Samardzija Beats Heat to Win Title

Mike Samardzija couldn’t stop saying he was lucky. He must have repeated it 10 times after winning his first major bowling tournament and making his first final appearance in one since 1977.

Weather conditions inside Palomar Lanes were so foul, he credited his winning the $75,000 Escondido Senior PBA Open to the miserable heat and humidity and the unpredictable lane conditions.

It took a stifling heat wave to end a long drought.

“It was so hot, I’m wringing wet and I’m a person who doesn’t sweat that much,” said Samardzija, 50, of Farmington Hills, Mich., who beat John Handegard of Thousand Oaks in the final game, 193-188. “I thought I’d lost. I really did, until (my wife) Jennifer told me I won.

“I’m really very lucky.”

Each of the five bowlers who reached Thursday’s stepladder finals had trouble with consistency once they got under ESPN’s hot television lights and on lanes that had shifting oil pockets.

It was reflected in the scores.

Samardzija, who came out of the rabbit squad 39th last weekend but carried a 203.9 average to qualify second, had a two-game average of 187.5 in two games Thursday. He knocked off No. 4 qualifier Delano “Hobo” Boothe of Canoga Park, 182-161, in the semifinal game.

Said Boothe, who won two games before leaving four open frames against Samardzija, “I never did find a line that was comfortable. The left lane was hooking more in my first game. In the second game, the hook went away. I kept moving to the right, but it didn’t make any difference.”

Throughout this unusually muggy week, the bowlers have experienced expanding hands and swelling thumbs. Some have had to switch balls; others have drilled bigger finger holes.

Handegard, the 1991 Senior Player of the Year with three titles, resorted to both. Still, every time he released the ball, you could hear the pop , pop , pop .

“I couldn’t get my thumb out of the ball,” he said. “I just couldn’t clear the ball.”

Handegard, who earned $4,400 for his second runner-up finish in as many weeks, had averaged a tournament-best 216.8 in 42 games.

But he left two pins standing on the eighth frame. Samardzija, who admitted he had no idea who was ahead, registered strikes in five of his final seven frames.

“There were a lot of low scores out here, and with the lanes the way they were, the spares were really important,” said Samardzija, who won $8,000 in his fourth senior tournament. “The lanes just kept changing. I had a little bit of luck. It was just my day.”

Samardzija, who lost in the final of the 1977 Toledo Open, one of the few regular PBA events he played, only gave the senior tour a try after he noticed friends Gene Stus and Richard Beattie were consistently cashing.

“I’ve always been a businessman first, then a part-time bowler,” said Samardzija, who has owned a bowling supply and trophy company for 24 years.

Boothe beat Robert Gibbs of Abilene, Tex., in the first match, 207-170. Then he knocked off No. 3 qualifier John Hricsina of Franklin, Pa., 188-166, to capture his second third-place finish in three tournaments this year. He received $3,500.