On
Tour with Brian Voss
USBC Masters - Wauwatosa, WI
(Oct. 22 - 29, 2006)
Hello out there in bowling land!!! Hope everyone is doing good. It
was really nice to get back on tour again. Most of my best friends
are on tour, and I hadn't seen them for a long time. I really mean
that, how my best friends are out on tour. Some of the guys I've known
now for 25 years, so it was kind of like a little reunion. I don't
compete much during the off-season, with the exception of a few tournaments
in Europe. It's tough to get back into the competitive mood after
such a long break, it isn't something that you can turn on and off.
It doesn't matter how much you practice, you have to stay competitively
active to keep the juices flowing. I'm not one to bowl regionals during
the break, so I have a lot of excuses the first tournament :)
I started out the tournament using a Green Alien. Played pretty good
out of the gates, but ended my first block with a 169. The second
block was very similar, although I knocked down more wood the first
3 games, but finished with a 170. I had drilled up a new Scorpion,
laid it out pretty aggressive. It's a good mid-lane ball for me, can
usually get it to make a nice move on heavy oil. I was about 50 pins
out of the cut going into the last round of qualifying and bowled
real good. They seemed to hook a little more, so I used a Cheetah
the first 3 games, and got to a tighter pair, and switched back to
the Scorpion. Then went back to the Cheetah the last game to grind
out a good enough score to make it. Didn't score as good as other
days, but played really well. Managed to make the cut by 12 pins.
It's always good to play well when you have to. That kind of confidence
can last a long time.
I was faced against Mika K in match play. I had a real nice rest between
rounds, and was mentally prepared for the match. In the 3rd frame
of the first game, I felt a little pinch in my left hip. It continued
to get worse as the match went on, and I just basically had to finish
frames. He won the match easily, shooting 700 and some change. I took
a few Advil after that, but it didn't help much. Against Scroggins
the next match, I was just going through the motions, about as slow
as possible, just to get it over with. Pretty disappointing, since
there are only two events that pay the kind of money that was available,
but I'll take whatever good I can from it. I'll probably not pick
up a ball until practice next week in Detroit. I've had this kind
of pain in my hip before, just have to wait it out. Usually goes away
in about a week. Let's hope it is sooner!!
Stay tuned out there, it is only the first week. It will be interesting
the see what the patterns are going to play like. They did some fine
tuning on them during the off-season, so a lot of us are just going
to go into each one with an open mind, and just play the game. I'll
let you know more next week. Thanks for tuning in.
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