I've been wanting to determine my PAP for a while now, but been too lazy to look up how to do it, and do it myself, but this morning, I got done with practice, and saw the pro shop was open, and thought maybe I could have it done right while I was there.   I asked if the pro shop operator would mind doing it real quick, and he said "Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that."  Is that that surprising, or in this day and age do less and less pro shops know some of the more "basic" things of ball drilling?

Or,
a. you're not a regular customer and he didn't want to be bothered to do it.
b. he profiled you as a customer, decided you were probably not buying today so he gave an excuse.
c. honestly doesn't know how to do it, which I seriously doubt.

It is quite possible that a random employee of a shop, watching the counter, until a driller or some other knowledgeable employee returns, does not know what a PAP is or how to measure it (2 very different things: he may know what it is but not know how to measure it.)

I can tell you if you randomly walked into my shop and weren't a regular or someone I was "working with", I would charge you to do it or tell you I would do it when you bought a ball.

Understandable and reasonable.

Just doing it for you would rank right up there with measuring someone's hand and giving them the measurements so they can order and have a ball drilled from the internet.

You might ask why he wanted to know and you might tell him that: unless you were using it to drill a ball for him to get the proper reaction, you will not measure it. As a bowler, I would not ask that question unless I wanted to know it, during the course of buying a ball from you and having it done correctly.

On the other hand -
If I wanted to know that and asked you , a knowledgeable driller to do that, I would expect to take 30 - 60 minutes of your time to do it right and expect to pay an hour's worth of service - $50 - 75.

But that's me. I know what a driller is and what he works at to learn and to do right. I know it is often a thankless job with the vast majority of people thinking, in ignorance, there is nothing to it. It is part of the disrespect to which most people in this industry in the United  States are subject.

With all of the comments, how come no one told him how to find his "positive axis point?

I'm going to play a little bit of devils advocate here.

First I'm not sure it was ever common. Most proshops I have known over the years were run by a decent bowler, who bought a failed shop, didn't have a real job, and decided they could make money at their hobby.

They start off knowing little about fitting people, ball layouts, and dynamics. Generally they don't survive long.

To the original poster, you list all of these accomplishments in your profile but you did this despite not knowing your PAP. If that is possible is that knowledge that significant?

My experience has been that 80+ percent of bowlers have a PAP within a 1 inch area. Ones who do not fit this generally are extreme low trackers or full rollers.

I haven't study the drilling science much over the last 10 years but at that time the instructors at Brunswick felt that a 1 inch miss of the PAP was not significant to ball reaction.

Maybe with the new asymmetrical cores today that is not longer true.

But everyone is so worried about what ball they are throwing and the layout when fit and technique will override it all.

You can have the best ball and drilling in the world but if the fit is lousy you will bowl poorly with it. If you have lousy technique where you cannot repeat shots the ball will not help.