Bowling in Bakersfield

Just got back from the California State Open Bowling championship. This was the first major tournament I’ve participated in, even though I’ve been bowling on a regular basis for about thirty years. Unfortunately, I didn’t do nearly as well as I’d hoped. On the first day, in the team event, I could only muster up a 172, 158, and 165, some really poor scores, and I didn’t have a single double in all three games. Very frustrating. Day two started with the singles competition, and it got even worse, a 165, 156, 166, with still no doubles and with the added scourge of opening every first frame. Finally we moved to a new pair of lanes for the doubles competetion, I changed both my line and my delivery, and things started to look up, with a 236 for my first game, and my partner rolling a 195. Perhaps we even stood a chance of winning something if we could just keep those kinds of scores coming in for the second and third games. And I was doing OK in the second game till the 10th frame, when I missed a stupid 10 pin and ended up with a 189 (making that 10 should have put me in the 200s again). And my partner fell apart, with only a 155 (he’d rolled a 258 in the singles competition, but it looked like he’d lost the line). The last game was not good, a 153 occasioned by three splits, and my partner turned in a 147. Still, the whole thing was fun, and I’ll probably play in next year’s tournament.