I like the idea of making tournament conditions more challenging. I don't like the idea of standardizing on one pattern. Whatever the shot is, it always favors a particular style of bowling. Having multiple approved patterns gives different bowlers a chance to score well. Personally, the mental challenge of "figuring out the lanes" is a significant part of my enjoyment of the sport. But, I may be in the minority.

Whether it is red, white and blue, or blue, white and red, is immaterial. Let's just get it done. If it requires all of us to write letters to our Association demanding this, so be it.

Whatever the color for tougher shots, a grouping of shots into 1 color makes sense. I look at the PBA, and tournament patterns ( http://www.pba.com/resources/oilpatterns/laneconditions.asp?ID=5 ) whether they are all in 1 color category or not may not be the issue. They may be in 2. And, the variation of shots still makes the bowler read the pattern and presents the challenge.

Kegel is already doing this with several patterns classified as either recreation, challenge, or sport.

See http://www.buffabowling.com/eng/patterns.php

That's interesting about Kegel. Where are these patterns used? I see some posters on here talk about them. But, they are predominantly East. I don't see them in the Midwest or mentioned elsewhere.

I suppose the patterns can be used anywhere there is a machine that can handled the downloaded pattern.

At Fort Meade Bowling Center, I have bowled in scratch tournaments on the "Middle Road" and "Route 66" patterns. These are considered to be in the "Challenge" category. And, that they were, with low scores compared to other local tournaments on various house shots.

Places like Fort Meade stand out in my mind as ideal places for sports-minded bowlers. They have a PBA-Experience scratch league that runs winter and summer. On weekends, they put out the shot to practice on, sometimes more than one pattern. They frequently host local tournaments, as well as Regional and national PBA tour events.

It is good to know places like this still exist.

Out West here in SoCal we are using these Kegel patterns in our sport league, currently (this summer) we are bowling on the Boardwalk pattern, last season we bowled on Highway to Hell (tough) and Dead Mans Curve + 2 PBA patterns. We had 18 teams of trios, fun & challenging, I just hope it stays together.

Joe

Are these patterns proprietary to be used only on Kegel machines? There are many Brunswick machines around here. Especially in Brunswick centers.

Thats a good question, because the machine they use is a Kegel, but I was told all of the software for the patterns should work on the Brunswick units also.

I believe that Kegel and Brunswick are both really the same. I was told while I was at Kegel that the Kegel Machines are actually outsourced to Brunswick to make now so they should work on either.

I asked about it because during the King of Bowling event I thought it was funny that Kegel was running a Brunswick machine down the lanes to do the oiling between sets.

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding.