Bowling Spencer on January 8, 2009 07:16 am
New Ball, Same Troubles
So, this isn’t a great start to the revival of the bowling blog. Last night we lost all 7 points (3 games and total pins) to our opponents, who were great fun to bowl with so that’s a consoloation. The nearly one month layoff really didn’t help my scores:
Week | Date | Game 1 | Game 2 | Game 3 | Series | Series Average |
Total Average |
1 | 09/03/2008 | 163 | 125 | 176 | 464 | 154.67 | 154.67 |
2 | 09/10/2008 | 171 | 171 | 166 | 508 | 169.33 | 162.00 |
3 | 09/17/2008 | 158 | 205 | 178 | 541 | 180.33 | 168.11 |
4 | 09/24/2008 | 194 | 161 | 203 | 558 | 186.00 | 172.58 |
5 | 10/01/2008 | 211 | 197 | 190 | 598 | 199.33 | 177.93 |
6 | 10/08/2008 | 188 | 202 | 212 | 602 | 200.67 | 181.72 |
7 | 10/15/2008 | 179 | 244 | 209 | 632 | 210.67 | 185.86 |
8 | 10/22/2008 | 158 | 206 | 191 | 555 | 185.00 | 185.75 |
9 | 10/29/2008 | 188 | 178 | 217 | 583 | 194.33 | 186.70 |
10 | 11/05/2008 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNB | 186.70 |
11 | 11/12/2008 | 179 | 128 | 193 | 500 | 166.67 | 184.70 |
12 | 11/19/2008 | 191 | 156 | 173 | 520 | 173.33 | 183.67 |
13 | 12/03/2008 | 226 | 154 | 227 | 607 | 202.33 | 185.22 |
14 | 12/10/2008 | 139 | 190 | 180 | 509 | 169.67 | 184.03 |
15 | 01/07/2009 | 183 | 147 | 160 | 490 | 163.33 | 182.55 |
Ouch, a 2 pin drop in average for one week. Not good. I was using a new ball, but that wasn’t the issue entirely. I kept trying to hard. I have a tendency to try to guide the ball which ends up taking away any power and drive. When I start to do that and notice, I tend to over correct and throw the ball hard. Usually I can make smaller adjustments and work out ok, but last night kept going from one extreme to another.
My spares really did me in. Other than the times I had splits, I missed 2 easy spares in the first game, 4 in the second, and 1 in the 3rd. That’s a total of 7 missed easy spares in 20 opportunities. If I made those, that adds approximately 70 pins to my series and gets me to my average. I know what I need to really practice on: smooth arm swing letting the ball do the work and spares.
I hope you all have a good rest of the week and weekend!
on January 8, 2009 at 8:19 am 1. The J said …
Although I don’t have the opportunity to practice that being in a league provides, I have found when I was bowling fairly regularly that a new ball did really throw me off for a string or two, but mostly it was trying to cause the ball to do anything other than what I was naturally able to do with it that would completely screw up my consistency. Sure overall I might if I was lucky eventually get the hang of it, but sadly in the end I just a line up and throw kinda bowler. I find the real skill added to the game is the flair I add in my throw, recovery and after throw victory dance.