Water Walker
I think that in order to give this story as much credibility as possible, I am going to have to brag a little. I have been involved in doing the lanes with the PBA for over 800 tournaments, which included the National Tour, the Senior Tour and all seven Regions of the Regional Program. I am the only person who has done lanes for every bowler that is in the PBA Hall of Fame. In other words, I have seen them all. And, perhaps, I am really the only person who knows exactly what they bowled "on", as far as lane conditions go.
My personal All-Time Top-10, includes; Dick 'Water Walker' Ritger. You talk about TALENT. Dick was unbelievable. He was a world-class bowler, a world class guy, and later became a world-class coach. Without question he was one of the coolest, smartest, shot-makers in the history of our great sport. He could bowl on anything.
I have literally hundreds of stories of some of the tremendous feats that were performed by the greatest bowlers in the world; those that are in the PBA Hall of Fame.
This particular story took place in the early 70's. We (the Tour) were at Cranston Bowl in Cranston, Rhode Island. The weather was absolutely miserable as it had been snowing for about a week before we got there. It was 10-degrees outside when I got off the plane. Not only that, but my job as laneman was going to be a lot tougher this week because we knew in advance that the place was in bad condition because they hadn't resurfaced in a couple of years and all of the league bowlers had been complaining. And it was an old, drafty two-sided house and each side played drastically different from each other - as well as each pair playing differently from each other. I knew that I was going to hear about that.
After the first day of qualifying, Ritger was in the lead, which wasn't unusual for this 20-time champion (at the time). Almost every bowler was upset with the lanes and I had to hear about it.
That night at 2:00am I went in to do the lanes and it was now 19-below zero. There was so much snow in the motel parking lot, that and I couldn't find my car and had to walk about a mile to get to the bowl. About 15-minutes after getting there, part of the roof on the high-side (the real tough side) caved-in from the weight of the snow. It was a disaster. The janitor called the head mechanic who in turn called the Manager. He called everybody he knew to get in there to help clean up the mess. I called Harry Golden (the Tournament Director) to let him know what had happened. I cleaned and oiled the low-side then went over to take a look at what was going on over on the disaster side. There were about 20 people cleaning the water, snow, ceiling tiles and other debris off of the lanes and approaches. You could see the sky through the hole in the ceiling. I remember thinking: "I'm sure that the guys will blame me for this, too."
There were buckets on the lanes that were still catching water from the drippy roof. It was now 6:00am and the Pro's were scheduled to bowl at 9:00am. At that point I thought that there was no way. I started cleaning and oiling the part of that side that wasn't under water. When I got to the part of the house that had caved in, a "Miracle" happened. It had stopped raining and the dripping over the lanes had stopped. I cleaned and oiled the rest of the lanes. There were still some drips coming down over the lanes, but "Miracle number 2" was that the drips were only over the gutter gaps and the buckets that were placed there were catching all of the drops. It was about 8:45am now, and I took the lane machine to the back. The mechanic and all his helpers were back there huddled next to a little heater he had, and they were all trying to dry out.
When I came out of the backend, I saw about 20-bowlers standing in the settee on 31 and 32. I went over there to see what was going on. The only drips that were still coming down were over the approach on that pair and because of the full field, they had to use that pair in the tournament. Harry made the decision to leave the three buckets where they were on the approach. It was either that, or put 5 on a pair, and none of the bowlers wanted that. The buckets were to stay in place for BOTH squads.
I stayed around to watch the 1st squad bowl. After they bowled their 6-games that morning, the high game on the pair was 149. It was impossible for the players to walk around the buckets that were there to execute any type of normal shot.
Now the next squad came in to bowl. Ritger was scheduled to bowl his 2nd game on 31 and 32. It would be interesting to see what he could do there and not lose too much of the lead that he had enjoyed. When he got there for game 2 of this second day, there was a huge crowd in the bleachers, and standing behind the bleachers, as well.
I watched him (with no practice balls) alter his approach by snaking his footwork around the three buckets in a serpentine manner. I couldn't believe my eyes. He shot 279 like it was nothing. It was ridiculous.
One World - One Game
It has been almost ten years since John Davis (Founder of the Kegel Company), called together a group of experienced lane men in an attempt to further research the on-going lane conditioning problems with our Sport. It had become apparent that too many tournaments were deemed unfair by the participants and tournament organizers. Bowling ball technology had rapidly advanced and it was getting next to impossible for the lane man to do the job without some sort of social controversy. After that five day meeting in Sebring, Florida, Davis promised to undertake the huge task of taking care of lanes at every major tournament in the world and then posting those results on The Foundation website for the whole world to see. Davis and The Foundation came up with their initial slogan which was: “One World – One Game.”
