Tenpin bowling coaching, bowling tips, bowling tournament information.

Jim Brewer Memorial Singles

Team England Ranking Event

August 2002

This was not strictly a Manics event as Richard did not go, instead I travelled with Kenny Goff and Bev Tolman. As far as I was concerned, this was a learning experience as the only ranking tournament I had entered before was the BTBA Nationals a few years back.

Kenny and I bowled on the Saturday and had to wait until the Sunday to see if we had made the cut even thought the entry was disappointingly small. I had hit a slump just before going away and carried it into the tournament, bowling a pair of 123 games out of the six game tournament block. I worked out what I was doing wrong - at least partially - and pulled it back into the 160's but that was nowhere near enough for a tounament at this level and ended up last. Kenny bowled a bit better than I did but still did not make the cut.

It seemed that the lanes were playing quite tough as well - some big names also failed to make the cut. No complaints from me though - there was a shot out there - I was just inconsistent. Still, because of the small entry, both Kenny and I picked up good England ranking points - 46 in my case!

Bev bowled all her games on the Sunday and easily made the first cut of the ladies section. 4 games later on, she was placed fourth and made the round robin final, finishing 8th at the end of the day. And it was a long day.

I have now seen the standard and experienced the conditions, including moving after every game which places a premium on finding the line quickly. More practice required to sort out my bowling and get back to my more normal standard.

Many thanks to Jose Parker and her team for running the tournament. I really enjoyed it, despite my own bowling and look forward to bowling this event again in 2003, this time doing it justice.