The PBA Tour heads to Jonesboro, Arkansas, this week with tons of momentum on its side and the promise of more drama to come at the PBA Jonesboro Open.

With another limited field (just 60 players this week) full of big names, the Jonesboro event is a can’t miss event and it starts live on FloBowling this Wednesday.

Although defending champion Norm Duke had to drop out with an injury, stars like Jason Belmonte, Sean Rash, Jakob Butturff, Anthony Simonsen, Bill O’Neill and so many more will be ready to do battle this week.

Here are a few key points to get you ready for the Jonesboro Open:

PBA Tour off to red hot start in 2020

The PBA Tour is off to a hot start in 2020, especially when you consider the winning score in title matches is averaging out to 294.5. That number is even more incredible when you consider it’s happening on dual patterns.

Momentum is on the PBA’s side after Tommy Jones got inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame, shot 300 and won the PBA Hall of Fame Classic. That was followed by Sean Rash putting up 289 in the final to win the PBA Oklahoma Open and saying afterwards he thought urethane should be banned.

So can Jonesboro live up to the past two weeks? Absolutely. It’s the last “warm-up” event before the PBA Tour heads into Big February, the most important month of the entire season.

This week the players will be looking to fine tune their games and get ready for what lies ahead, specifically next week’s PBA Tournament of Champions, which features a $100,000 payday to the winner. After that, it’s right into the PBA Players Championship and U.S. Open in successive weeks.

Defending champ Duke still sidelined

As FloBowling reported last week, defending Jonesboro Open champion Norm Duke has decided to take the week off to continue his recovery from an injury suffered at the PBA Hall of Fame Classic.

Duke injured his upper left thigh during the final round of match play at the HOF Classic and was forced to withdraw. He told FloBowling he is healing fine and wants to focus on the important stretch coming up in February and March.

The 40-time PBA Tour champion also skipped last week at the Oklahoma Open, but he was never scheduled to compete in that event even before the injury.

The format and lane conditions

This week’s event is different than the past two weeks as all players are on one squad during qualifying. That means entries were limited to just 60 players this week.

Qualifying gets underway Wednesday morning and will consist of two seven-games rounds. By the end of the day Wednesday, we will know the 16 players who have advanced into match play.

Like last week, the 16 players will bowl two eight-game rounds of round-robin match play with the stepladder finalists determined Thursday evening. Instead of being on Sunday like the past two weeks, the stepladder will take place Saturday afternoon.

The use of dual patterns continues again this week but it’s the last time we will see that for a few weeks. The upcoming PBA Tournament of Champions and PBA Players Championship will be contested on one pattern, while the U.S. Open will have multiple patterns throughout the event but not dual patterns.

In Jonesboro, they will use the 48-foot Shark pattern on the left lane and the 36-foot Viper pattern on the right lane.

How to watch

If you want to watch qualifying and match play at the Jonesboro Open, the only place to see it live is on FloBowling. The stepladder finals will be broadcast live on FS1 (United States) and FloBowling (international).

What the schedule looks like

Here’s the schedule for this event. All times listed are Eastern:

Wednesday, Jan. 29
11 a.m. - Qualifying Round 1 (seven games)
5:30 p.m. - Qualifying Round 2 (seven games)

Thursday, Jan. 30
Noon - Match Play Round 1 (eight games)
6 p.m. - Match Play Round 2 (eight games)

Saturday, Feb 1
4:30 p.m. - Stepladder Finals* (top five)

* - FloBowling live broadcast only for audiences outside the United States. The archive of the finals will be available for all audiences seven days after it airs live.