This tournament was a successful start to the final “swing” of the year on the PBA50 tour. During the “break” – the four weeks off between swings of the tour (a swing is a series of consecutive events) I did some work on my game and my grip. I changed my thumb pitches because there were two spots in my swing where I felt I had to “re-grip” the ball. Even an experienced player and ball driller like myself must periodically re-evaluate my grip for changes that can enhance my performance. With that, I changed my thumb pitches from 0 reverse and 0 lateral to 1/8 forward and 1/8 right pitch (away from my palm as a left-handed player). This change keeps the ball feeling secure in my hand all the way through the swing while still coming off my hand cleanly.
My second change during the break was to work on making my swing more efficient. This involved keeping my first step (of 5) straight (I had a tendency to take it left just slightly) and making my swing a bit too long. I also shortened and went to more of a “hinge” takeaway move to get the ball into the swing earlier and more consistently.
These changes paid off at the PBA50 event in Welch, Minnesota. I qualified in 8th on the 39′ PBA50 Viper pattern, mostly using a pin-up Marvel-S. This gave me 2 byes and an automatic seed into the second round of match play. In our current finals format, we bowl six games in this round and the top five players go to the stepladder finals. I had a hard time matching up during the first two games of this round and scored poorly. After that I was able to get a ball and lane play match that worked, and I climbed from 16th to 10th over the last four games of the block.
While I did not make the stairstep finals, I was able to join the broadcast team for the web stream of the show, where Parker Bohn III put on a clinic on breaking down a fresh lane condition and making it better and better through the matches, winning the tournament.