New Achievement!
The beginning of this bowling season began with a rough start, literally. I am a huge football fan. I actually enjoy football more than I do bowling, which is saying a lot. So any chance I get to play the game of football I take. Before the bowling season started I got together with some good friends and had a fun game of football. This was full contact no pads football however.
Now I have only been hurt playing sports once in my life, and it happened to be during football when I got a severe sprain on my left ankle. So I have been pretty lucky throughout my life. Well the luck wasn’t with me on this day of football. During the first play when I pushed my cousin out of bounds, I jarred something in my shoulder and it stung for quite a while. I later found out that I had sprained something in my right shoulder, my bowling arm. I could not extend my arm up very high, definitely not enough to follow through.
So I was a bit perturbed about this when I started bowling my two scratch leagues this year for the fall season. I began bowling on Thursdays at Valley Lanes in West Valley, UT for the Valley Majors. Then I continued on Tuesdays at Allstar Lanes West Jordan in West Jordan, UT for the Allstar Masters league. During the first month or so I had to deal with bowling without following through on my shot. This was difficult to be accurate. I was averaging in the low 190s and didn’t shoot any 600 series at all.
Then shortly after my shoulder started feeling better and my scores were improving slightly. The problem was I didn’t stop playing football and had in fact joined a flag football team. After a few of the games local recreation league for flag football I got together with the team for a fun game outside of the league. Well during one of the last plays I sprained my right ankle. Now being familiar with a severe sprain on my left ankle, I knew this one was bad but not as bad as my previous sprain so I was hopeful. Well I found out that the treatment of a sprain does not help to immediately heal the sprain but to reduce the severity over time. The average time for a sprain to heal is 4-6 weeks.
This incident happened on a Saturday, so all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday when I was not working I was resting and icing the ankle in an attempt to be ready for bowling on Tuesday. Well it worked to a degree, the pain was still bad and the ankle was very sensitive, but I had a brace and I could walk so I bowled. I didn’t bowl too bad, and was actually better than when my shoulder was really bad. My shoulder had not completely healed, and even to this day I have problems with it, but it was better. These two injuries really hampered my ability and instead of averaging the usual 207 and above, I was down around 190 for the first 5 to 6 weeks.
After a few weeks of high 590s and low 600s I started to feel a lot of improvement. After about 6 weeks of the bowling season my average was in the mid 190s, and I was starting to feel whole again. Beginning about week 7 of the bowling season I made a strong push in my bowling game. I began to really focus and make better adjustments. I started paying attention to ball reaction and used the ball I felt worked best. Everything was paying off. I started shooting above 650 every week, and up until this week (week 13) I had not shot below 650 in either league. Last Thursday I bowled a 633 after shooting 719 in the Tuesday league. That 700 series was my third of the season and I followed it up with a dismal 633.
I knew that I could not let my great momentum falter and needed to make improvements. One thing I had done to improve my game when I started getting to 650 and higher was to practice spares. I would go to the local center my friends worked at and I would practice just shooting single pin spares. I wish I could count how many 10 pins I threw at during that period. One thing I do know is that it helped immensely. During the Summer I began to learn to throw straight at spares to avoid having to make adjustments on different conditions. This attempt was severely hampered by the injuries I sustained. I had a terrible conversion rate, especially on 10 pins. I knew I had to work on my spare game to improve. I made a strong effort to practice and it paid off. My conversion rate has sky rocketed and it is rare that I miss any single pin, especially 10 pins.
So after shooting that 633 series I went back to the practice that helped me before. I took a lunch break from work and went to bowl. That practice session was not very fruitful, I could not throw the ball well and my 10 pin conversion was horrible again. I was a bit discouraged and decided I needed to practice again on Sunday night.
Sunday came and a client of mine wanted a lesson, so I went in the afternoon and gave him a lesson and helped him with spares as well. Later that night after watching Real Salt Lake win the MLS cup, I headed down to the center at about 10 PM with the intent to practice and shoot spares. I met up with a good friend that I play paintball with and he bowled with me. We bowled some practice shots and then a game where I shot around 215. Then some other friends joined us and one of them who is the mechanic at the center oiled the lanes again.
After oiling the lanes, taking some practice shots and a lot of smack talk, we began to pot bowl. The first game was only $1 each where I won with a 268. My mechanic friend was bowling left handed with handicap so he wanted to go again with his right hand. After a lot of talk we decided to all bowl for $4 each. There were 5 of us now and my paintball friend had some handicap to help him out. He nearly won by I shot 247 to win that pot game as well.
After much talk and deliberation we decided that a $10 pot game was in order. My paintball buddy decided he had had enough and needed to go home. So there were 4 of us bowling for $10 each. The game was good and the lowest score in around 215. My mechanic friend shot 237, but I disappointed him by getting 238. I won the pot and improved my profits to $49 for the night. I had also shot 753 for 3 games. I had not shot a 745 on the Thursday league a few weeks prior but other than that I had not shot very high above 700 for about 5 years. Needless to say my confidence was back.
So last night was Tuesday and it was league night for the Allstar Masters scratch league at Allstar West Jordan. I was very confident coming into the night. Our team had won 1st place for the first third of the season and we were back in 1st after the first week of the second third. I had also just shot 753 a couple nights before. My morale was high, but it was nothing compared to what it would be…
To Be Continued…
