wood versus permalanes

Question
QUESTION: Hello Ron, I am a left handed bowler.I have a "tweener" release. I bowl in a league which has laminate-lanes and I practice on wood lanes in another house.On wood,(I play between the 9th and 12th boards)  I have a lot of area for the ball to react. On the laminate lanes when I play the same shot (between the 9th and 12th boards)The ball is all over the place. Could you lend some insight as to how I should play the laminate lane to be more consistent with the shot on the wood lane?Thank you.

ANSWER: Joe,

There are 3 factors to consider:
When does the center with wood lanes oil compared to the center with laminate lanes oil?
Which oil pattern does each center program their lane machine?
Which ball (and drilling layout) do you use?

Without going into a 6 page dissertation about wood/synthetic surfaces and another 10 pages about different oiling patterns I would recommend a couple of books: "Knowledge is the key" by Fred Borden and "How to master the game" by Parker Bohn III. To get more detailed information about oil patterns and the resulting ball reaction you may want to investigate the website of the leading manufacturer of lane machines www.kegel.net and click on the "Lane Patterns" tab. To see how different bowling balls react check out the Storm Bowling website - www.stormbowling.com/products/balls. Click on a particular ball and then choose the hook style to visually see the balls' hook pattern on the lane.

To address your specific question, without knowing which ball(s) you use on the synthetic lanes or the lane condition you bowl on, there are a three suggestions:

1) Increase ball speed - By getting the ball farther down the lane, to get past the area of carry down, you should have fewer fluctuations in the ball reaction.

2) Change lines - instead of standing at the second or third dot (from the left) on the approach and playing second arrow (10 board) move 5 boards to the right on the approach and play third arrow (15 board). You should find more oil and less carry down/track burnout effects. The down side to playing this line is that you may get less "carry" from the ball and have more 9 and 8 counts.

3) Use a less aggressive ball and/or drilling layout- a ball that has a lot of hook potential has a greater fluctuation in the back end result. Thus a less aggressive ball has less variation in it's back end reaction. With less hook you may also have to move left about 3 boards on the approach to get the ball to the pocket.




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the response. To answer your question on what ball I throw I just got a Storm anarchy. awesome ball.Staying with Storm, what would you suggest for an equally rated but less aggressive ball? Thanks again.

Answer
The Anarchy is designed to go straight longer and then hook sharper in the back ends to create what I refer to as a skid-flippy effect. This may explain why the ball reaction fluctuates more than you like. Skid-flippy balls tend to be difficult to master if your ball speed, release point and axis of rotation are not exactly the same from frame to frame.

Perhaps you might want to investigate balls that are designed to have a smoother, continuous curve to give you more consistent back end reaction on permalanes.

Storm has the "2 Furious", "Reign Supreme" and "Hy Road" that are designed to hook just a little less than the Anarchy while hooking in an even arc. Discuss the 4x4x2 and 4x4x3 drilling patterns with your pro shop to see if these match up with the manner in which you throw your ball and to achieve the results you are looking for.

Ask your pro shop if they participate in "Demo days". This will allow you to try different bowling balls to see how they react to the way you throw the ball before you purchase a new ball.