First off let me say that this tournament was ran EXCEPTIONLY well. Not very often do you see a tournament so professionally executed. This was my first visit and was enjoyable. I want to thank those that ran it!!

Now my only complaint. As it turns out its another left - right issue. The pattern they used was a Kegel pattern called route 66. This pattern forces bowlers to play the inside of the lane. So be it. I dont exactly know the ratio of lefties to righties... but there were 82 bowlers in the event total... and I would guess there was ~10 lefties that I saw. The format was great... 4 games of qualifying cut to the top 32 and bowl head to head 2 game total pins matches. The first match after the cut, I was playing 23. The second match I was play 26, the thrid match I was playing 29 and fortunately I had not met any lefties at this point. By the time I got the semi finals there was me and 3 lefties.

Here is the issue... me and the lefty were lookin at the same arrow!!! I was looking at 30 (10 on the left side) and there was no fresh oil right of me. If I went right looking at my break point (12-10) where I was all day the ball went through the nose. If I looked farther right at the break point I missed the head on the right (45' of oil). If I looked left of break point the ball hooked early and through the nose.  I am already playing farther than I have every played and having to walk around the ball return on the right lane. In contrast the lefty was playing 10 to 8... sometimes 12 to 8.

Now how is this fair? The ratio of lefties to righties in the cut had to be much highier than the 7 to 1 ratio in qualifying. And after every match the ratio got worse until it was 3 to 1 in the semi final match lefties to righties.

Understand I am NOT saying that the lefties were not good bowlers. I saw so many good bowlers it was great to bowl. What I am saying is, if any tournament wants to be fair to all bowlers it must consider all aspects of the event and it is demoralizing to the righties to feel as though they had no chance. I spoke with many of the righties that lost in the matches and to a man they all said that they wished they had a fresher looking shot that the lefties enjoyed.

That being the case I have given alot of thought to this issue and have come up with a solution that I would like to propose to this tournament. I looked at there website and could not locate a single email address to forward comments to so I am using this location. I do not know if anyone from Bowlers Adavantage Pro Shop (the sponcer) or the tournament looks at this site but if someone else could pass this along it would be great.

Here is my simple solution. Have 4 pair not used during qualifying and only used after the qualiying cut. This would put all the qualifyers back to a fresh pattern. I know there are a very legistacal issues to deal with but they could be solved. This seems to be more fair to the lefties rightie issue. What do you think?

That's one of my former bowling centers. I'm not surprised to hear Bowler's Advantage ran the tournament well. They were a very good pro shop for me while I lived there.

Also not surprised to hear about the lane oil issues. When I first moved there in 2004, that center had 40-something lanes and you could strike from anywhere. In 05 or 06, they expanded to 52 lanes and put down all new AnviLane, as well as changing the way the ventilation system flowed. My average dipped 15-20 pins and so did many others. Shot consistency was a big issue.

I'm not complaining about the people running things. They have very good maintenance personnel there and center management is awesome. They should give lessons on how to run a bowling center.

It just sounds like they're still chasing the rabbit when it comes to lane condition.

Jess