The PBA50 Tour heads to Hammond, Indiana, this week for the first of two stops in the Hoosier State as the PBA50 South Shore Open kicks off Tuesday.

The event, which will be broadcast live on FloBowling, will be missing some big names but there are still 11 of the top 15 players in the FloBowling PBA50 Power Rankings competing in the event.

Here are a few key points to get you ready for the PBA50 South Shore Open:

Some big names are absent this week

Although fans will be disappointed to see names like Walter Ray Williams Jr., Norm Duke, Pete Weber and Parker Bohn III not on the roster for this week’s event, the rest of the field will see it as an opportunity.

Williams, Duke and Weber will miss the event because they will be participating in the PBA League in Portland, Maine, which takes place the exact same dates as this week’s PBA50 event. Bohn is out because he’s with his children who are bowling in the Junior Gold Championships.

Williams and Duke, ranked first and second respectively in the FloBowling PBA50 Power Rankings, have finished inside the top 10 in every PBA50 event they have competed in this season.

Williams won the first three events of the season, while Duke made the stepladder finals (though hasn’t won yet) in his first five appearances on the 2019 PBA50 Tour. Bohn has made three stepladders, and Weber just had his best finish (second) of the season last week.

So with four of the PBA50 Tour’s top-ranked players out, that opens the door for other guys to make a run at the stepladder, including last week’s champion Brian LeClair.

A PBA member again, McCune looks to repeat

Last year’s PBA50 South Shore Open must have been bittersweet for longtime touring pro Eugene McCune.

After “retiring” at the end of 2016 and dropping his card, he won the 2018 PBA50 South Shore Open last year as a non-member. Because he wasn’t a PBA member, he didn’t get credit for the title. However, now he’s a member again and will be credited with a title should he win.

McCune defeated Michael Haugen Jr., 259-202, in the title match last year. He took down Bob Learn Jr., 248-215 in the semifinal.

So far this season, McCune has bowled two PBA50 events and done well. He finished 13^th at the USBC Senior Masters and ninth at the Senior U.S. Open

The format and lane condition

The tournament begins with two rounds of qualifying on Tuesday and Wednesday. Each round is eight games and all bowlers compete on one squad.

After 16 games of qualifying, all cashers will advance, though not all into the same round.

The top eight qualifiers after 16 games will be seeded directly into the second round of match play, while qualifiers ranked No. 9 through No. 24 will be seeded into the first round of match play.

The remaining cashers after qualifying, those ranked 25^th or lower, will bowl a five-game cashers qualifying round with the top eight players from that round advancing into the first round of match play.

All pins are dropped before each round of match play. The first round of match play is five games with the eight cashers round advancers joining qualifiers ranked ninth through 24^th. The top eight bowlers from this round will advance.

The second round of match play is six games with the top eight from the first round of match play joining the top eight qualifiers.

When all that is said and done, the final five will bowl in the stepladder finals on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern.

This week, the players will bowl on the PBA Don Carter pattern, which is 39 feet long.

How to watch

The only place to watch the PBA50 South Shore Open is live on FloBowling. Every round of the event from qualifying through the stepladder finals will be broadcast live with archives available immediately after each round ends.

What the schedule looks like

Here’s the schedule for this event, all times listed are Central:

Tuesday, July 16
10 a.m. – Qualifying Round 1 (eight games)

Wednesday, July 17
10 a.m. – Qualifying Round 2 (eight games)

Thursday, July 18
8:30 a.m. – Cashers Round (five games)
Noon – Match Play Round 1 (five games)
3:15 p.m. – Match Play Round 2 (six games)
7 p.m. – Stepladder Finals (top five)