Kegel Boardwalk Sport Oil Pattern
By: bowlingball.com
Publish Date: 10/31/15
The PBA Tour uses several types of oil patterns to present a variety of challenges to the tournament players; oil patterns house league bowlers generally will not experience.
These challenging oil patterns vary primarily on the distance the oil is applied to the lane surface as well as cross lane ratios of oil application.
As example, the BOARDWALK Sport Pattern by Kegel was used in a past National PBA Tour event and was designed to play towards the edge board of the lane.
Because of the relatively short 35 foot length of the BOARDWALK pattern, players will need to control the excessive change of direction of the bowling ball as it enters the 25 feet of dry backend where it travels at a given angle of entry for a longer distance than on shorter distance oil patterns.
Since lanes do have topographical differences (level of the lane beds and friction varying factors), on some lanes the BOARDWALK pattern will require a more direct route to the pocket while other lane characteristics may allow players to swing the ball to the edge board.
This pattern can provide great excitement, strong angles of entry to the pocket, and high scores but be careful to not stray too far off the BOARDWALK and you’ll find yourself in the moat!
*Latitude Ratio Coordinates
22’ 2.4 to 1
33’ 2.1 to 1
*Longitude Ratio Coordinates
Outside Taper 2.5 to 1
Inside Taper 2.3 to 1
*Pattern Distance
35 Feet
*Pattern Volume
Forward 10.55 mL
Reverse 13.35 mL
Total 23.90 mL
Because of the shortest distance of oil compared to all other patterns used in Sport Bowling competitions or in the PBA, the BOARDWALK pattern uses a relatively high concentration of oil in the front part of the lane, a lesser concentration of oil in the mid-lane, and 25 feet of dry back ends so a strong blend condition is established which offers players multiple angles to play depending on their individual delivery techniques.
The pattern creates a cross lane ratio and a down lane ratio distribution of oil application so bowlers can choose how much they wish to swing the ball on fresh oil and when the pattern breaks down.
Typically, the shorter the distance the oil is applied to the lane, the closer to the edge of the lane is where the breakpoint will be found. On this pattern, the breakpoint will be closer to the lane edge than any of the other longer distance patterns.
If the final distance of oil application on the BOARDWALK pattern is 35 feet from the foul line, then the breakpoint will be somewhere around 40 to 42 feet distance, depending on a given player’s ball speed, bowling ball surface and ball delivery angle path.
