Having practiced close to 20 hours spread over four days and also played 7 competition rounds in Elitserien, I think I'm close to having a decent opinion on the concrete course that WC 2011 will be played on.
The first impression is that the layout of the lanes are done well and attractive, but the placement of 16-18 confuses me a bit. The course is located nicely with a lot of open grass outside the fences, but that also gives the wind a lot of different directions to come from. Without a lot of windshields the course is almost unplayable as a lot of the slow shots are played in a 90 degree angle of the normal wind direction. Hopefully a lot of tents for the players will block out the wind, the chance of playing WC completely without wind is not realistic.
The lanes are pretty easy, but as you might guess the wind can mess up the results a lot. I will give you a quick guide to the lanes and the lines we played in Uppsala.
1. Left board, mainly left side of the hole, but with good tempo you'll ace from the right side also.
2. Right board-right stone. Probably the easiest lane 2 I've ever played. The ball will go in if you place it within approx 15cm of the hole.
3. The ball passes on the left side and goes in most of the time with good ball temperature and no interference from the wind.
4. I think it is a bit tricky to pass, I scored a new personal high score with four missed shots in seven rounds. With no wind the ball passes on the right side and have a really good chance to go in.
5. Turned to the right. Normal play with the board, hitting the 2nd board approx 1m after the hill. I would prefer to find a ball that has a really good chance direct as the rebound (left side) is a bit difficult to control. The wind makes a huge difference.
6. Left board - right side of the hole. A ball that doesn't take a lot of spin. A good chance in you misses the rebound due not enough spin, the balls comes good from 7-7.30. Very easy for lane 6. Tempo of shot more important than where you hit the board.
7. High natural grass up to the border line and artificial grass after; 50cm "bathtub" around the hole. Playing from a peg. Either play a soft 10-15cm with ace possibility from 12, or play a 30-40cm with bigger ace chance from 5-7. The artificial grass is not very consistant.
8. Normal, medium difficulty.
9. Turned to the right. Some sort of dead ball. Very good chance without wind, no need to have speed only to the hole.
10. Right board - left side of the hole. Need pretty good speed to clear the 2nd hill and the green is quick.
11. Turned to the left. Play rebound left side of the hole, with speed only to the hole.
12. Turned to the right. Left board and plate, rebound left side of the hole. Rather big break in the green, so speed a bit past the hole is necessary.
13. Turned to the right. Speed only to the hole and you'll have both side to play on. Should be very possible to have all aces on this one.
14. Three boards and rebound left side. Rather big break in the green, so getting an ace when passing 20cm left of the hole is possible. The ideal line is 10cm left, but with tempo to hole everything will go in.
15. Easy to ace as long as you pass through clear, which is not that difficult. Pass on the right side with decent speed.
16. Turned to the left. The ball passes the left side of the hole most of the times and if you can get the ball just over half way to the hole from the rebound you have a really good chance to ace.
17. Straight through or left-right board. The lane turns to the right the first half and the to the left. The straight shot should pass on the left side, but right side also possible with speed only to the hole. The board gives you more margin on the left side of the hole, but I had a hard time controlling where the ball wound up after the 2nd board.
18. A fast ball can come back out.
The course rewards you if you can play with ball speed to the hole, which should be good news for both Germany and Switzerland I guess. But the lane is in Sweden so at least we should have more practice, except maybe for one dutch player. :)
Balls:
1. D084
2. BoF Jessica Rengbrandt, Piggy or any other of the 200 3D balls that bounces 10-20cm
3. BoF MC Olten (the big blue)
4. BoF Remo Zaugg, Bruno Ruch, Stefan Schwark
5. BoF Peter Eisenschmidt MX, M&G Legend Charlotte Ryner KX
6. Ravensburg 382 or 383
7. H13/BoF Paolo Porta (white soft) or BoF SwM2006 C-J Ryner/BO 2006 (yellow cold)
8. Anything
9. 3D 163 or BoF SwM2007 C-J Ryner depending on the wind
10. Weichei
11. Uppsala 2004 70år
12. Grünes Band
13. D085
14. Illertissen (black with silver print)
15. 3D 355 or BoF JEM1994 Anders Olsson
16. Reisinger 14 or BoF FiMM2003 Malax IF KX
17. D083 straight, possibly Reisinger CB blue board.
18. Anything
("Balls" added by webmaster, from CJ:s comment below)