I really like bowling a lot. I wouldn't say that I love it and there is a very real reason why: I am good enough at it that at a certain point if you are not doing well the game becomes frustrating rather than fun. I notice in golfing friends of mine: once you reach a certain ability level if you don't perform up to a certain level, it is just irritating to be there at all.
Every now and then I have moments of brilliance at the bowling alley where I am both having fun and am basically unstoppable and one of those times was this past week.
The crew was all there, 10 minutes late as usual and we got the games fired up like we always do only this time I was competing for the belt. The guy I was up against I believe is a better bowler than I am and the yearly average stats back that up. he is about a 15-20 point per game better bowler than I am. Today, I had a secret weapon though. Because I needed to drive my motorbike at least once a week just so that battery doesn't die, I drove to the bowling alley this time and well, I was there super early so I bowled two practice games.
These were not impressive practice games as both of them were barely over 100.
But I don't know what happened, when it came time to bowl for the belt things just switched on for me and well, at least at first they did for the champion, my opponent as well.
My apologies for the resolution but these are stills from a video that was taken on a not so great camera to begin with. Anyway, I am the score of the top and you can see that we both started out with strikes but then for the next two frames I started to not do well and it looked like my game was going to be crap. But then I started to really turn on the heat and you can see that I entered frame 8 with 2 strikes back-to-back.
I nailed the third one. What looked like something that was going to be a one sided blowout on the part of me losing badly. Turned into a mere 3 point victory in game one I had 178 and he had 181. It still seemed like he had the edge though because he was more consistently good.... or was he?
In game two the guy got flustered and I continued to bowl well. I know that this happens to me but he just kept missing easy shots. For those of us that bowl above 150 you should never miss a single pin pickup for a spare. Never ever. But he was missing them left and right. He was also missing the 1 pin on the first ball and if you do that, it is very unlikely you will get a strike. He didn't get many strikes or spares in game two and while I kept my game score high ending with a 168, he had managed to only get 110 in the 2nd game.
Honestly, I had expected the opposite to be the case. So if you aren't a math wizard that's ok, after 2 games this means that I am ahead by 55 points with only one game left to play. This is a very recoverable position on the part of my opponent the then, champion... but it isn't enough for him to do well, I also have to do poorly.
unfortunately for him I did not do poorly and again, I am sorry for the poor resolution but that's what happens when you take stills from a camera phone's video.
I think he was getting a bit demoralized and realized that there was almost zero chance of him getting the win as I spared or striked in every single frame until the 8th. It was looking like I might actually have a shot at a 200 point game until I missed in the 8th and well, it was possible for him as well. By the end of the 8th round where he failed to strike, it was not a mathematical certainty that I was going to win. Not this round of course but that isn't how bowling scoring works, it's the total of all three games.
I ended up flubbing (missing) the 10th frame pickup and ended up with a game 3 score of 169. My opponent ended strong with a 179 but because of his poor and very uncharacteristic 110 in the 2nd game, there was almost no chance he was going to get 55 points back. It just doesn't happen. He would have needed a 234 in game 3 just to tie my score and only one person has EVER gotten a score that high in the history of our bowling league.
I did also get this while I was bowling.
I don't know how it happened but i would imagine some sort of abrasion as my fingers were exiting the ball. It did kind of hurt and still does... the fingernails are a very sensitive part of the body after all. but I didn't let it affect my game.
So I won with an overall point total of 515... my opponent and now ex-champion ended with 470. Both are respectable scores but it is important to note that getting over 500 points in 3 games is considered to be top-tier, here and in a lot of other leagues in the world.
Now here is why I am not going to keep the championship
While I do enjoy the game and am considered one of the better bowlers in our group I am extremely inconsistent. In the weeks leading up to this match I was averaging around 130 points per game and this is nowhere near enough to keep the belt.
My average is around 140 and if you multiply that by 3 you get 420. Even though I won by quite a lot this past week my average would have lost to my competitor by 50 points. Even after his disappointing showing this past week he still has an average of around 20 points better than me.
Two things happened: I had a stellar day and he had one single shitty game. Basically, I got lucky. Next week's competitor is no slough, although he has never had the championship before. It will be an interesting one because although my scores go back a long ways before he ever joined us, we have EXACTLY the same average. This should be a pretty good championship matchup and while I will of course do everything I can in order to win, I am not counting on it.
Pessimism does tend to generally work out for me though.
Congrats on the win, no matter how it came. That is a pretty big choke there on the second game. I have been there though and I know how easy they come and go. I thought you guys didn't make it a habit of practicing through the week. I can't remember though, does that not apply if you are playing for the title? I feel like you had a rule about that.
good memory. It is frowned upon if a dominant champion practices. This is known as the Stanley Clause when we had a near 200 average bowler that came to join us, won, nobody could touch him, and still he was at the lanes practicing 3-4 times a week.
If I were to practice a time or two per week that would be fine... that is until I had held the belt for a reasonable amount of time that hasn't been determined... it would likely be somewhere around a month
Ah, okay. I know you don't really like to hold it that long anyway.
@gooddream I totally get what you mean—once you reach a certain skill level, it’s not as fun when you’re not performing well. But those moments when everything just clicks, like you had this past week, make the game so exciting and memorable!
yes, I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. I am a very humble victor though, and I didn't rub it in towards the ex champ. I continually said that I know he is betterthan me, I just had a great day and although he denied it, I think everyone in our group knows this is true
You definitely earned that win, even if you call it a stellar day 😊 Getting over 500 is no small feat! 🙌 Congratulations on the championship, and good luck with the next match 🙏
thanks!
Nice to stay at the top and kind of smart getting there early for a quick warm up. Who knows on the day anything is possible and it is all mind set.
I will turn up early this week as well because I think practice just before the match happens is more useful than even 5x the amount of practice on the days prior
Wow! you are doing great congratulations! it only mean you are really a good player in your team.
You made it! Congratulations! 👏👏👏 Wow, hitting back-to-back strikes in frame 8, that’s amazing!🥰
it ended up being 3 in a row actually. It was just that nobody took a picture
That's impressive. You’re the best!💪👏🤗
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