the start of the 1998 Youth/Adult League.
My first practice session came on April 14th. I bowled 5-6 games, with my
best being a 180. I also had a 171. I then played around in the 4th game by
bowling with an 8 pound ball and throwing it at 25+ MPH. One person thought
I was going to break the ball because I was throwing it so hard. Those
balls that I threw took about 1.5 seconds to reach the pins.
Friday, April 17th: I bowled in a Pro-Am with PBA bowlers. The pros changed
lanes after every game, so the non-pros would bowl with a different pro
every game.
It was set up so that if you get 9 or 10 pins on the first ball, you get
a strike. Some bowlers used that to their advantage, with one pro getting
a 290 and one non-pro bowling 208.
I feel that I'm bowling against the pros instead of with them. I bowled on
Lanes 3-4.
In Game 1, I looked real sharp and bowled a 193. The pro in Game 1 had a
188. He would have gotten a 200 game if he didn't miss the 2-4-8 spare.
That was the only time I had a higher score than a pro. That same pro got
a 290 for his next game on Lanes 5-6.
Game 2 was a lot worse, and I was missing spares left and right early on,
but I recovered in the 2nd half of the game and had a 133, but a different
pro beat me by 63 points, 196-133.
Game 3: I looked much better by bowling 2 strikes in a row on 3 occasions,
but otherwise, I didn't do much more. The pro had 5 strikes in a row in the
mid-stages, and it was more than what I could handle. Me: 174, Pro: 221.
Quick Summary: I ended up with a 500 Series, which was pretty good, because
I've been doing bad in 1998. I have much more potential.
My 2nd real practice session came on April 27th. I bowled on Lane 7. I
looked sharp from start to finish. In this, I have finally figured out
how to throw my ball to achieve high scores consistently.
I bowled games of 167, 186 and 169 for a 522 Series. It was my best
real performance by far in 1998, exceeding my previous best by 47, not
including the 500 Series I got in the Pro-Am. I had just 6 open frames
in the entire series. I missed 1 easy spare attempt, had 4 splits, and
missed a 1-2-3-4-5-7-8 spare attempt. Having 6 or more open frames in
a game not uncommon for me, so that meant that I did real good.
Overall, my 522 Series was excellent. I rate that as being the 3rd best
Series of my career, even better than my 527 Series I got on October 18th
of last year. Reason: I didn't miss spares. This shows how much potential
I have heading into the Youth/Adult League.
I practiced some more on May 2nd. I bowled 7 games on Lane 4 this time. My
best game was a 171. I averaged 142.857 in those 7 games. I wasn't on the
top of my game but I will be soon.
I had two more 2-game practice sessions on May 7th and 9th. My May 7th games
were 183 and 157, and my May 9th games were 170 and 168 to average 169.5 in
those 4 games. I said to myself many times in those 4 games that I was "In
The Zone".
My last practice session shouldn't have counted. I forgot my ball so I was
using a house ball. My games were 130, 150, 133, 104, and 140 to average
131.4. I did bowl 3 strikes in a row once.
That's it for the offseason.