PBA Timmy See Memorial Yulee Member - Non-Member Doubles

bowlingball.com Staff Writer, Wesley Low

Published: 12/22/2021

What's up everyone, and welcome back to my articles. In this edition, we will look back at tournament review where you can see inside my brain how I reflect on a tournament. Reflection is good because it makes us stronger by learning about our past wins or mistakes to improve our bowling skills. I've had plenty of mistakes in my lifetime with my bowling game that I learned from the experiences and shaped me into the person I am today.

This past weekend I traveled to Yulee, Florida, to bowl with a longtime friend Cortez Schenck. We have bowled since we were in junior bowling ranks. Just look at that cute picture of us when we were younger. Since this was a PBA event, I am the member, and this will be the last year he is a non-member. We figured it would be the final time we would bowl with each other in a member non-member event. The format was 8 games of bowling between the two of us with the top 8 teams advancing to the finals.

After the 16 games, we finished +26 and 18th place out of 40 teams. Overall, this was a disappointing event because it felt like we could have done so much better than we did, but we will learn from this at the end of the day.

In the beginning, I was unable to find ball reaction on the fresh that would allow me to finish out games. I would open three times a game and still shoot 200, which is neve ideal, especially in a PBA event. I felt I had the wrong bowling balls in my hand that were too angular as opposed to something that would blend the pattern out better. I even threw my Alpha Jackal past the arrows, which ended up with another 3 open 210 game.

After taking a small timeout in my head, I looked around to see what other bowlers were doing to score and realized most bowlers in the Florida area are softer at the bottom with the bowling ball than my slightly aggressive style at the bottom. I switched up to an Iron Forge and just rolled the ball better while letting it motion itself and bowled and began striking a bit more. Unfortunately for us, my partner did not have an ideal ball reaction, which meant we were short of cashing and making the next round.

Based on my reflection, I realized that I need to be more observant about my field and how they strike. Also, it's essential to be better at bowling on the fresh because it can be challenging chasing pins, especially when everyone in the field has a great look to strike. All I know is that this learning experience will get me ready for the PBA Tour when I get back into action come January. Hope you found my tournament update helpful and can learn from my mistakes.

Until the next tournament, I hope you stay motivated like myself.

-Wesley