Pro bowler vs. Joe Bowler: Pros are in a league of their own

**onefrombills** · 11-21-2008, 09:52 PM

This is a graph of the PBA Chameleon pattern. Notice the gradual rise and fall of the yellow and red lines. This means the volume of oil is more uniform across the lane, forcing bowlers to be very accurate.

There are several rungs on the bowling ladder, but the three highest categories of bowling talent can be summed up with the following definitions:

House bowler - A bowler capable of maintaining an average of 170 - 210 and shooting occasional Honor Scores on typical league oil patterns in a few select bowling centers. These bowlers usually limit themselves to local tournaments.

Competitive bowler - A bowler capable of maintaining an average of 210 or greater and shooting several Honor Scores on typical league oil patterns regardless of the bowling center. These bowlers also are capable of averaging at or over 200 on challenging oil patterns and authoring solid finishes at local, state, and national tournaments.

Professional bowler - A bowler capable of averaging 220 or greater and shooting honor scores on any oil pattern in any bowling center at any time. These bowlers will be in the running for the top spots in all tournaments they enter and usually will not be defeated by anyone apart from other professionals.

These categories are admittedly broad, but they provide a general picture of the bowling landscape. The point behind them is to explain just how large the talent gap truly is between league bowlers and professional bowlers.

If you want first-hand proof, watch Sunday's Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour telecast at 1 p.m. EST on ESPN. This week's show will present the taped finals of the Ultimate Scoring Championship, a first-year event that pitted 64 of the world's best bowlers against the PBA's version of a typical league oil pattern - or house shot.

The pattern was 42 feet long and featured an oil ratio of 6-to-1 at 22 feet and 4-to-1 at 40 feet,giving bowlers roughly double the margin for error they see when bowling on the five standard PBA patterns - Chameleon, Cheetah, Scorpion, Shark and Viper - which feature 3-to-1 ratios.

Typical league oil patterns usually are 38 to 42 feet in length and feature ratios in the 8-to-1 or 12-to-1 range. That means the oil pattern used during the Ultimate Scoring Championship, while easy by PBA standards, was approximately twice as difficult as most league oil patterns.

That may seem hard to believe, but it's all about the ratios of oil and what they mean to the bowlers attacking the lanes.

Oil ratios tell bowlers how high the volume of oil is in the middle of the lane compared to the outside. The oil in the middle is used to push balls down the lane or keep them from hooking through the head pin on shots missed to the inside. The extremely dry areas on the outside are used to bring balls back from optimum carry angles or help shots recover when sent too wide.

Look at the two oil pattern graphs to the right. The top graph shows lane tape readings taken on the Ultimate Scoring Championship oil pattern. The bottom graph shows readings taken on the Chameleon pattern.

Notice that as the line moves from left to right across the lane, the graph from the Ultimate Scoring Championship stays very low on the outside, rises sharply and plateaus across the middle before falling very sharply again as it reaches the outside boards on the right side.

The Chameleon graph rises and falls much more gradually. This means the oil volume is more uniform across the lane, which requires greater accuracy because there isn't a drastic area of hold or recovery to be found on errant shots.

In essence, a larger ratio equals a larger margin for error. On a house shot, average bowlers rely upon the extra room; professional bowlers prey upon it.

During the Ultimate Scoring Championship, 47 of the 64 bowlers in the field averaged 220 or greater for a minimum of 14 games. Seventeen players managed to average 230 or more, and four players - Patrick Allen (251.67), Parker Bohn III (249.14), Mike Wolfe (246.47) and Bill O'Neill (241.45) - finished the event with averages topping 240.

In the Round of 32, Bohn and Michael Haugen Jr. averaged 263.33 and 261.33, respectively, during a six-game match won by Bohn. During that same round, Wolfe averaged 272.50 while sweeping Steve Harman in four games.

The point of these numbers is not simply to show the talent of PBA Tour pros. Most people already know that; however, some people fail to realize just how good the pros are compared to the rest of the bowling population, and they truly are that good.

So, the next time you hear fellow league bowlers spouting off that the pros are "not that great", encourage them to take a stab at a PBA Regional tournament or Lumber Liquidators Tour Qualifying Round.

The pros have shown what they can do on our conditions. Let's see what your league mates can do on theirs.

**kev3inp** · 11-22-2008, 04:23 AM

Ah, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Who will pick it up?

I understand some of the pros had a hard time with this pattern because they were so unused to it. 17 of them couldn't average 220, by the article's own numbers. Shouldn't all of them have been able to? Who came in last and what were his numbers?