The Return of Jason Belmonte
bowlingball.com 5/23/2017Jason Belmonte, the 14 time PBA champion and three time PBA Player of the Year, struggled during the 2016 PBA campaign. However, he has returned to victory lane winning two of the first three PBA majors in the 2017 PBA campaign.
Anyone who watched closely during the 2016 PBA season knows that Belmo struggled on TV. From his PBA TOC blunder last January to the World Championship he competed in late last year, we all know he has struggled. He bowled great to get to that point, but when the time came to seal the deal, he couldn’t do it. I just think mechanically everything wasn’t in sync to where he could get the job done. I want to diagnose what I saw wrong as opposed to what we’ve seen over the big February of PBA majors.
Most of the issues I saw were in his third step. I began to see this issue right around the time of the 2016 PBA campaign, when he struggled with his third step. Normally on your third step is when you begin to create your momentum and power to the foul line. His third step would still get going but the amount of drift left he had was too much. He’d then walk back to the right, which decreased the leverage he was able to maintain at the foul line. The result was bad ball reaction when he was on TV due to inconsistency in targeting. We all know this is something he can normally do with the best of them, and is arguably one of the best over the last several years.
Now, let us recap some of the shows he was on in the 2016 PBA campaign. In PBA Tournament of Champions, he struggled with bad ball reaction as well as a couple missed spares. He made the Wolf show at the PBA Fall Swing, where he had thrown the Storm Fight. The Fight is a ball that is smooth with an even arc on the backend. He could have thrown urethane, but with his third step being slightly out of whack, he threw the Fight and fought (no pun intended) over/under ball reaction. At the PBA World Championship show, he was throwing the Storm Phaze II. In my own personal opinion, I like the Phaze II more than the Fight. However, he had a tough time with ball reaction and still had the issue with that third step drifting way left more than in past years.
I’m really happy that he is back to winning as he is one of my favorite players. More importantly, I’m glad he is back to having his mechanics more in check. His ball reaction and leverage have gone back to the way it was when he was winning everything in sight. Read and learn more about two-handed bowling here at bowlingball.com, it’s where bowlers go.
Hello everyone and greetings from the Bowling Mecca of the World, also known as Las Vegas! My name is Nick Pollak. I am 18 years old and I’m a two-handed bowler as well as a USBC Bronze level coach. I am thankful to have been invited to join the bowlingball.com team to write about the sport I love. I look forward to sharing many articles with you and hope to interact with many of you to get feedback and topic ideas you would like to see.
Did I mention I am a two hander? I wasn't always but that all changed in January of 2015 when my one-handed mechanics became a tremendous liability. For each and every one of my fellow two-handers, it should be noted that we are all different in our styles of approach, rev rate, speed and release. I look forward to sharing my perspective of the sport I love, as a competitive bowler and as a two-hander.
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