By Andy Morton

After a fun-filled four days of bowling, friends, and gambling, I’m pretty sure I’ll be making my second appearance in 2011.  

This trip was special for a couple reasons. Not only was it my first trip to the tournament, but it was also my first bowling trip outside the state with my younger brother Doug, and my first trip out of state for a bowling tournament in 10 whole years. Ironically, it was in this same building, the National Bowling Stadium. What an awesome place to go bowling. 

Last year, Doug made his first appearance at this tournament when it was held in Las Vegas and convinced me to participate this year. Since we work in the same office building, much of our conversation over the last many months has been about this upcoming trip.  There were plenty of fist bumps and high fives in anticipation. There was even a dinner bet with Doug that I wouldn’t shoot 1800 in All-Events for my first ever Championships. 

The trip began on a red eye flight out of Anchorage on Wednesday morning. The flight was pretty full, but we got lucky and ended up with a spare seat between us. You know it’s going to be a good trip when the plane you get on is pretty full and you end up with a row all to yourself. That good break in itself deserved a fist bump. We landed at about 9 a.m. in Reno on that Wednesday and got our bags, got our car, and drove straight to the National Bowling Stadium. Our Team Event was on Thursday evening and Singles and Doubles would follow the next morning. We had also booked full lessons with Storm Bowling Coach Mike Jasnau on Lane 81 in the National Bowling Stadium Pro Shop for that day, so there wasn’t really a whole lot of time to relax when we landed. I was scheduled for 4:30 p.m., the last of our group; so I took the opportunity to grab a quick nap before my lesson. As I left Harrah’s for the Stadium and my lesson I was hit by a pretty fierce snowstorm blowing unusually large snowflakes sideways. No offense Reno, but I could have done without that on this trip.  I get enough of that in my own hometown. 

I did eventually make it to the stadium and with some time to kill I checked out some bowling action and found a team making a run at 1100 in game 1. It was Armstrong Printing 1 and all of them were working as a team on the lanes and making really good shots. They ended up finishing the set with a 3382 which puts them in 3rd place as of today. 

By the time Armstrong Printing 1 had started their 2nd game, my lesson was underway. I had worked with Mike before when he made a trip up North to Anchorage, Alaska back in 2002. Without the science of CATS and the capability of his nifty side-by-side video comparison, we worked on a few technical things and then my 21-year-old know- it-all-attitude ignored most of it. Now 29, and hopefully much wiser, I went into the lesson with a very open mind. First and foremost though, I had to throw 10 shots for the CATS data. This was going to tell me how accurate I was in my set down, my targeting at different points on the lane, my ball speed, my entry angle and various other technical data. As a group, we had been comparing this data as the lessons progressed.  One of our buddies, Bobby McLennan, was scary accurate. Many years ago when CATS was new, they apparently had a CATS tournament and he finished 2nd behind Norm Duke. Trust me, I thought he was full of it too, but it’s a true story. So here I am, last bowler of the day, and everyone wants to know if I can beat him.  This was actually the most nervous I got during the entire trip. After my 10 shots, Bobby out-dueled me by a tenth of an inch.  Needless to say, I was really happy with my results. 

To my surprise (sarcasm), Mike followed the CATS data with a lesson covering some of the same basic fixes he suggested eight years ago; but with side by side video analysis and some comparisons to some of the greatest players in the game, I could see why I needed to make these changes. We worked on my timing and my push-away to give me better positioning throughout my approach. This fix created better timing at the line, better balance and a more parallel release of the ball to the lane.  Most of which I could implement immediately for the rest of the trip. After the lessons, we grabbed a bite to eat, hit a comedy show and headed out to the casino floors for a night of fun.

On Thursday we decided to bowl the first squad of the Bowlers Journal Tournament at the Grand Sierra Hotel at 10:00 AM.  Bowling this tournament would hopefully loosen us up for our team event that night. I shot 192, 194 and 234 for the first three. Needed a 240 for guaranteed cash and shot a woeful 129 game. The last pair we moved to played nothing like the other three and aside from a lucky strike in frame one, I opened with splits in frames two through seven before going clean the last four frames. Not that I’m making excuses, but that pair also saw a 98 game.  So much for guaranteed cash. 

We grabbed a bite to eat at the Grand Sierra buffet (best one of the trip) and then headed to the 40-Frame Game. This was definitely more laid back and it was on a house shot so I didn’t really have to concentrate all that much.  I’ve never bowled a 40-Frame game before so half the time I didn’t know what was involved with each frame. I just bowled and figured if I threw strikes, I’d be OK.  Well, I took advantage of just about every mulligan and no-tap frame, threw a lot of strikes and shot 1060, which should be just good enough for a check.  

Three hours later and with a fresh shower, I was ready for Team event. I had my custom Gemini Jersey on and an excited feeling about the whole process.  Of course, before we headed to the back of the stadium, we were fortunate to catch the last few frames of Ken Konczos’ 300 game.  I even videotaped it on my phone and made sure to catch up with him later, congratulate him and email him the video.  Ken shot a 753 set which to me was pretty huge considering all the talent that had come through the tournament.  You don’t see too many big sets like that at this tournament with 60,000 plus bowlers rolling through. 

Finally, we settled into the waiting area. Team photos, pre-game announcements, and the preparation for the walk out into the stadium.  All in all, very cool. But before I knew it, we were in practice time and I was finding it hard to get any traction on the approaches. They were a little on the slippery side for my liking. 

