Mounts Bowling

I don't have a permanent spot on any teams in this league this year but I do sub regularly.

Click through for a my vintage league season statistics and commentary and for stats and commentary on past bowling tournaments.

Yesterday I decided to take part in my first BP Tough Shot event in quite a while. In fact I'd have to dig deeper through my records to see if I forgot about an event but a quick scan of my archives here show the last time I entered this event to be back in February of last year.

Anyway, I've tried my best to not attend many of these events in the recent past for one reason. Though the shot is tough and a pretty good representation of what the PBA shot is meant to play like the real challenge is in the approaches. The approaches are ALWAYS sticky in the mornings on Saturday (and most any time for that matter). I don't know why or how it's possible that this is the case all the time as no other center that I've ever come across comes anywhere close to being this bad. We're talking bad! A lot of the older guys say the approaches make their knees and legs swell up with pain because they can't slide. MY legs even hurt later in the day yesterday because of it... not to mention the fact that I hit the floor once and almost three other times because I stuck and went flying through the air. Horrible!

When you're dealing with footing issues like that, which is basically out of your control, then it becomes virtually impossible to focus on the "tough shot" on the lanes. These tournaments should be called the Brunswick Premiere "Tough Approach" Scratch 6-Gamers. Seriously the house is disgraceful how it completely shuts out competitive bowlers due to issues such as these. Not to mention as we were bowling the event the staff was tying up balloons around us and eventually on our pairs for a kids birthday party which was scheduled right behind us. Way to cater to the real bowlers guys. I wonder what would happen to golf clubs if they started catering to drunken morons let loose on their courses late at night followed by dirty kids spilling their junk food all over the turf. Why doesn't golf take a clue from bowling centers and schedule children's birthday parties on the course while tournaments are still being conducted?

It seriously ticks me off that bowling caters more to people goofing off then to those that try their best to compete with the best on the most challenging conditions. No other sport shuts out their best players better than bowling!

Anyway, I guess I don't normally get so annoyed by these things but occasionally the annoyance bubbles up. My scores however for the tournament were not bad but pretty lopsided. I bowled 6 games on four pairs like everyone else and one of the pairs I got twice was the worst one for my footing and I bowled dismally in each game. Game two I actually fell once and almost two other times the footing was so bad. I managed a 149 and a 157 in games 2 and 6 on that pair. The other 4 games however I shot +27 as my footing was a bit better... and to be fair I likely got a bit luckier too. My game by games scores lay below. In case you're curious you can see some other events I've bowled in and the complete results for this event can be found at Tracking The Bowling News.