Monday, 23 February 2009
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Bronzen Schietspoel Tilburg
Well I have bowled twice now and still my highest score is only 37 over. I've just got back to the hotel, I played so much better tonight than yesterday and only scored 20 pins more! Its a funny game, I had a few carry issues yet again, its becoming like a broken record the last few tournaments - Lots of 9's and not enough strikes!
The short pattern is playing very tight. I've never seen a short pattern with so little bounce off the gutter. There is a big out of bounds if you get the ball to the right its just sails on by, but as the pattern is only 33ft if you miss in the ball just hooks. This is giving everyone problems and the short is the pattern that everyone is having trouble with. The long pattern is playing quite open and although it is 46ft in length it is quite easy to hook the ball.
There have been a few good scores over the last few days. There are plenty of Brits inside the cut. The highest being Nicki Ainge who is currently sitting pretty in 2nd place. I'm feeling confident I can sort myself out tomorrow as I found a better ball reaction today.
I bowl at 10am in the morning so I'd better get to sleep now!
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
Sent using BlackBerry from Orange
The short pattern is playing very tight. I've never seen a short pattern with so little bounce off the gutter. There is a big out of bounds if you get the ball to the right its just sails on by, but as the pattern is only 33ft if you miss in the ball just hooks. This is giving everyone problems and the short is the pattern that everyone is having trouble with. The long pattern is playing quite open and although it is 46ft in length it is quite easy to hook the ball.
There have been a few good scores over the last few days. There are plenty of Brits inside the cut. The highest being Nicki Ainge who is currently sitting pretty in 2nd place. I'm feeling confident I can sort myself out tomorrow as I found a better ball reaction today.
I bowl at 10am in the morning so I'd better get to sleep now!
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
Sent using BlackBerry from Orange
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Maldon doubles
Today I bowled the PTBC doubles at Maldon, Essex. I bowled with Matt and thank goodness I did! Matt bowled amazingly, he used his copperhead with a Rico drilling the whole tournament!
I struggled to find great ball reaction. I threw every ball in my bag, moved around the lane and still had carry issues. So I decided my best look was playing up the gutter with my new RATTLER still tapping quite a bit, but seeing as Matt was striking so much I just had to stay safe. I had +21 for 8 games and only had 2 games over 200 so A LOT of spares!
We finished on +161 as a team for the 8 game block and were in 4th place. This meant we got a bye through one round so had a long lunch. Our first match was against 2 of the junior team England stars Jake and Elliot. This pair of the lanes were playing very different to the rest of the tournament. Matt, Jake and Elliot had a few under over issues. I had the best look of the day, typical!
We won that match then went on to play Jemma Smith and Hayley White. Hayley had great ball reaction and so did Matt. Both finished with 250+ games so it was between Jemma and I as neither of us had the greatest look. Jemma pipped me by 20 or so sparing a 3-10 split in the 9th, then striking the first in the 10th, putting an end to our tournament.
Over all the tournament was excellent, a fun well run event and the number one seeds in qualifying, Rob Thurlby and Mike Quarry ended up champions.
I'm off to Tilburg, Holland on Wednesday to play an EBT stop. Its a dual pattern event one lane short one lane long so great practise for the championships.
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
Sent using BlackBerry from Orange
I struggled to find great ball reaction. I threw every ball in my bag, moved around the lane and still had carry issues. So I decided my best look was playing up the gutter with my new RATTLER still tapping quite a bit, but seeing as Matt was striking so much I just had to stay safe. I had +21 for 8 games and only had 2 games over 200 so A LOT of spares!
We finished on +161 as a team for the 8 game block and were in 4th place. This meant we got a bye through one round so had a long lunch. Our first match was against 2 of the junior team England stars Jake and Elliot. This pair of the lanes were playing very different to the rest of the tournament. Matt, Jake and Elliot had a few under over issues. I had the best look of the day, typical!
We won that match then went on to play Jemma Smith and Hayley White. Hayley had great ball reaction and so did Matt. Both finished with 250+ games so it was between Jemma and I as neither of us had the greatest look. Jemma pipped me by 20 or so sparing a 3-10 split in the 9th, then striking the first in the 10th, putting an end to our tournament.
Over all the tournament was excellent, a fun well run event and the number one seeds in qualifying, Rob Thurlby and Mike Quarry ended up champions.
I'm off to Tilburg, Holland on Wednesday to play an EBT stop. Its a dual pattern event one lane short one lane long so great practise for the championships.
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
Sent using BlackBerry from Orange
Monday, 9 February 2009
PTBC masters
This weekend I played in the ptbc masters at Ilkeston. This was the top 12 bowlers on points from the 2008 ptbc tour. The winner of the masters was to be awarded a stop on the world tenpin masters TV show.
There were some doubts as to whether the tournament would go ahead as half of the country had closed down last week due to snow storms. But the weather behaved itself and everyone managed to get up to Ilkeston.
The format was a very simple, 12 game round robin concluding with a position round. The pattern was quite long at 43 foot so I used my Maxxx zone for the first 4 games. I hardly missed the pocket. Just tapping and sparing. The surface at Ilkeston is synthetic overlay with wood backends. So there are always more differences lane to lane than a full synthetic surface, which keeps things interesting as all players have problems working out some pairs of lanes.
After 4 games the lanes started to burn up so I switched to my NEW WILD RIDE which looked great! Out of the first 5 games I won 2 and lost 3. As the lanes burned up my ball reaction improved and I started carrying. I was within catching distance of the leader Matt Chamberlain who had taken quite an early lead with a couple of 260+ games. I won the rest of my match but couldn't keep up with the scoring pace of Matt who carried on with more 260+ games. Darren Cundy made a run for the lead using his Avalanche Slide, so close to shooting 300 in 3 separate games, the closest leaving a flush 9 pin in the 12th for 299.
Matt held his nerve like a champion, continued battering the pocket and while Darren had 299 he only made 30 pins on Matt as he shot yet another 260+ game.
I finished 3rd and was pretty happy with my performance. Overall the tournament was very enjoyable, we were luck to have sponsorship for the event by B&P fabrications so I won enough money to cover the weekends expenses.
Matt was definitely deserving of the title, he was excellent all day and I will look forward to supporting him in the TV show!
Next weekend I'm playing the first event in the 2009 ptbc tour, Maldon Doubles with my future husband!
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
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