This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
PBA Xtra


that has been down for the last twenty years. So I practice on an older surface all the time. The regional I won a couple weeks ago also was on HPL. I guess it’s just that my ball matches up with older surfaces, because that’s what I practice on.” Shawn Maldonado, too, seemed


to benefit from that HPL, a synthetic surface softer than Pro-Anvilane and therefore more given to friction. The two-hander fell behind Mitch Beasley, who won the tournament last year, by nearly 50 pins before stringing seven strikes to roar back and win, 222-200. O’Neill then outlasted Maldonado, 267-235, to advance to the title match. Gomez determined last December


that no particular lane surface would be enough to rescue his game. For him, only work would do. Hard work. “I saw that I wasn’t bowling as well in 2014 as I did in 2011, 2012, and 2013, so I started looking at myself. I am my own coach. I went back to video, started looking at those TV shows, and saw differences in my technique,” Gomez explains. Gomez noticed his posture had


become too steep a couple steps before he arrived at the foul line, a body position that prevented him from getting the kind of hand position he once enjoyed at the release. “So, I wasn’t comfortable,” Gomez adds. “I thought I was, but I just wasn’t


TOUCH FOR


VIDEO


as soft [at the release], and I wasn’t able to go around the ball like I used to.” Gomez went to work on the


problem for a couple months. He made the cut at the Masters, but finished 52nd. Weeks later, however, he finished seventh at the H.H. Emir Cup in Qatar, a PBA Tour title event — ahead of the likes of Jason Belmonte, Sean Rash, Bill O’Neill, and Mika Koivuniemi. “I felt my game coming back to me,”


Gomez says. He felt his game return to him fully


in Pensacola, where he entered the stepladder finals as the top seed with a 9-3 match play record. Until, that is, a 2-10 split in the 8th frame of the title match against Tom Daugherty, and his failure to convert the spare. Just the sort of moment when it


helps to forget. “I knew I opened the door a bit for


PRODIGY:Tackett’s woes on tele- vision belie a talent that gained national attention well before he went pro. In 2011, he made the cut at the U.S. Open as an ama- teur. That same year, he shot 300 at the Team USA Trials. Watch him blow the rack on the final three strikes of that game here.


Tom, but I had a good ball reaction and left the split because I threw it bad,” Gomez says. “It wasn’t like I had thrown it good and the ball didn’t come back. I missed it at the bottom a bit, and thought about just making two really good shots and closing the door.” Which he did. Gomez doubled to lock up the title in a grind-out, 211-192. “Had I thrown that ball good and


split, I probably would have made an adjustment, and then anything can happen,” Gomez says. “On tour, we like to say that when you go 2-10, never,


TACKETT AND GOMEZ


ever move right. Make a different adjustment. Maybe slow down, hit it more, throw it softer. We all have different tricks.” The trick that works best for Gomez


and Tackett these days has nothing to do with hand position or ball speed. It has to do with the ability to leave in the past the things that need to stay there. “I’m glad I was able to put it behind


me,” Gomez says of that 8th frame. Daugherty advanced to the title


match on a 237-212 win over 18-year- old Anthony Simonsen, the 2014 PBA Southwest Region Rookie of the Year. In the opening match, he downed Tommy Jones, 247-233. Daugherty is fast becoming pro


bowling’s most fed-up runner-up. The 2013 Scorpion Championship winner finished second in three consecutive regionals over a span of seven days in Hawaii this past spring, losing the Kona Open title to Josh Blanchard on April 27, then losing both the Hawaii Open and the Hickam Air Force Base Open titles to Scott Norton on April 29 and May 3, respectively. His latest runner-up finish in


Pensacola prompted him to post on Facebook, “This 2nd place stuff is getting old real quick.” Count Daugherty as another PBA


player for whom the art of forgetting could go a long way.


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////// AUGUST 2015 49


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50