Obviously I can’t speak for all of them and I can only relay what my perception of their attitude is.
Many, particularly the veterans, do not miss the grind of qualifying and uncertainty of getting whether they will get a paycheck for the week. They also realize that the match play format is more exciting and easier to understand by the casual fan.
On the other hand they don’t really believe that this format identifies who is bowling the best. Take last week. If you went by average alone Rick Lawrence, the champion wouldn’t have even come close to making the show.
Plus while they are exempt their status is tenuous and there is a lot of pressure to stay in the top 40 this year because they know getting back out will be tough.
Also bowling the Pro-ams on Saturday is tough for the guys who lost a close match in the round of 8. They are let down by just missing the show and they had just put in 10+ hours of grueling match play the day before.
As far as the variation in their scores, the lanes don’t transition in ways that we are accustomed to. Some of the transitions seem to be almost random. Yes they have experienced these before but every lane surface is different and the patterns react differently. Also because of the match play format it doesn’t matter whether you lose by 1 or 100, once they are out of a game they will experiment to try and find a better line. This often leads to some bad frames and a subsequent bad score. But it may line them up for the next game.
