Okay, let's talk a bit about the mental game.

Part of training is not just in the delivery of a ball. We must also train ourselves to deal with distractions. Randy should not be in the finals on his exceptional performance alone. The mental game must also be at a level above other competitors.

A flash from a camera is a physical hinderance to the bowler. It temporarily blinds the person and will effect their delivery.

Movement by a fan is a distraction that he chose to allow to have an effect on his performance. If he allows that type of interference in his delivery, he better learn to grab and retrieve the ball like I have seen Chris Barnes and Norm Duke do many times. Otherwise, he needs someone to swing a bright yellow flag one lane away so that he can be trained to handle it.

Tiger Woods father knew that Tiger would end up at a level above other players. During training, he would occasionally throw a club in front of Tiger on his downswing to 'toughen' his focus on Execution and not his surroundings. I would say that it worked.

What does everybody here think of the way Randy handled the situation??

When he picked the people out of the audience, and basically started to demean them on national TV.

I think, if anything, he should be benched from competition for that. That showed me that he isn't a true competitor, granted I would have wanted to rip those people a new one, but I would remember that I am a professional and that I am getting paid to be hear on national TV.

What does everybody else think of it?

Well, I can't remember the exact scenario, but I believe that last time, prior to this past week, I saw Randy Pederson bowling on a televised broadcast, something else distracted him from the stands then too. It was like last year or so, but he again was distracted and blamed failure to execute on that.

This year, I wasn't surprised to see it happen again. I'm sorry he seems hyper sensitive to outside sounds and movements because as someone above mentioned, he's a great bowler or he'd not have gotten there. He seems the type of bowler that hypes himself up, for reaction after Execution, by running out strikes for example. This may also make him hyper sensitive when he has to be settled down and execute. I know he bowls in most of the tournaments, we don't know what happens during the week. Maybe he's similarly distracted during the week too? I do think it was very unprofessional of him to vent his frustration pubically. The pressure of PBA bowling is great, but these guys are supposed to be up for it. That's why they are PBA and we arn't. Look at all the times Chris Barnes had his game won and failed to execute for whatever reason. He was always frustrated but never exhibited temper as we saw this weekend.

On the other hand, it was very refreshing to have Brian Voss in the commentary booth.

Erin

Yeah I enjoyed BV in the booth

You mean you guys actually BV doing the commentary.

I don't know what it is, maybe I'm just not used to his style, but I don' treally like the way he talks into the mic during the game, it is like he is trying to be to quiet. I did notice that everytime Norm did something over the average, or over the emotion, BV responded to it. Talk about taking a side while doing commentating.

I think I would rather have had like Carolyn Dorin-Ballard doing commentating, I have heard her on a few of the PWBA telecasts and she does a great job, either her or her sister in there.

I like the idea of having Carolyn Dorin-Ballard doing the commentating.

I see both sides of the issue. I know it was Randy's last chance to be exempt for next year ( except for tour trials). I'm sure the pressure of that was great. Add to that, he needed 3 strikes in the 10th to tie it. He gets the first two, on the last shot to earn the chance to go into a roll off he gets distracted by a loud noise. If it was real quiet and then there was this loud noise, then I could maybe understand that he would be upset. To berate the person on TV was a little overboard.

I thought he threw that last ball pretty good. I didn't see a 7 pin coming.

He did throw that last ball, very well. For whatever reason, it didn't carry.

Had it carried, we'd not be talking about this now. We'd have gone onto the roll off and who knows what might have distracted him then.

Erin

From looking at the telecast (which I taped) it appears to me that the last ball was just a tad fast (ball speed). That could explain the 7 pin leave...or it could have fallen. ::shrug::

Erin

I wonder if there was even a person up in the stands that did something. I wonder if Randy just made it up because he messed the shot up.

Just a little something for everybody to think about.