Vegas move pays dividends for Adler

      Kim Adler loves to sightsee while traveling the country on the Sam's Town Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour.
      But the house-hunting tour of Las Vegas she and her husband, Tommy, took was daunting enough to wear down the most experienced globetrotter.
      "They say there's about 1,000 model homes in the area, and we probably saw about 900 of them," said Kim Adler, who moved from Palm Bay, Fla., on New Year's Day. "It's just practical for a bowler to be out here right now because Las Vegas is becoming a bowling mecca."
      Adler competed for the first time in a hometown bowling center Monday and Tuesday in the Storm Doubles at Sam's Town.
      She and her partner, Nancy Fehr of Cincinnati, missed advancing to matchplay by two pins. Still, Adler said she enjoyed seeing so many familiar faces.
      "It was a little different," she said. "It was nice to have some people in the background that I recognized."
      She believes her move to Las Vegas will help her career on the lanes and in marketing opportunities.
      "We've made more contacts in three weeks than we did in (six years) in Florida," she said. "And seeing a different (bowling) center every day motivates me because I'm not looking at the same thing all the time and getting bored."
      Adler, 29, was the 1991 Bowling Digest Rookie of the Year and 1993 Player of the Year runner-up. She has won six tournaments and last year earned a career-best $99,300.
      Part of that windfall came in consecutive tournaments when she won the Lady Ebonite Classic at Canton, Mich., and the Hammer Players Championship at Rockford, Ill., an LPBT major.
      In the LPBT's next tournament, the Sam's Town Invitational in November, Adler bid for three straight titles but settled for fourth place.
      Before bowling in the Merit Mixed Doubles at Sam's Town in December, she and Tommy began looking for a home in the area.
      "We found a great lot on (Desert Rose) Golf Course, and the view overlooking the city is spectacular," Kim said. "We can fly in and out more cheaply, and Las Vegas is centrally located in the country for us.
      "Having Mount Charleston 45 minutes away is great for my husband because he snowboards, and we can be in a totally different environment in less than an hour. So there were a lot of pluses to our moving here."
      -- NOTES -- Laura Moriarty of Daytona Beach, Fla., and Carol Norman of Oklahoma City led the 16-game qualifying, which finished Tuesday, with 7,407 pins. Tied for second at 7,255 were Cathy Dorin of Linden, N.J., and Leanne Barrette of Fremont, Calif.; and Anne Marie Duggan of Edmond, Okla., and Stacy Rider of La Habra, Calif.. ... Matchplay for the final 18 teams started Tuesday night and continues today at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ... The five-team stepladder finals are set for 1 p.m. Thursday. Admission is free. Fox Sports Network will tape the event for later broadcast.