Roel Mol and Eric Kok, both Netherlands, led the first two of 18 qualifying squads in the Hammer Bronzen Schietspoel Tournament 2009, which got underway Sunday at Dolfijn Bowling in Tilburg, Netherlands.

Mol (pictured left) came out of the gates quickly with a huge 263 game and added four games between 207 and 228 and a low game of 195 to become the first player in this year's event, who cracked the 1300-bar with 1323 six-game total and an average of 220.50.

National coach and former Dutch standout Eric Kok (right) had a slow start in Squad 2 with a 173 game bit rebounded with five games between 206 and 244 to overtake second place with 1297. Third and fourth place belonged to Belgium's Koen Pellegroms and Maarten Pittens, Netherlands, both with 1294.

Rounding out the top 6 were Dutch women's national team members Lisanne Breeschoten (left) and Priscilla Maaswinkel (right) with 1294 and 1293 including 48 pins handicap, a standard for women on the European Bowling Tour.

The Hammer Bronzen Schietspoel Tournament 2009 is the 2nd stop of the 2009 European Bowling Tour and one of the Tour's "Major" events. The tournament offers total prize fund of 62.800 Euro. The top 64 players cash with 12.000 going to the winner. Mikael Kanold, Sweden, is the defending champion.

Qualifying runs through Saturday evening, Feb. 21, with the final Squad 18 scheduled for 6 p.m. local time (GMT +1). The ultimate qualifying chance, the one-game Desperado Squad, will conclude the qualifying at 9.30 p.m.

The Hammer Bronzen Schietspoel Tournament 2009 is contested on dual lane condition. The left lane is dressed with the 46ft long pattern, the right lane with the 33ft short pattern.

A total of 64 players will advance to the finals on Sunday, Feb. 22, the top 54 qualifying leaders, the top 6 from a combined standings of Squads 1-4 (Feb. 15-17) and the top 4 from the Desperado Squad. The top 8 qualifiers earn three byes, qualifiers 9-16 receive two byes and qualifiers 17-24 get one bye.

The players will be seeded into groups of four players each and will determine the champion in seven rounds over two games total pinfall. Basically the top two players plus some 'lucky losers' (rounds 1-4), advance to the next round and will be reseeded according to pinfall in the previous round.

The field will be cut from 64 to 48, 36, 24, 16, 8 and the then four, who will battle it out for the title.