“I don’t know,” says Urbana’s Graham Fach. “If you throw it one way the ball can go right, and if you throw it another way the ball might go left. It’s not an easy place to bowl.” (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Known throughout the PBA tour as the one tournament where you can come away ‘Coldwatered’, tour pros shared Friday the reason why its so hard to win in Coldwater, Ohio…and why so many of them try.
Coldwater, OH – It’s only a regional summer tour stop, and first place money for the winner is a tenth of what one of the major tourneys on tour plays. But during Friday’s practice time at Coldwater’s Pla-Mor Lanes any number of the pros in town this weekend for the 18th Annual Bowlerstore.com Classic, were willing to talk about what they almost lovingly call…getting ‘Coldwatered’.
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“It’s just a hard place to score,” rising young phenom Ethan Fiore, from Tampa, Florida, who finished second in last weekend’s Kremer Roofing Classic at Minster’s Community Lanes.
“You don’t take it for granted,” he added. “But it’s a place that you’d like to win, just to say that you did.”
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Long-time proprietor of Pla-Mor, Rick Hartings, smiles at the suggestion that you cannot come to Coldwater and just show up, expecting to win. The list of bowling’s elites is simply too long…that have come to Coldwater and gone away empty-handed.
“I’ve won here once,” said world’s #1 EJ Tackett, who won the title in 2014, when he was 23 years old, besting Rhino Page for the title.
“But I’ve left here frustrated more than once,” Tackett said last year, after making a run at eventual tourney winner, Brett Lloyd. Lloyed bested Tackett in the final, 199-184.
“It has a reputation,” said Hartings Friday, wearing a knowing grin. “We’re proud of that. It’s tough. It’s a challenge. And I love to see someone come in and beat the house and the field, throwing a tough strike to do it.”
Harting’s wife Patty, who’s had plenty of experience trying and watching, simply laughs and calls the venerable bowling center on Hardin Street a “House of pain.”
PBA hall of famer Norm Duke told me in 2019: “Pla-Mor is an easy place to throw a good pocket hit and leave the 7-10 split.” Duke left early that year, having a rough day during Saturday qualifying.
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Friday, Ethan Fiore took his turn at explaining the frustration of bowling at Pla-Mor.
“It’s something to do with topography,” said Fiore.
Topography is typically a term that deals with the landscape. Is the ground level, or does it have some bumps and dips in it? Does it lean to the left or the right?
“Just throw for the head pin,” hall of famer Norm Duke said once. “Hit the head pin and try to knock down nine. Then make the spare.”
“It’s like there’s a board out there that if you throw to one side of it the ball tends to move right, and on the other side it might move left. That, and the gutters here at the pins are flat, so you don’t get that same kind of trailer pin action.”
Versailles’ Michael Davidson knows Pla-Mor so well that he’s married to Rick and Patty Hartings’ daughter, Erika.
“Topography,” says Davidson. “It’s a matter of the lanes being equally level or consistent. Some pairs are better than others and you get to know that after you’ve bowled here over the years. Lanes 1 and 2 are pretty hard. Lanes 10 through 13 haven’t been so bad, in my experience. But you’ve got to know that.”
Some claim that the transition from wood to synthetic lanes have created a tougher scoring environment, where the older wood lanes settling create localized “out-of-level” spots where ball reaction changes predictably with modern high-rev bowling technology.
Others say that there’s no such thing as a perfect bowling alley surface…never has been, and never will be. Buildings settle with time. Humidity takes its toll. And the weight of a bowling ball pounding target areas create undetectable depressions after years of use.
“Topography?” asked Urbana professional Graham Fach.
“I just think there’s lanes where the ball tends to go left or right, depending on where your target mark is. You learn and you adjust.”
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The essence of the game. Oil patterns break down over the course of repeated use and conditions for how the ball tracks to the pins is bound to change with it.
But in Pla-Mor’s case someone once suggested that there might be an old Indian burial ground beneath the building. It’s possible, I guess, considering that during the 18th century Mercer County was a stronghold for the power Miami Indian tribe.
Ethan Fiore was competitive in the 2025 Coldwater Classic but fell short to eventual winner, Brett Lloyd.
Back to Norm Duke, I asked him in 2019 – the first time I heard the term ‘Coldwatered’ – how to score on lanes like Pla-Mor where reputation, perhaps, makes it so hard to score.
“Throw it straight at the head pin,” said Duke with a smile. “Maybe you hit the pocket, maybe it goes Brooklyn, and maybe knock down nine pins and make spares.”
Duke was jesting, of course. At that time he had thrown 73 perfect 300 games in sanctioned PBA competition. Duke has since retired in Florida.
And at the end of questioning and players searching for answers Friday, Michael Davidson probably had the best answer of all.
“If you think about long enough you become a head case. Yeah, that’s probably part of it, too.”
Sleep soundly then, fellows. Qualifying starts early Saturday morning. And dream of conquering Pla-Mor!
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