Senior Masters

Wow, this was a great week!  I was pretty steady and relaxed through qualifying, with 5-game blocks of +159, +104 and +164 for an 8th place qualifying position.  I drilled one new ball which helped through the 3rd qualifying block.  In the first two matches I was very comfortable and had a great ball reaction, shooting 769 and 714 the first two matches.  This led to yet another match against Ron Mohr, and we had another close, back and forth kind of match.  I got a break in the 9th of the 3rd game and capitalized on it with a good shot in the 10th to close out the match 696-688.  The final match of the day against Hugh Miller was on the easiest pair either of us had seen the entire tournament.  After starting with the front-9, I had a lapse in concentration and missed a spare in the 10th.  We were at 268-266 after the first game, but I started to lose the front part of the lane early in the 2nd game and Hugh was able to maintain ball reaction.  Short story is that it's hard to beat an 803!  In the final match on Friday morning against Amleto, I just bowled horribly the first game plus, then realized that I was trying to beat him instead of just bowling my game and making him beat me.  I did that through the last half of this match, but still made a couple of bad shots that ultimately cost me the match.  So, a 9th-12th place finish is still good, and I'll move forward to the last stop on this swing.  I've now bowled 121 games of competition in 3 weeks, plus practice.  Looking forward to a day off!