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For many this was a very frustrating day. The qualifying rounds did not play anything like they had during either one of the practice sessions and the second round was different than the first round. Many of the bowlers were able to play outside of 6 during the practice session with another area around 10 being the most consistent during both practice rounds. This area needed to be attacked with squarer angles because the middle of the lane wanted to play as the 37 foot distance suggested. Once the oil pushed down in the middle of the lane the bowlers could move left and play a zone deeper with their breakpoint. The scoring pace was expected to be lower because of the lane to lane and pair to pair differences and multiple angles being used by the players. The bowlers opting to use squarer angles had a much better look than those wanting to cover too many boards. Layouts were suggested based on the amount of oil being felt down lane. Higher flaring layouts with weaker masses made sense because the pattern had zero buff at the end of the pattern and the bowlers wanted to keep squarer angles to the lane. The players were met with a surprise qualifying morning when their ball reaction was nothing similar to practice day. The middle of the lane provided much more push and the outside part of the lane was very challenging. There was less obvious friction for the higher speed higher rev players to attack. Those that benefited from the change were those that could create recovery with increased angles through the front part of the lane. Evidence of this would be Brian Kretzer and Brad Angelo starting out the first round of qualifying with 289 and 299 games respectfully. Brian was playing around 20 and using a spot right of 10 somewhere between 10 and 7, while Brad was using a very similar breakpoint from 17-18. You could see their ball push through the middle part of the lane with much slower speed than you would expect on the fresh. There natural ability to create recovery with tilt and rotation is not normally allowable on fresh conditions. Another bowler benefiting from the difference was DJ Archer. By looking at the results of round 1 you can see the obvious characteristics of bowlers realizing success during the round. There was some obvious frustration being shown due to the increase in scoring pace and the extreme difference they were feeling. This is nothing new to an experienced professional bowler but the feeling is still very frustrating when you spend timer preparing a game plan that is totally wasted. Here is a look at the results from the first round.
There is a large number of bowlers below the cut to 32 that had much higher expectations from practice day. The same number felt just the opposite. The natural reaction to seeing this change is to prepare for the next round based on the results of the first round. Players began to develop game plans based on the scoring pace on the morning. Guess what... the evening round did not play the same. The entire field decided they would start further in with intentions of the lanes playing like they did in the morning round. It didn't take long to see that the middle of the lane did not push like it did in the morning. As a bowler you can't see the entire field. A bowlers perception is based on what he is seeing on his pair and right next to him. With the ability to see the entire center and the no coaching rule the field did not seem to recognize the obvious difference. Because of this the lane broke down in a very challenging way and by the time the field realized the scoring pace was not as high as it was in the morning they had already committed to a certain strategy that had tremendous effect on the results after the 2nd round of qualifying. Take a look at the drop in averages in the first two rounds.
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