Finding Your PAP

I’ve done a blog on this before, but apparently it needs to be said: finding your PAP is important.

Equally important? Making sure it’s the right PAP.

To adequately and accurately measure your PAP, your shop operator should take you out to the lanes, let you warm up, then — once you’re loose and throwing it well — he should use a tool called an Armadillo to determine your PAP.

I understand that this is pretty basic/obvious stuff, but, please, stick with me here.

Next, after that, they should mark your PAP. Once it’s marked, they should watch you throw several shots after to make certain that what they’ve marked is accurate.

What they’re looking for is variation, essentially. They’re trying to make sure that shot-to-shot there isn’t much variation — if any. They’re also checking to make sure that the shot you threw in which they got the reading was a good shot or a “true shot,” as I call it. If the shot that was initially measured wasn’t up to your best, the PAP that was found may not necessarily be your PAP.

If these steps aren’t taken, we cannot be certain that these measurements are accurate. And if they aren’t accurate, it can lead to all sorts of problems.

The reason I bring this up now is because I had a customer come to me that had his PAP checked recently, and was told it was X over by X up, and he felt strongly that these measurements were accurate. He insisted we drilled a ball for him based off of this PAP.

Well, to save a lengthy story, his ball never hooked. At all. And, come to find out, the PAP was incorrect. By a lot. And we were forced to plug it, find his actual PAP, fix it, and re-drill it.

Your PAP — an accurate one — is paramount to proper ball motion. It is imperative that your PSO/coach/or whoever, get your PAP, that they check your PAP, and that they get it right.