To be one of the top bowlers in the world, you have to keep up with trends. One of the latest trends in my local area has been seemingly drier lanes on typical house shots. I say seemingly drier lanes due to the fact that my newer equipment that I recently installed in my arsenal is almost unusable on the typical house shots I have played at three local centers during league play. Even my older reactive resin equipment is over reacting. The really odd thing is that all of my equipment has been coming back absolutely soaked with a wider track of oil than I have ever seen before. I’ve continued to struggle for almost 8 weeks now at various centers, when all of a sudden it dawned on me, use your Urethane ball that you use for spares on your strike ball. I have definitely increased my scores recently using Urethane on the “Typical House Shot”.
Is it ironic that all of the biggest manufacturers in the industry have recently come out with a Urethane piece, when it seemed as though we had all moved on from that technology. Just to name a few, Storm released a Urethane ball called the Polar Ice, Brunswick recently came out with the Karma Urethane, and Hammer has recently brought back the Blue Hammer from the days of old. As a bowler who is trying to get to that next level we need to understand the characteristics of the ball we throw and how it affects the lane we bowl on. Reactive Resin was made to absorb the oil in the ball creating more overall hook as well as react faster once it hits the dry part of the lanes. Reactive Resins actually strip a very small portion of oil off of the lane as it goes down the lane, where as Urethane actually carries the oil down the lanes and cause more oil to travel further down the lanes near the pin deck as well as has a smoother transition from the oil to the dry.
So if you feel as though your equipment has recently been leaving you with less miss room, and you find yourself coming through the nose more frequently than in the past try something new, cause I really feel as though Urethane is making a comeback.
While talking to others in the industry about the comeback of Urethane, I have even noticed a trend based upon the types of centers I have bowled in. Within this article I have attached a link to a survey in which I am encouraging bowlers to fill out, in order to help take your game to the next level. I will have a follow up article based up the findings in this survey, and encourage everyone to share this survey.
Click here to take the Survey.
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Until next time, Shred that Rack!
Sincerely,
The Messenger
After competing in a tournament with conditions that were too dry for my Nano Pearl, I became frustrated and decided to roll my urethane ball down the 10 board. To my surprise, it hooked into the pocket perfectly. Having only used the ball for spares, I never realized the potential.
I bowl with blue hammer remake 13lbs. Before I got blue I was hooking out of control. With blue my avg has went up 10 points I am on two senior leagues at different centers.
My center, an independent, always puts down a fresh shot before each and every league, using the same pattern and brand of lane oil. Clean, consistent lane conditions has been their hallmark, so almost everyone there uses just one ball — period. However, during this year’s fall/winter leagues, the type of lane oil was changed no less than 3 times, and “consistency” went out the door. This generated a lot of grumbling, mainly because very few bowlers were willing, or perhaps unable, to adapt. The usual number of 300s was cut in half, and averages were down. Like most, I was often caught not knowing what line to throw, which ball to use, and when to make a necessary change. One night, I started throwing my very first ball — an inexpensive Ebonite Tornado — using a basic down-‘n-up stroker style, and was very pleased with the results. This started me thinking about getting a urethane ball. Although I worked hard to develop a nice tweener style and don’t want to closet my Primal Scream and Radical Hybird, some of the new urethanes hold a great deal of appeal. If I could talk my teammates into switching too, it would be done deal. Just thinking of the carrydown havoc we could generate against our reactive resin competitors is pretty darn enticing.