EJ Tackett isn’t just thinking about spin or angle. He is calculating physics.
As a three-time PBA World Champion, there’s a solid argument he’s the best on Earth. It isn’t just his arm. It’s how he reads the invisible slick on the lane. Oil.
Amateurs ignore it. Unless someone slips and makes us laugh. For pros, it’s everything. It dictates strategy.
The Invisible Game
Lane oil isn’t a uniform coat. It’s a map. Applied in specific patterns to reduce friction in targeted zones. The ball slides. Then grabs. Then curls. But that pattern moves.
The distribution shifts as games go on. And the starting setup changes every time. The PBA redraws it intentionally. Forcing adjustment. On the fly.
Tackett describes it as a guessing game. He watches the ball travel down the lane. Trying to locate where the oil used to be versus where it is now.
Understanding this dynamic is arguably the single most critical skill in modern professional bowling. And technology has only complicated it. Or made it clearer. Depending on who you ask.
From Wood to Inkjet Printers
Back in the 1970S lanes were real wood. Maple or pine. The oil existed to protect the wood from wear and tear. Not to challenge the player.
Consistency? Nonexistent. Application was a mess. Some lanes got too much oil. Some got too little. Pros were flying blind until mid-game when the pattern revealed itself through repeated shots. Randomness might be fun for some, but it ruins a career for others.
Enter John Davis. A lane mechanic from Arizona in the early 198os. He invented a cleaning tool to fix inconsistent pooling. By the 90s his company Kegel perfected “Sanction technology”. Still in use today.
“It looks almost like an inkjet printer.”
That’s Kegel CEO Chris Chartrand. The head moves back and forth. Applying oil to exact boards. Precision engineering.
Kegel machines used to do cleaning and oiling separately. Now they are combined. Battery-powered too. No cords across the floor. Automation is total. No humans needed for the application. Just for the playing.
The Amateur vs. Pro Gap
Your local alley and the PBA world live on different planets regarding oil ratios.
Public lanes use a “high ratio.” Eight to ten times more oil in the middle than the outside. Many public lanes have no oil on the far edges at all.
This creates what Tackett calls “autocorrect.” The dry edges slow a stray ball down. If you threw with decent spin it curls back into the center. The pocket.
For right-handers, that sweet spot is between pins one and three. Slightly right of center. For lefties mirror it. The lane forgives mistakes.
Pros do not get forgiveness.
PBA patterns run ratios of 3:1. Sometimes near 1:1. Equal oil across the board. No dry edges to save you. No autocorrect. You have to place the ball exactly right. Control your speed. Master your revs.
“You have to be a lot more accurate. Not just with placement. With speed and revolutions.”
Length matters too. Patterns vary in how far they extend up the 60-feet lane. Common setups run 40 feet then taper. Others are longer. Shorter. Unique.
Tackett compares lane patterns to golf. Water traps. Sand bunkers. Trees. The oil is the obstacle course.
The PBA leans into this. They don’t want standardized lanes. They want chaos. Variety. Challenge.
Tom Clark PBA Commissioner loves the analogy. For him it tests greatness. Adaptability. It keeps the sport exciting week to week.
Reading the Decay
For the 2025 season the PBA pulled from a library of 20 distinct patterns from Kegel. Different ratios. Lengths. Even chemical formulations of the oil itself.
Take the Tournament of Champions week of April 20. They used the “Don Johnson 40.” Named after a legend. The “40” meaning forty feet of pattern.
Players get a graph before they start. A test lane to feel it out. But that’s where golf lies break. Golf courses stay static. Sand is sand. Water is water.
Bowling lanes change while you play them.
Bowling balls are porous. Tackett says every shot pulls a tiny amount of oil off the lane. The surface changes minute by minute.
Early in the match you might line up with the second arrow near the edge. Best chance for curve into the pocket. By game six the oil on that edge is gone. You move to the fourth or fifth arrow. More toward the center. But throw it across so it still lands in that same original spot.
Same result. Different path.
Intuition Over Tech
Tackett grew up in the sport. Parents owned an alley. Drilled balls by age 12. But he didn’t seriously study oil patterns until he was 15. Or 16.
Now kids learn it by seven or eight. The game evolved faster than he did.
There’s no magic tool. Well mostly. An app called Specto uses lidar to track ball movement. Shows where shots went. Helps estimate oil displacement. But players can’t use it during matches.
Only TV broadcasts get Specto data during finals. The pros are blind. Relying on memory. Feeling. Experience honed over years.
Tackett ranks evaluating lane oil “very high” on the skills list. Maybe the highest.
He started focusing deeply on oil a few years ago. Coincidence? He’s won three world titles in that same period.
“I can make a change. Ball change or line change. One or two shots faster than everyone else.”
Over 40 games. That advantage adds up. One shot early becomes a lead.
But what happens when the pattern finally strips bare? When the oil is just gone? You’re left with pure friction and a lot of hope.
