This week’s road report comes to you from my “unofficial home away from home”. It’s hard to say which stop on the Regional tour is my favorite, but this one ranks pretty high in all aspects. First of all, the center owners are top-notch. Jim and Bob Stubler do everything possible to make us welcome every year. This year’s event was no different. I’ve always enjoyed this stop and have had some decent success here. I also ran a clinic here last fall and had a good turnout and a great time.

Friday August 25th

Since Peru is a short 1 ½ hour drive for me, I was actually able to get some work done around the house before I had to leave. After a somewhat short trip, I arrived in Peru shortly before practice started, made the rounds to say hi to everybody, then unloaded my truck. We were on the dreaded Pattern #2 AGAIN this week, so I pretty much took every ball I own in the building, not knowing what to expect. Peru has Brunswick Anvilane with synthetic approaches and this was the first time we’ve hit this pattern on this surface this season. During practice I had a pretty good look playing them pretty similar to what I did in Council Bluffs on Sunday, going fairly straight with a Trifecta and a Dark Thunder. I only practiced for an hour, and then went to check into the hotel. After a short break I headed back to the bowl, where Jason Couch, Pete Weber and myself hosted a 1-hour youth clinic that the PBA had put together in conjunction with National Bowling Week. The clinic was free to local youth bowlers and we had a good turnout. I think around 40 kids showed up and they had a great time. We did some on-lane coaching, signed autographs and took photos with all the kids. All in all, it was definitely a positive in every manner. After the clinic Couch, Jason Hurd and myself headed to Applebee’s ( no Hooters for about 50 miles ) to chill out for a while before the late pro-am. This year the Stublers did something different. They sold 4-person team spots for a Baker-style team pro-am event. As each team signed up, they were assigned a pro. I was teamed up with a local family and another guy that bowls with them in league. Let me say that we had an absolute blast. These guys were there to have fun and we certainly did that. I’m much more comfortable in pro-ams when the people aren’t taking it too seriously. Lets face it, pro-ams are for fun, right ??? Like I said, we had a great time and they were adamant that I bowl with them again next year. Guys if you’re reading this, its game on again next year ! After the pro-am everybody headed to the bar where the Stublers hosted their version of “Deal or no Deal”. I didn’t hang around very long, but what I saw looked pretty entertaining.

Saturday August 26th

Let me start by saying that my decision making hasn’t improved much on this pattern at all. It still seems like when I try to play straighter on this pattern, everybody whacks ‘em from in and when I try and hook it, everybody scores well piping it. Go figure !!! I started playing fairly straight like I did in practice, but the Trifecta didn’t look nearly as good as it did in practice. I didn’t have anything else that looked very good, so I started with it. I was going through about 7-8 at the arrows and taking it to about 2-3 at the breakpoint. The gutter wasn’t bouncing as much as in practice, so I tried to keep it straighter through the fronts and roll through it more. I started with a triple, then a 2 pin. Then I went blower 7, strike, ring 10, double. I finished the 10th with a double, 3-4-6-7 for 232. Not a bad start compared to the look I had in practice. Game 2 was a little tighter downlane and I never really adjusted to it. I had 1 double, a couple of bad breaks and a couple shots that wiggled and never picked up for 201 clean. Game 3 was similar, so I moved in a slowed the speed down a bit. It seemed to help, for a while at least. I started with the front 4, then ring 10, double. Then I made a bad shot for a 3-6. After that the wheels fell off. I went 2-4-8-10 in the 9th and Big 5 in the 10th, finishing with 209 ( +42 after 3 games ). Instead of going at 250+ that game, I lost a ton of momentum. At that point I’m watching everybody ( namely Eugene ) hook the lane for big scores. So in Game 4 I jumped in with an Agent. Let’s just say Game 4 was VERY ugly. I couldn’t match my speed up with what I needed to do to hook it on that pattern. The ball was going sideways on me from every point on the lane. I tried a Thunderstruck, but it didn’t look very good either. I ended that game with 181, to fall to +23 after 4 games. When the scoring pace is over 220 and you’re averaging 208, you aren’t going very far. With four games to go I knew I needed to do something, so I grabbed my Dark Thunder and moved back right. I started piping it through 9-10 with pretty firm ball speed. Right of the track was already burning up, so if I got it right it hooked at my toe. Luckily this was the right move because I shot 258 in Game 5 with  2 blower 7’s, 244 in Game 6 with a couple of 4 pins, and then 279 in Game 7 with a 4 pin in the 5th. At that point I was at +204 after 7 and in the cut number. The last game didn’t start well, with a blower 7-10 in the first, but after a double, ring 10, strike, ring 10, I finished with the next 4 to end up with 221. I finished the 8 game block at +225 and ended up qualifying in 15th place. After we were done, Couch and I hung out in the bar watching Tiger be Tiger for a while. In my opinion there is nobody better to watch right now in all of sports. I love my Rangers with a passion, but when Tiger is playing ( and on his game ), you know you are witnessing greatness with every swing. I never thought that golf on the radio would be entertaining, but with the new golf channel on XM I can listen to Tiger now !!! Anyway, back to reality, we hung out for a while and then I grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to my room. My allergies were killing me and I had been sneezing my head off all day. I didn’t get much sleep the night before and I was catching up to me. Luckily there were several episodes of CSI on, so that kept me busy until I think I passed out.

