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Save the date: 2020 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open set for Aug. 21-23

JEFF RICHGELS | Posted: Thursday, December 12, 2019 5:00 pm
Save the date: 2020 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open set for Aug. 21-23
Nate Stubler, middle, his dad Bob Stubler, left, and some portly writer and has-been bowler, right, with the $2,700 check Stubler earned for winning the 2019 11thFrame.com Open. Photo by Stubler family.

The Greater Iowa Bowling Association 11thFrame.com Open at Cherry Lanes inside the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, Iowa, will be Aug. 21-23 in 2020.

The 2019 11thFrame.com Open was Aug. 16-18, but both weekends are two weekends earlier than Labor Day weekend.

The 2020 New Mexico Open is scheduled for Aug. 14-16, so there isn’t a conflict with that event.

The PBA has not announced any schedule for 2020 beyond the PBA League in July, so I’m not sure if there will be a conflict there.

The weekend again will feature a Friday sweeper, and the tournament Saturday and Sunday will feature a maximum field of 156 entries that almost certainly will sell out.

No changes are planned for the tournament, other than the lane pattern has not been determined and definitely will not be the same.

The 2015 U.S. Open lane pattern may be out base pattern again, as it has been since 2016, but if it is it will be tweaked to provide better equity between the left and right sides.

Our goals always include not losing control of the lane (no excessive lofting) with 12 games on Sunday, as much equity as possible between left-handers and right-handers (the hardest thing to achieve in bowling), and a tough pattern with a relatively low scoring pace, though we gladly would accept a slightly higher scoring pace than preferred if it meant satisfying the first two things.

Matt McNiel won in 2012Matt Gasn in 2014McNiel again in 2015Jay Watts in 2016Adam Morse in 2017, Andy Mills in 2018, and Nate Stubler in 2019. (No tournament was held in 2013.)

Entries will open sometime next spring.