Lawrence’s Bob Glass may be the hottest bowler on the PBA Senior Tour these days, yet he hardly reeks of confidence going into next week’s Senior U.S. Open.

“It’ll be a real test,” Glass said. “If I make the top 24, I’ll be real happy.”

Glass has won two of the four stops on the PBA Senior Tour, including last week’s Chillicothe (Ohio) Open, but the last major of the spring tour has the potential to send his game into the gutter.

I talked to Glass after he spent most of Thursday morning practicing at Sunnybrook Lanes in Sterling Heights, Mich., site of the Senior U.S. Open that will start Monday and run through next Friday.

Glass wondered if he had been bowling on an alley or on a pirates’ gangplank.

“The conditions will be brutal,” he said. “It will be tough because the lanes are wood. They’re very, very old and in very ugly condition.”

Last week in Chillicothe, Glass rolled a 300 game — his first in competition in more than a year — as well as a couple of 279s. He doesn’t expect similar games at Sunnybrook Lanes.

“The scores will be pitifully low,” he said. “If you roll a 200, you’ll be doing great.”

Obviously, the conditions will be the same for all the competitors. It’s just that the lanes in the Detroit suburb may not be in harmony with Glass’ powerful style.

“The guys who play straight balls will do better,” he said. “I’ll have to go with weaker equipment because the surface doesn’t generate as much friction.”

Bowling is all about adaptation.

Like baseball players tinker with batting stances, bowlers continually work on their form and release point, then adapt them to lane conditions.

Glass was the toast of senior professional bowling in 2000 and 2001 when he was voted the tour’s player of the year. In 2002, he slipped slightly, then struggled even more in 2003.

His rejuvenation this season, he says, resulted from a tip he received from Rick Benoit, a Brunswick tour consultant who lives in Topeka.

“I’ve known Rick for a long time, and he’s incredibly insightful,” Glass said. “He came up with a release for me that works on fresh oil.”

An altered format in the Senior Tour the last two seasons caused Glass problems. Once the preliminaries were over, PBA officials were changing the lane lubricant after every match. Glass was struggling with the re-oiled surfaces.

“I just hadn’t been able to adjust,” he said. “I was doing OK in the prelims, but I was getting killed in matches.”

Not that Benoit’s suggestion worked instantaneously. Glass practiced and practiced last summer. One day, while rolling at Royal Crest Lanes, everything clicked, and he realized he finally had solved the nagging problem of adapting to the additional oil applications.

“That’s been the biggest change,” Glass said. “I’ve softened my release and it’s made an enormous difference.”

In the first four stops of the spring Senior Tour, Glass has earned nearly $20,000. That total includes the $8,000 he won in Chillicothe and another $8,000 he garnered for capturing the Epicenter Classic on March 31 in Klamath Falls, Ore.

First prize in next week’s Senior Open is $20,000. In other words, Glass could double his tour earnings with a victory and virtually put a stranglehold on a third player-of-the-year title.

But, in addition to the adverse lane conditions, the Senior Open field is larger, meaning competitors will have to bowl more games than they would during a regular tour stop. In the past, Glass has displayed uncommon durability while running those exhaustive gantlets, but the Senior Open isn’t a 10K. It’s a marathon.

“I’ve done well in grind-out tournaments,” Glass said, “but not so well in super grind-outs.”

However he fares next week, Glass already has sent a signal that he’s back. He may be 56 years old, but he’s far from washed up.