My friend Brian Halstrom and I decided to enter a local ABT tournament this weekend. We bowled the 2:30 squad and the top two in each division auto-cut to the semi-finals. The auto-cut means you may not bowl well enough to beat 80% of the field (1 in 5), but you bowled well enough in that one squad to automatically make it. This is what happened to me 
Brian of course bowled well enough to make it either way. He did make the auto-cut like I did, but he didn’t need it.
Then Sunday’s Semi-Final happened. Turns out that the wick in the oil machined didn’t engage properly, or something to this effect. So the lanes were very dry in the middle/right side of the lane. It was very easy to send the ball through the beak, or brooklyn.
After all was said and done, my tournament ended there. I was +2 (602 with handicap) for the three games, 489 scratch. It was tough, and I did not do a good job adjusting to the conditions.
I had a lot of fun and plan on entering more tournaments this year. If you haven’t tried a tournament, I would highly recommend giving it a shot. I wish I would have entered them much more when I was younger. Live and learn…
I used a combination of my Roto Grip Rogue Cell and my 900 Global Link S30 Blue/Purple. Both great bowling balls.