Sunday August 26th

I decided to just start with the Dark Thunder this round, since it looked so good the last 4 games on Saturday. I made what has become my usual Sunday morning run, going 276, 222, 245, 240 and 217 ( +200 even ) for my 5 game semi-qualifying round. That moved me up to 11th place for match play. Couch and I were in the bar eating lunch ( and watching golf of course ) when Rich announced the brackets. You guessed it, we drew each other for the Round of 16. Just for those of you that have been stranded on an island for the last 10 years, Jason Couch is a 13-time National Tour titleist and a 24-time Regional titleist ( including back-to-back-to-back TOC titles ). We started practice and something pretty unusual happened next. My first practice shot hit the one board, bounced up and went dead left. What the ??? My next shot didn’t get quite as far right and looked normal. My third shot got to one again and once again, bounced and went dead left. Again, what the ??? I called Rich down and after walking downlane it was determined that the automatic bumpers were raised on the right side. My ball was bouncing off the bumper and going left. They fixed the problem, or at least I thought they did ( more to come on that in a bit ). Right away I could tell something was “off” on the left lane ( the one we had the problem on ). The left lane started tight, and kept getting worse. I’m watching every other right-hander peel it off the gutter, but my ball on the left lane was going 100 feet. I hardly 2-10’d all weekend, but all of a sudden I had a 2-10 combination on every shot on the left lane. I kept moving, but it didn’t do any good. I lost Game 1 223-182, Game 2 216-180 and Game 3 240-192. I struck once on the left lane the entire match. By the time we were done, I was 14 boards right on the left lane, compared to the right lane. We pretty much determined that when the lane machine went down the lane, the raised bumper didn’t allow the machine to properly condition the right side. It was one of those freak things that wasn’t anybody’s fault, but certainly didn’t help things on my part. The unlucky part was bowling a lefty on that pair. If I had been bowling a right-hander, who knows if things would have been different? Of well, it’s over and done with, so time to move on.

I want to thank the Stublers and all of their sponsors for providing us a wonderful event to bowl. I hope to do some future clinics there and help them grow business in their center. I already cant wait to go back for next year !!! My next report will be coming to you from Herrin Bowl, in Energy, IL in a few weeks. The LPGA is in town on the golf course where I live, so next weekend I’ll be hanging out on the course. The weekend after that we have a couple of local tournaments going on, so I’ll be doing that. If I get really ambitious I may sneak in a little report on those 2 weekends. Until next time, Bowl up a Storm !!!