BILLY "O"'S JOURNAL

Earl Anthony Medford Classic - Medford, Oregon

January 10, 2007 -Scorpion Pattern

Hello sports fans!  Billy O here in good ole Medford Ore.  The temperature outside is 25 degrees.  I can’t believe its actually warmer in Chicago then here.  Before I get started I want to say thanks to Rick, Taz and all the fine people at Lava lanes.  You guys rolled out the red carpet to the bowlers and especially to me.  I have to say so far this has been the best tour stop we have had this year.  The food was awesome, the pro am was the best, and the fans were great.  I can’t wait until next year to get back there.  Ok lets get started.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 – 4:00pm.

This weeks pattern is the scorpion.  This is the pattern I averaged 250 in the tour trials.  I am always excited about bowling on this pattern.  In the tour trials on this pattern I used my Pains, so by right I had to throw those first.  They matched up well in practice.  They went down the lanes, turned up nicely in the pocket.  Yes , maybe I can have the same results I had at the tour trials, at least I hope so.  The 2^nd balls I threw were my Widows.  They all read the lanes to late.  They went too long before they made there move.  The next balls I threw were my Hawgzillas. They never reacted, so they immediately went in the bag.  I tried my Vibes, they reacted nice but hit like a powder puff.  It seems like my best reaction was with my Pains which is a good thing.  See you tomorrow.

Thursday, January 11, 2007 . 11:00am

I had a good nights sleep and ate a good breakfast.  The bowling center cooked us lunch everyday and I can’t wait to see what’s on the menu for today.  ”Get your mind off of food and back on your bowling”.  Ok where was I, oh yeah its show time after the 15 min. of practice I decided to use my Pain, pin under the ring finger CG kicked out 1 inch, with a crater hole on my axis, sanded with 1000 abralon pad.  That ball reacted consistently in the mid lane.  This worked well in practice, but when the bell rang all that ball would get is 9.  I switched after the 1^st game to another Pain, this one pin 1 inch left  and  below the ring finger, with a smaller hole in the axis, and mildly polished.  This ball is made to start up faster, but with the polish, it stored energy and wouldn’t roll out. I used this ball for the rest of the 1^st block. I kept myself out of trouble with it. However. the 6^th game pissed me off.  A bad pair will do that to you.

Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 4:00pm

Well there is the 2^nd block I promise will be better.  During the break I sanded my Widows with 1000 abralon.  Those Pains were a pain and will not see any action in the 2^nd set.  I decided I was going to use my Widows even though in practice they went a little too long before reacting, I sanded them to get them started a little earlier.  The only problem is, they might not store enough energy and burn up in the fronts.

I started with my Widow, pin over my ring finger with the Cg and mass bias stacked.  Bingo this ball read the lane and hit pretty good.  I decided to use this ball all 7 games because I could control it.  As time went on I could see that I wasn’t going to make match play, which sucked because I didn’t want to finish any lower then 16^th in any of my remaining events.  However some good tri-tip always puts a smile on my face.  For those who don’t know what tri-tip is, then that makes a good homework assignment for you.

I had a great time, ate some delicious food, and seen some awesome people including bowling with one of my heroes growing up, the legendary Marshall Holman.

See you next week in sunny CalifornIA!!