In retrospect, we never should have been bowling March 15-16 at the 2020 Wisconsin State Senior Championships — aka the Senior State Tournament — at Old Settlers in Union Grove and The Lanes on 20 in Mount Pleasant.

I actually began realizing it on Thursday, March 13, when the COVID-19 pandemic began cascading across the American sports landscape, postponing and canceling everything.

It had begun the night before after Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive, resulting in the suspension of the NBA season.

The Wisconsin State USBC decided to go ahead with competition as the limits on gatherings for Wisconsin were set at 250 heading into the weekend. I would have been fine with the WI-USBC suspending the tournaments on Friday, but they decided to go ahead with the weekend.

It was the wrong decision, but hindsight always is 20/20 and I’m not going to crucify them for a decision that on Thursday looked OK, especially since the first competition of the championships weekend is Friday.

Our group decided that if the tournament was on we were competing, so we went, which also makes it hypocritical if I were to criticize the WI-USBC.

After we got home, the limits in Wisconsin were dropped to 50, then 10, and then a “safer at home” policy was put in place that is equivalent to the shelter-in-place policies elsewhere. (I wrote this story on March 25.)

Ultimately, the WI-USBC decided to cancel the rest of the State Tournaments and declare the leaders as of the end of the March 14-16 weekend the champions.

That had me thinking we had won the team title for the second straight year as we took the lead on Saturday with 2,679. But when I checked the standings, 2,680 was on top, leaving us in second by a pin.

My story on the winners of all of the WI-USBC championships is here.

It didn’t even make me blink, as the pandemic has had me working 16- to 20-hour days between my real job at our newspaper company and 11thFrame.com — a State Senior Tournament title just is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

But it was a fun weekend and it showed me again that the grip change I made in January of expanding my bridge from 1/8 to 3/8 was a great decision.

Our 2,679 in team came on games of 930, 836 and 913. I led with 730, Marc McDowell added 683, Jeff Prein 662 and Kevin Thompson 604.

Our 11thFrame.com 2 companion team totaled 2,453 led by Steve Wittkowske’s 680.

The lane pattern at Old Settlers was 41 feet with oil volume of 22.95 mL and a 9.55-1 middle-outside track ratio, making it your basic hooking house shot.

As expected, weaker equipment was best, and going left to right was necessary.

I went from a Roto Grip ALL-OUT SHOW OFF to a NUCLEAR CELL to a Storm IQ TOUR PEARL, all shiny hit with a 4,000 Abralon pad.

I started swinging from between 10- and 15-board at the arrows to being close to 20-board at the arrows by the end.

Getting it to go soft off the spot was key, and my new grip really helps me do that because my hand is so relaxed in the ball.  

I’ve had three operations on my wrist related to breaking it as a kid playing backyard football and not going to the doctor for about 10 days. Here is one story and here is another story that provide detailed background.

For almost all of my career, I used basically the same pitches for my fingers and thumb, most notably a half-inch reverse in my thumb due to my extremely inflexible wrist.

After trying the Tri-Grip in 2013-14, I went back to my old grip because although the Tri-Grip  enabled me to roll a stronger ball, it was just too much for my wrist.  

And as my wrist became less and less flexible and weaker, I eventually switched to 14-pound balls after going from 16s to 15s in 2004.

Then in 2016 in our trip to Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine, for the PBA League, I hooked up with Cecil Scarboro, and he convinced me to try a radical change: going from 1/2 reverse to 1/8 forward in my thumb, while reducing my span.

This allowed me to hold on to the ball with much less grip pressure — “squeeze” — which lessened the strain on my creaky wrist.

As much as that helped, my game has continued to deteriorate as I’ve struggled to get my hand to relax in the ball and not hurt.

Messing around at home in January, I simply put my thumb in the ball and let my fingers fall across the holes. I instantly noticed that the spread was much wider than the 1/8 bridge I have been using for my whole career. I measured the spread as a little over 3/8.

Because my hand felt much more relaxed with the fingers spread than nearly together, I decided to try a ball with a 3/8 bridge, which Matt Gasn called the “Golden Gate Bridge.”

But it has worked to lessen the strain on my wrist. I’m still a shell of what I once as — natural for almost 58 years old — but I can be that shell for a couple of days in a row, and maybe a third or fourth day without severe pain and loss of flexibility.

That would at least enable me to bowl events like PBA50 Tour stops, and Ron Mohr’s South Point Senior Shootout, which I was getting close to giving up.

Since January, I’ve been part of wins in a trios and a doubles, and the near Senior State team title.

But it can’t help me when I run into a condition I no longer can handle, which was what happened in the Senior State minors on Sunday morning of the weekend.

The Lanes on 20 the pattern was 44 feet with 23.95 mL and a 9.58-1 middle-outside track ratio, and it only took a little more than one game for one lane to cliff, and by singles both lanes were cliffed so comically that the lanes became very difficult: in and it went light and out and it jumped high.

I tried everything thing from my IQ TOUR GOLD to a Roto Grip UFO and it didn’t make a difference.

It’s not hard to see why the singles winner was Wade Kane of Clinton with just 731.

I had 599 in doubles and 635 in singles for 1,964, which was high right-hander for all-events in our group.

Left-hander Steve Wittkowske fired 608 and 680 for 1,969

McDowell rolled 679-594 for 1,956, Thompson 590-623 for 1,817, Prein 568-575 for 1,805, Mike Walters 652-638-657 for 1,947, Wes Schmitz 584-632-557 for 1,773, and John Wittkowske 536-655-512 for 1,703.

Here is the Senior State Tournament page where standings and other info can be accessed.