FORMER national youth bowler Marc Dylan Custodio grimly hung on in the last three frames of the final game to clinch the Dubai International Bowling Center-Delta Open men’s title in thrilling fashion last Sunday night (Sunday afternoon in the Middle East) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
After a shaky start in the pivotal eight and final game of the finals, Custodio finally came through in the crunch in closing out with two straight strikes and a spare on the way to capturing his first major Open crown with an eight-game series of 1837 pinfalls in the finals.
Although he shot a dismal 188–his worst in the finals–the 20-year-old La Salle University bowler finished 10 pins ahead of Malaysian Hafiz Zainuddin, the No. 2 qualifier in the previous round, who settled for runner-up honors with a 241 final score and 1827 aggregate.
“This all too surreal and totally unexpected. I am just happy to have won,” said Custodio, who credited national teammate Zach Sales Ramin in helping him settle down when things were not going his way early in the last game.
“Zach helped me restore my focus because I had difficulty in reading the lines in lane 16.,” he revealed of his surprise success, thanks to the pointers of his teammate with whom he won a team gold in the Asian Youth championships in Bangkok, Thailand last year.
“What an exciting win for Marc, who is slowly but surely showing his potential, which is why he was elevated to the national senior squad,” noted PSC commissioner and bowling great Bong Coo, who witnessed the athlete’s accomplishment in Dubai.
Asked what he would do with the top prize of 50,000 dirhams (around P762,000), the bowler, who paid on his own to compete in Dubai, replied that “I’ll save most of it so I can keep on competing in tournaments overseas.”
Custodio was actually the 10th and last qualifier to enter the finals, banking on a sizzling 277 in the sixth and final game of the previous round to catch the bus with tally of 1311.
He opened strong with a 238 in the first games of the finals, followed by lines of 258, 239, 234, 211, 225, 244, respectively, before plummeting with 188 in the eighth game.
A total of 315 bowlers from 29 countries saw action in the tournament, according to Rudi Ramin, Zach’s father, who came along with his son for the event.
The entries came from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Oman, Bahrain, USA, Canada, Egypt, United Kingdom, Iran, South Korea, Kuwait, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, Slovakia, Syria, Uzbekistan, Libya, Jordan, Bangladesh, Austria, and Sri Lanka, he said.