The nerves of bowling in my first Open Championships and the concern of breaking our pair down correctly consumed my mind.  I had prepared for this moment. We’ve had practice sessions, studied the videos, and kept up to date on all Jeff Richgel’s blogs about lane play at the Open Championships. Even Mike Jasnau gave us some team pointers. He had seen the potential on that Wednesday when we all came through and broke lane 81 down like the pros.   

Unfortunately, once the games got underway we didn’t have much help. Once some players missed inside and saw the ball hook left of the headpin, they almost instantly moved left. They fell for the trick of the pattern.  Just because the balls hook, doesn’t mean you should always move left. Basic premise of the sport pattern. They did, we suffered because we were unable to break down the right side as intended and as quickly as we hoped.  When we did move we had a little bit of room for error, but not much. And it didn’t help that I was generally throwing the ball bad. If you asked me to hit the ocean in game 1, I would have missed.  I made a move and ball change in the 9th frame, and closed out the game clean to shoot 171. Off to a tremendously bad start and immediately in trouble of losing my 1800 all events dinner bet with Doug.    

Another move in game two in hopes of getting me in a more comfortable zone and I hit gold and threw a seven-bagger to close out game two with a 243. Whew!  Now feeling more comfortable on the lanes, and loosening up with every shot, I closed out with a 214 game and a 628 series. Not great, but of the 20 or so players from my hometown, 628 was the tops so I was extremely happy.

We grabbed a bite to eat to complete the evening, stayed out late supporting the casinos of Reno and then hit the hotel room for a good three to four hours of sleep.  By the time singles and doubles rolled around, I was actually feeling alright.

I was joking with an old friend that came to watch us that morning that with only four balls of practice to loosen up, we all planned to use frames one through six as practice too so don’t expect anything amazing. During practice though, the three right-handers tried to get a feel for where to play the lanes and we communicated our ideas. Not ironically, the three of us were the only three of our team event pair to really stick to the game-plan, so with the three of us together, there was more confidence. We were the third singles and doubles squad on this run of oil. The right side of third arrow was roasted so our entry angles were going to be really tight.   

Once the first game started though, a ball that hadn’t gotten any use up to this point, became my money ball.  It gave me an incredible look on the lane and pretty decent carry. I threw the first six strikes of the game. I faltered pretty bad to close out the game and ended with only a 222. Game two provided a similar result and I shot a 214 game.  Still, I was well on my way to 1900 if I could just maintain this pace. Unfortunately, I lost my way on the lane, made a bad ball change, and closed out the doubles set with a 167 game. My doubles partner and I shot matching 603s for a 1206 doubles score. Not horrible, but we threw a lot of pins away with poor spare shooting and just plain bad bowling. Nobody’s fault but our own. 

We moved pairs to our left and actually found that we could move back to the right a little. I went back to my game-plan from game one of singles and started stringing strikes.  I shot a clean 228. Game two, things started to dry out, but I decided to stay the course, stay in the same area and use a little loft to get the ball to the breakpoint. 11 strikes and one spare later, I had a 276 on the board and I was sitting at 504 for two. 

A couple thoughts ran through my head at this point. One, I needed a game of 65 to shoot 1800 and win my free dinner from my brother.  Two, if I shot a simple 200 game, I would shoot 1900 for All-Events and 700 for singles, which by all means would be a good first trip to the Open Championships. Three, if I shot 300 (which with my carry percentage at this point was more than possible) I would shoot 804, they would take my picture, people would cheer and I’d make the leaderboard. And four, I should probably make an adjustment, but not the same one I made in doubles. 

Well, thought number 4 pretty much screwed up thought number 3 and almost cost me thought number 2. Sometimes, it’s inevitable to over-think things. In this case, I had a great look and instead of sticking with it, I tried to overplay it in my head just like I did in doubles.  Lesson learned. I started this game with three consecutive 8 count spares. So I moved back to where I finished game two and started adding even more loft. In the fourth frame I threw a really flush strike. Same in the 5th, and 6th, and 7th, and 8th, and 9th.  By this time, each shot was getting a post shot celebration, which was completely unnecessary, but hey, I was excited.  When I got up in the 10th frame, I knew that if I struck out, I would shoot a 268 game, a 772 series, and a 2003 All Events score. Each shot got the more appropriate post shot footwork and fist pump, hand slap and series of high fives. People bowling around me started to check in on the excitement and a small crowd formed. And when I say small, I mean, really small.  But there was definitely a formation of people.   It’s possible they could have been watching relatives.  Still not totally sure on that. All three shots were strikes and in about three seconds flat, my brother had told me I made the leaderboard in 6th place for singles. And in that instant, you couldn’t have surgically removed the smile off my face.  I couldn’t count the number of high fives or fist bumps given to me or the congratulatory statements. I was on cloud nine.

We waited around for the leaderboard to be updated and of course, took pictures with it. Then we got our summary sheets, little medals to commemorate our individual accomplishments and I got a piece of paper that said I just went 30 Clean. Which of course, I didn’t enter that side pot, but I got this really neat clock that now sits in my office to remind me of this trip.

In the end, I’m not sure if my first trip could have concluded in a better way. You can bet I’ll be back next year.  By the way, thanks for the dinner, bro.