The 2018 PBA50 Cup Stepladder Finals, presented by DV8, hosted at Spectrum Lanes, featured Brian Kretzer, Amleto Monacelli, Eugene McCune, Parker Bohn III and Ron Mohr. For the bowlers who like long-format events, this tournament will be a real treat.
In standard PBA50 events, pins are dropped after every cut, creating a sprint-like feel to the events and not rewarding the players who perform well over the long haul. This weekend is totally different, however.
The players will bowl 16 games of qualifying (eight on fresh, eight on burn) and all of those pins will carry over to match play. The top one-third of players (maximum of 40) will advance to two rounds of match play. In match play, all bowlers will bowl 16 games (eight on fresh, eight on burn) before the top five players are determined for the stepladder finals.
After an extremely high scoring PBA50 Dave Small’s Championship Lanes Classic event that just wrapped up, we could see the opposite end of the spectrum this weekend when the bowlers face the 42-foot PBA Earl Anthony pattern.
According to the PBA, last week’s PBA Scorpion pattern was modified just prior to the event for topography reasons, resulting in an extremely high-scoring event. This week, the PBA says they won’t modify the pattern, and if the past is any indication, scores could be low.