Lesson learned, I hope!

[bobforsaken]

My league is starting next week. I wanted to get some last minute practice and fine tune my arsenal so I went to the bowling alley tonight. they had oil the lanes and the lanes appeared to be fresh. I started out where I normally do on their house shot and came up high. I tried to adjust and could not find any consistency. made ball changes... changed my angle... I just could not seem to get lined up in any way. outside seemed Wetter the normal inside seemed drier than normal . I bowled a 137, 133, 127. I had been averaging over 200 all summer long in practices. I finally went to the front desk and asked if it was a house pattern that was down. it was to their knowledge but when the front desk personnel walk down the lane he saw that the pattern was completely flat. his guess was that it was oil early in the day and with the heat the oil had spread so that it was completely flat all the way across. treating it like a flat pattern I quickly got lined up and bowled a 245. the lesson I learned... adjust based on what you see not on what you THINK is out there. also, I never realized what a difference time can make in changing oil pattern.

[billf]

The oil is suppose to sit a minimum of tweny minutes before use according to Kegel. They also incorrectly say that with synthetic conditioners sitting untouched in heat and humidity will have little to no impact on the pattern. Unfortunately we don't bowl in a lab and the real world this just isn't true.
As for adjusting based on what you see and not what you expect, this is something Rob Mautner preaches. As we learn more and more about lane topography it just keeps proving him more right on this subject.