There was a time not that long ago that I was feeling really good about my abilities in the bowling alley. I was regarded as one of the best in our crew and was reliably better than most of the people that go with us.
I go through ebbs and flows of my abilities but over the past 3 weeks or so I have been really really bad and I think we hit the apex of suck-dom in my championship match yesterday.
The guy I was playing against has been the champion for 6 weeks in a row and can be counted on to bowl around 140 or better. I USED TO BE someone that could do the same but for reasons that I cannot figure out, I simply haven't been able to put up decent scores in 3 weeks. Keep in mind that a month ago, I managed the highest score that I have ever gotten in Asia with a 211 and unless I am mistaken, that is the highest score that anyone in our group has gotten during league play in 2025 and the 3rd highest score that anyone has ever gotten in the history of DUMBO, our bowling league.
But sometimes things just start to go to shit and that is exactly what has been happening with me lately.
We had a decent turnout considering it is "winter" here now and many of the people that would normally live here have left for warmer climates. I'm not going to complain about 17 people turning up in December as this is right around the amount of people that we expect.
We have had some kind of loser people turn up lately for a few weeks band then just not come back even though they had a great time. I know the reason why though and it kind of pathetic: They are too big of drunks to manage to get out of bed at 10 in the morning. That is something that I cannot relate to for an adult and all of these people are in their 30's or older. Grow up man!
Anyway, I started out my game ok, getting a spare in the first frame and feeling like I had reasonable control of the trajectory of the ball... but then around frame 3 things just kind of fell apart.
I found myself in spare situations like the above and for someone that has been bowling as long as I have, you really shouldn't ever miss cluster spare attempts like this. I did though, and while I don't lose my cool in sports with friends, I was getting quite frustrated because no matter what I did to adjust it just didn't come together for me.
I ended game 1 with a score of 124 and seemed to be maybe getting it back together towards the end of the first game rounding out the last 3 frames with 3 straight spares. My opponent got a 166. 42 points is not an insurmountable amount of points to make up, just 2 frames or so, but things were about to get much worse for me.
After getting another spare in the 1st frame of game two, I did something on my next ball that almost never happens to me, I guttered on the first ball. This should never happen to someone in the top tier of our league, least of all during the championship game. I also ended up getting 4 horrible splits that almost never get converted such as this one that I got twice.
Now this CAN be converted into a split, but it is really unlikely. To make it happen you have to hit the two pins on the right and catch the lead one just on its side and have it fly across the lane. This has only happened in our league a handful of times over the years. One of those times was me, but that is not what happened today. I guess you could say I was pleased that on both of my attempts I managed to get the 2 pins that are together down, but the 3rd one still stood as is going to be the case with most people.
With the gutterball, the 4 frames of nearly impossible splits, and just bad luck and what appeared to be almost zero skill, I ended game two with a score of 83... This is a beginner bush league score, not the sort of score I should be getting at all. My opponent got a 157 and at this point I am now more than 100 pins down and nobody has ever made up this sort of deficit.
I'm no quitter though and my 3rd game was decent but still well below the level that I know I can bowl. I ended game three with 4 straight spares (possibly because I knew the game was over and out of reach at that point) but still only managed a 122 - which is not a score that I am at all happy with.
Later on in the same day I would play in tag-teams and it was like a different guy was playing. I got 2 strikes and picked up all but one of my spare attempts and me and my partner finished in 2nd place with a score in the 160's.
Maybe it just takes 3 games for me to get warmed up. I dunno.
The fact of the matter is that right now I don't even want to be in the championship games and may decide to let it skip me if I am chosen for it again.
I also need to get in there on non league days and practice a bit. It is too rainy to do anything outdoors these days so maybe that would be a better use of my time. The kids are back in school now (finally) so there wont be a ton of noise at the lanes either.