I was watching some bowling on ESPN today, yep life without football is boring, and I noticed something new! The PBA or Professional Bowling Association, is now using a special dyed oil on the bowling lanes. The only difference between the older oil used and this blue dyed oil, is viewers can see how the oil is shifting on the lanes!
The blue dye is added to the normal oil to illustrate the challenges bowlers face to changing oil which forces bowlers to change how they shoot the bowling ball. PBA worked with its official lane maintenance provider Brunswick to formulate and test the oil. All bowling lanes have a coating of oil, applied through a Zamboni-style machine. On the PBA Tour, a designated lane maintenance team applies the oil in different invisible patterns, intended to affect the difficulty of the game.
From PBA.
Your local neighborhood bowling place applies the oil so people have a better chance of not landing into the gutter. But in the pros, multiple, different patterns are used in each game. In short, oil can make a lane either really forgiving or pro-level difficult because it affects how the ball moves. During a game of bowling, the oil shifts, and bowlers have to make changes to their rolls, without even really seeing what’s happening in the oil.
But with this new blue dyed oil, viewers, and the bowlers themselves, can see how the oil is moving and this gives bowlers a slight edge because they can see and change how they toss their bowling bowl. With the old oil, the bowlers had no clue on how the oils were shifting. I think this is a great move for the PBA, I loved seeing how the oil was moving around during the match on TV. I hope this is something we will soon see at all bowling centers across America!
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