Southern Lanes
Boynton Beach
This week we used pattern B2. Pattern B is the longest of the five patterns, measuring 43 feet of oil on the lane. Typical to the length and design, the bowlers will migrate more towards the center of the lane, as the ball normally will not hook back to the pocket if it strays too far outside near the gutter. This pattern usually requires extreme inside angles to get to the pocket after five or six games. The scoring pace is normally high for this pattern.Again this week, we only had 13 left handers, so the graphs do not show a lot of depletion on the left side. Although I did see most playing around the 10 board (+/- 2 boards), either with a little swing or basically straight up. We did not have any real power players on the left side so most of them were tweeners or straight players.
The right handers were mostly playing between 15 and 20 at 15 feet, out to 10 - 15 at 25 feet and were around 8-10 at the end of the pattern. A squad's graph shows it in a more defined pattern.
This is a good example of how patterns will break down on the national tour and the regional tour. On the National tour, with more experience and revolutions, the pattern tends to break down in a more defined pattern, which means the oil will break down quicker with the length of the pattern. Whereas, when you have less experienced bowlers, the pattern will tend to break down in a scattered fashion, with more oil going away across the pattern, forcing you to make different types of adjustments.
When you have squad inequity, that can sometimes occur, you can have what looks like a different condition, but in reality, because bowlers must watch the way their ball reads the lane, the bowler will pick it up differently and make different moves. More experienced bowlers will pick the right ball for the pattern, while inexperienced bowlers will keep moving around to try to find something, which is what breaks the pattern down differently.
Keep this in mind while you are trying to search for your comfort zone.
Norman Simard
Laneman for the Southern Region
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Championship Squad before bowling
Championship Squad after bowling
Match Play after 12 rounds