Saturday - January 03, 2015

Scoring Spike

A little bit of bowling blogging, which Rich K loves so well.

The Low Margin Line

I’ve been using a different throw for the past few weeks. Instead of trying for an “out and back” kind of hook that moves out lots of boards, I’m doing a “down and in” kind of toss that bellies out just a handful of boards. It takes a slow and low approach, with a gentle swing. This might sound like lazy bowling, but it isn’t; I have to concentrate fiercely - almost hypnotically - on keeping my shoulders square and loose, on swinging straight through and not “slanging” my arm around, on getting the finger snick at the end just so, and most importantly, totally zoning in on the dime-sized spot out on the arrows where I want my ball to go. And when all these pieces come together, it works.

It really works. My high games have spiked 20+ pins. I’ve been throwing at least one 220+ game a night. Last week I threw 2 games in the 230s. Last night I threw 223 for the first game. Ok, last night I also screwed the pooch in Game 2, wrenching my back a little and messing myself up, which resulted in a 116, which is a terrible score. I recovered in Game 3, throwing 10 over average, and we did manage to win Games 1 and 3 and to take wood, so we got 5 points for the night. But we should have had all 7, and it’s pretty much all my fault. But the regularity of the higher scores mean I’m getting better at being more precise, and doing it more frequently. Which is great, but now I have to analyze whether that’s wasted effort or not in terms of the big picture.

And that brings me to the title of this little post, because the truth is, the only real difference between my Game 1 and Game 2 was perhaps 1/2”. But it was 1/2” on every throw. A little wide, a tiny bit high, a bit flat, a tad inside or outside my mark ... yadda yadda. And what had been strike after strike after strike in Game 1 became a shit-pile of splits, crappy leaves, dead 10s, and other ugly yuck. Thankfully, I am glad to say that this didn’t upset me at all. No pouting or frustration. It was more of a “now, how is this happening?” thing. And I think the answer is that I’d rolled the line out in just 1 game (other bowlers may have been using that line or parts of it) and had to chase the oil around for a while. And when I did that, bam bam, I was back in business, though not quite as hot as I was to start. And this is why I’m calling it a low margin line. The throw works great, but it has to be exactly exact. Precisely precise. Every throw the same, with less than 1/4 of a board’s difference from one end of the 60 foot lane to the other. And I’m not yet that much of a machine.

So what I think might be better, is more of a cranker kind of philosophy for the throw: rev it up and slide it into an area, where it will bite hard and come back and cover the pocket angles, whether shallow and high from a late break, or broad and low from an early break or a wide throw out to the edge. And, dagnabit, that takes me right back to my never ending inability to put enough rev on the ball. I don’t know how people do it, I’ve been watching and asking for years. Bent wrist, under the ball, palm roll to the inside, finger snick, or somehow magically pull you thumb from the ball early and then do all the stuff I just mentioned, and somehow not have the ball dive bomb itself right off my hand into the approach so hard that it bounces out onto the lane like a friggin basketball. Because that’s what “get your thumb out” means to me - that ball is about to go somewhere, and go there hard, where it ain’t supposed to be. All I really want is to find a shot that works, and holds for a couple frames when the oil starts to shift, and will also work when the line is a board or two plus or minus. Fast or slow a touch. Some margin. You know what I mean.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/03/2015 at 02:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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