Singapore, England shares lead
3rd May, Lake Wales: Three lefties finished in the top 8 in the first block of 8 games as Remy Ong of Singapore and Paul Moor of England shared the lead of the World Ranking Masters 2007 underway at Kegel Training Centre Thursday evening.
An expected onslaught on the pins from two-handed delivery Osku Palermaa of Finland, has yet to appear but the other with that style, Jason Belmonte of Australia, is on the right road with a 253. After the second gmae, two lefties surged to the top of the table, followed by the two-handed Jason Belmonte. Not a spinner n the field this year.
It's a long time, if ever, since an 817 was posted as the score after three games of the first squad, especially as this eight-gamer is on long oil, but that is the happy situation for Paul Moor, England's top ranked player and rankings leader for three years on the European Bowling Tour.
Moor was certainly on a mission this evening. 1085 over four games was no mean score and he was over one hundred pins clear of his nearest challenger, Osku Palermaa of Finland. All three lefties and the two two-handed stars were all in the top eight.
Game 5 had seen somewhat of a change around but there were still two left-handers and the two two-handed guys in the top eight. A disappointing drop for Alex Liew of Malaysia to 18th but David O'Sullivan was pleased to get up into the top echelon.
Moor continued his relentless march to victory, still with a 70-plus pin lead over Palermaa. Belmonte dropped out of the top eight, but only four pins adrift. After a drop to 214 the overall game average made a comeback, it must be the bowlers getting a second wind.
A 279 from singapore's Remy Ong brought the battle for the top spot and the $1,000 squad prize a lot closer. Just 16 pins buffer for Paul Moor and Osku Palermaa was really not out of the hunt.
The unfortunate situation of a tie for total pinfall of 1969, a 246 average, over the eight games for Paul Moor and Remy Ong robbed the Englishman of a share of the $1,000 squad prize as the tournament rule states that in case of a tie the prize would be awarded to the person shooting the highest last game, so the money went to the Singaporean.
This came really hard for Moor as he had led the squad with some superb bowling and one pin has cost him a lot of money.
"I lost quite a few pins with a bad game on lanes 5 and 6 and when I got to lanes 7 and 8 the ball kept falling off my hand," explained Moor. "At the beginning of the squad I couldn't do anything wrong. It didn't seem to matter where I hit the headpin as I got a strike. Now it is disappointing not to get some reward for all that effort.
Remy Ong walked away with one thousand unexpected dollars. "I didn't really realize what was going on," he explained. "I was totally focused on my own game and just bowled. You can't control what is going on elsewhere so I play one shot at a time. I'm really pleased that it all worked out well."
Detailed scores: Men's Squad 1 | Photo Album.
Photos courtesy of Bowlers Journal International.