This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to the beautiful Hawaiian island of O’ahu where I conducted two clinics and also provided one-on-one coaching sessions. While there, I also competed in the Hawaii TV Bowling Open Doubles tournament at Hickam AFB.
The tournament was a lot of fun, as I was able to visit with many bowlers that I used to compete with in junior bowling tournaments during the annual summer Hawaiian Brian Billiard’s Aiea Singles Championships. The format for the Open Doubles event was three games of qualifying with both partners’ scores combined. The field was then cut to the top 20 teams for matchplay. Matchplay consisted of random draw for pairings and then a one baker-game single elimination format until 5 teams remained for the top 5 TV Show finals. So pretty grueling, as we didn’t bowl many games, combined with the luck factor of the random draw.
I bowled with Christine Kato, a good friend of mine that I’ve known for many years. She also happened to be 5 months pregnant at the time. We bowled very well in the qualifying portion of the tournament, shooting +66 overall. We competed on the PBA Scorpion pattern, which started off playing really straight and pretty oily. I used my Eagle to start. However, if anyone has ever bowled at Hickam AFB, then they know how quickly the lanes break down. By the second and third games, I was already playing near 4th arrow, hooking the ball, using a polished Bank Roll. We qualified 6th overall. Then in matchplay we ended up losing our 1st match in a close finish 192 to 201. I needed to strike out in the 10th frame to lock out our opponent, but I left a stubborn 10 pin instead. They struck out to beat us.
I did manage to get two days off in the midst of my rather hectic schedule. On my first day off, Drew and I drove to the North Shore side of the island and went into the historic surfing town of Hale'iwa for lunch. We then headed to a tiny beach that is known for sea turtles. There were several sea turtles around on that day and one big sea turtle laying on the sand. Drew and I waded in the waters of this beautiful little beach and were surprised to find several sea turtles curiously coming up to us in the water. Check out the video! After our sea turtle encounter, we hit up the yummy shrimp trucks for a quick bite to eat and then headed to Pali Lookout for the gorgeous views, before heading back to Waikiki for the night. On our second free day, we visited Kualoa Ranch and took the movie tour, discovering where many famous movies and TV shows have been filmed, such as Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor, Wind Talkers, and Lost, to name a few.
I’d like to thank Hickam AFB and Barbers Point Bowling Center for helping me to coordinate everything and for being so hospitable.
If you’d like me to come to your hometown and conduct clinics and one-on-one lessons, please contact me at missy@missyparkin.com for details.
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