil pattern instructions, The Doubles and especially the Singles portion of the bowling tournament was bowled on heavily broken down lanes. Being games 7-9 the lanes weren’t likely to play the way the pattern started out… and once I finally got to bowl that was very apparent, especially by the end of the Singles squad.
In my analysis of previous squads I took some video and provided some commentary on how people were bowling. For the most part I only took video of people who were doing well (at the time at least) so that I could compare and contrast shots that were working consistently.
USBC Open Championships – Doubles / Singles Event Pattern Analysis
And in case the embedded video doesn’t work you can see the video on YouTube: Doubles / Singles Event Pattern Analysis and feel free to take a look at my analysis of the USBC Open team event here.
As you can see from the video most of the people I captured bowling the singles set were placing the ball down at the 20 board and throwing over the third arrow. Most were hitting between 10 and 8 at the 45 foot mark so naturally I expected this to be a great shot if I could find a ball to duplicate the shot.
How I played the Doubles & Singles Event
When it was my turn to actually bowl I ended up starting off with my Fury Pearl basically throwing that exact shot. For the most part it worked OK for me from the beginning but I couldn’t really get anything going most;t because of my spare shooting and not being exactly dialed in. I was actually hitting around 8-9 for my break point at 45 feet and that worked when I got it off my hand clean, unfortunately the first game was my worst of the entire nine games as I clocked in at 155.
After some tweaking but nothing really major being changed I zoned in and finished strong with a 203 and 208. These two games I continued to throw almost exactly the same shot; I just carried a few more times and made my spares.
During the singles my first game was a solid 201 – clean. Again nothing was different with my shot. I stayed at about 20 shooting to 9 or so at 45 feet. Eventually however the line I was playing started deteriorating enough that I couldn’t just keep throwing the ball faster and I switched over to my Twisted Fury for more length. Unfortunately this didn’t work out too well as it didn’t really carry any better. To make things worse I couldn’t double with the shot, I left a split and made a costly mistake by chopping an easy 3-6 spare. I ended up I shooting 169 basically eliminating me from most brackets at the same time. Grr!
In any event I couldn’t really get consistent strikes but all my shots were pretty good with the exception of the split and eventually by the third game after leaving two more splits because my break point was starting to overhook I switched back to my Fury Pearl and moved deeper inside – about 5 more boards and shot right at the 10 board at 45 foot. This worked real well for me as the 10-8 board break point was so fryed. I finished strong by striking 9-11 with a 9-count fill ball for a 194 to close the day out.
Considering the reconnaissance mission I went on in the above video I feel the shot played much like I expected I simply didn’t perform up to the standard I would have liked. I shouldn’t have missed the handful of make-able spares I missed (1 in the singles event and 3 in doubles) and I shouldn’t have left so many splits and washouts (7 on the day – 11 in the entire tournament). Those just killed me.
Anyway, my teammates purchased a copy of the squad on DVD so if I can get my hands on that I will try to post some clips of my actual bowling on here at a later date but until then; if you have yet to bowl the event keep this in mind. 13 board at the arrows, 10 at 45 feet for games 1-3 and 15 board at arrows, 8 at 45 feet for games 7-9 if you have hand. That’s the shot; you just have to perform well to score well with it.
