Pepsi Red, White, and Blue Open

The Earl Anthony Memorial Classic is underway now in Dublin, California, and I 'll be posting about it later. But right now, let me say a few words about last week's Pepsi Red, White, and Blue Open. If you didn't see it, I urge you to subscribe to PBA Xtra Frame and watch it there whenever you wish, or you can read about it here. But I want to comment less on who won and what scores they shot than on some other matters pertaining to the tournament and telecast.

First of all, even though I prefer the traditional televised stepladder format that the PBA seems to have all but abandoned, I enjoyed the format of last week's final in which there were two simultaneous matches in the first game, followed by two simultaneous matches in the second game, followed by the winners of the previous two matches bowling each other for the championship. But there are some other aspects of the tournament and telecast that I found intriguing:


The New Red, White, and Blue Patterns

The USBC devised these three oil patterns to be more challenging than typical "house" patterns but less challenging than the daunting "animal" PBA patterns featured in "PBA Experience" leagues throughout the country and increasingly abroad. The typical "house" pattern has ten times as much or more oil deposited on the lane surface in the middle area of the lane than on the areas to the right and left of the middle, and this allows bowlers to miss their targets left or right or be inconsistent with their releases and ball speeds and still get the ball to the pocket instead of missing the pocket to one side or the other. Some house patterns are so easy in this way that bowling on them is derisively referred to as "adult bumper bowling."

However, typical professional patterns are far "flatter" in that they have much less of a discrepancy between the concentration of oil on the right and left sides of the lane and the concentration of oil in the middle. This requires the bowler to be much more accurate and consistent in order to hit the pocket and strike. The Red, White, and Blue patterns lie between the animal and house patterns in their ratios of outside (left and right of center) oil concentrations and inside (middle) oil concentrations, with the Blue pattern designed to be the most difficult because it has the lowest ratio (approximately 5:1) of oil between outside and inside. Interestingly, Mike Scroggins, who won the championship on the Blue pattern laid down for Sunday's finals, thought the Blue pattern was the easiest for him because it favored his "A" game of throwing the ball down and in instead of having to throw the ball away from the pocket and make it hook back to the pocket.

There is a move by the PBA, USBC, and international bowling organizations to standardize lane conditions into distinct oil patterns so that, as Chris Barnes explained in a special feature during the telecast, bowling can gain more respect as a challenging sport and perhaps eventually make its way into the Olympics.

Woody Austin's Commentary

Woody Austin is a professional golf champion who bowled with the pros during the tournament, threw the ceremonial "first ball" of the televised firnals, and offered some incisive commentary during the finals. He bowls league for a couple of months each year while the PGA tour is on hiatus and averages around 215. But, he says, the PBA Tour shot requires a far higher degree of accuracy and consistency than does a typical house league pattern. With the typical league pattern, he can miss five or even ten boards (inches) to the right or left of his target and still hit the pocket. On pro conditions, he not only can't miss more than an inch or so to the right or left. but he also needs to be much more consistent with his release and ball speed.

Furthermore, he highlighted the importance of using the newer and right equipment on today's lane conditions, likening the use of older bowling balls to using older kinds of golf balls or clubs against guys using the newest and much more powerful golfing equipment. He said that bowling, like golf, is a very technical game pitting the professional against many variables that he or she must control for with his bio-mechanics and by using the newest and best equipment available in order to be competitive.

Wayne Garber's Story

Wayne Garber is a successful Western region pro from Modesto, California who has never done well in national tour events and was coming off an abysmal performance in the inaugural World Series of Bowling in Detroit a few weeks earlier. But what made his story particularly remarkable and, I think, endeared him to the Wichita crowd was the fact that just a couple of years earlier, he had fallen down a flight of stairs in a hotel while carrying luggage and torn the patellar tendons in both knees. His was bedridden for months, and his doctors didn't think he would ever be able to bowl again much less bowl professionally. Not only that, but sometime later, he had to have one of his neck vertebrae replaced by a cadaver vertebrae. Nevertheless, the 42-year-old, 6'2', 250 lb bowler managed to come back, bowl very respectably in his first TV appearance and beat Walter Ray Williams in sudden death in a semi-final match, and end up coming in second in the tournament.

Wayne Garber's Style

One has to see Garber's style to believe that anyone could succeed with it in professional tournaments or even be a good league bowler with it. I won't try to describe it except to say that it begins with a very unusual backwards back bend and then takes eleven steps to the foul line. The YouTube video below shows it in all its strange glory.

Wayne Garber's Controversial Choice

After Garber beat Walter Ray, he had the choice, as the higher seeded bowler, of which pair of lanes on which to bowl the championship match against Mike Scroggins. He chose to bowl it on the pair on which he beat Walter Ray. Some criticized him for this and he admitted in an interview after the tournament that it was a mistake because Scroggins had struggled on the other pair to beat Michael Fagan and Patrick Allen with relatively low scores, and Scroggins was delighted that Garber chose to let him bowl on a different pair with fresh oil on the left side.

However, I understand Garber's decision. Before he made his choice, he threw some practice balls on the other pair and had "no look," whereas he shot a 237 and beat bowling legend Walter Ray on the pair he on which he chose to bowl the championship match. So, he chose that pair and lost. However, he hit the pocket every time, stuck a solid 8-pin in the sixth frame, and got tapped several other times while Scroggins carried everything in sight. Things could have turned out very differently had Sroggins not carried as well and Garber had carried better. If Garber had chosen the other pair and missed the pocket a lot, he would probably have lost anyway and not looked nearly as good doing it.

Walter Ray's Performance

I know he made a really bad shot on the second sudden death shot, missing the pocket well to the right and leaving a seven count, but the fact of the matter is that this fifty-year-old phenom who is, in my opinion, the greatest bowler in PBA history and indubitably the winningest one, made it to the semi-final match on the highest scoring conditions of the season against the young and powerful lions of the tour is just amazing to me and worthy of praise. This guy can get it done just about anywhere, and he's been doing it for thirty years.