The Foundation also coined two other phrases:
1. "You don't need to be a lane man to know that there are problems, you just need to be a lane man to know how bad the problems are."
2. "If not us, who? If not now, when?"
Early on, a series of scratch tournaments were developed, called: The Foundation Games. These events were held in this country (and abroad) with some promising results. They were unique by featuring ‘multiple conditions’ in an attempt to further challenge the participants by having more than one lane condition to compete on. Challenging oil patterns were used (both long and short) that required the athletes to compete on different lengths of oil during competition.
In 2000, Dr. P.S. Nathan, then President of the World Tenpin Bowling Association (WTBA), held a World Bowling Seminar in Malaysia and Davis was invited to attend along with many other bowling leaders from around the world. At that week-long educational meeting, it was unanimously decided that in order to find out who the best players were at any given event, the athletes needed to be challenged with these ‘multiple condition’ type tournaments.
The WTBA then formed a Technical Committee (TC) to continue researching the problems on a world wide basis. Since then, different tournament formats have been tested along with bowling ball restrictions (amount of balls used in the events) which were instituted. It is quite clear today, that some of the underdeveloped countries are at a disadvantage regarding bowling equipment.
For many years now, numerous thoughts, opinions and feelings about lane conditioning have been constantly expressed on most every bowling websites discussion groups. Depending on the average person’s position (agenda), most blame the problems with our game on various aspects of the game, including; pins, oil patterns, balls, kick-backs, flat gutters and an assortment of other things. Most have never done lanes and have no idea what that particular job entails.
Today, even with the use of different formats and multiple conditions, problems still exist in our great sport. The WTBA Technical Committee feels that it is time to try a different approach.
"One World - One Game - One Ball"
In 2003, Davis was named as Chairman of the WTBA TC, and Kegel was still taking care of all the tournaments for the WTBA and developing countless oil patterns. It became obvious that the lane man still could not do his job without some social unrest. Something else was needed.
The WTBA TC decided to research and test a type of bowling ball that would not mutate the oil patterns as much as today’s High Tech balls do. Davis was put in charge of doing the research for this project. Days, weeks and months went into this very technical testing, using CATS data.
A ‘prototype’ bowling ball was developed which showed encouraging results. During the week of April 17-22, a Bowling Writers meeting was scheduled in Orlando, Florida (which is only about 80 miles from Kegel’s Training Center), that was combined with the USBC Annual Meeting.
The WTBA TC also scheduled a meeting at this time and this was a chance to announce this new theory. A small scratch tournament would be held and the results would be shown to the world. Many top players from Florida would participate along with some other top amateurs and former PBA Tour champions. It was an eight game event that was bowled across eight lanes. The amount of oil that was used was 7.140 mL, which is an amount that was used in the early 1970’s.
Those results (total pin fall) were:
1. Bob Learn, Jr. (1880)
2. Vernon Peterson (1770)
3. Matt Gilman (1715)
4. Bob Handley (1675)
5. Mike Purdy (1671)
6. Larry Barwick (1670)
7. Rob Comito (1666)
8. Steve Johnson (1660)
9. Neil Stremmel (1655)
10. Storm DeVincent (1627)
10. (T) Sami Luoto (1627)
12. Chris Chartrand (1612)
13. Dennis Davis (1598)
14. Craig Auerbach (1596)
15. Saul Insignares (1573)
16. Tony Lavance (1572)
17. Ron Dixon (1523)
18. Jose Rodriquez (1514)
19. John Forst (1513)
20. Dennis Psaropoulos (1512)
21.Tony Crews (1477)
22. Bill Blackwell (1454)
23. Pekka Korpi (1383)
24. Josh Moore (1354)
Each player paid a $100.00 entry fee to enter the tournament, and that included a bowling ball. Each player had a choice of 15 or 16 pounds to use. Except for that weight difference, all of the balls were made as similarly as humanly possible. Davis donated an additional $2600.00 for a total Prize Fund of: $5000.00. Learn earned $2000.00 for the win along with a very nice banner that was signed by all of the participants and those on the WTBA TC. In all, 12 players cashed.
When asked if he wanted the banner, Learn said, “Certainly. It will go in my trophy room with all of my other cherished awards.” He added, “This was great. ALL tournaments should be like this one because I really think that it was the fairest tournament that I have ever bowled in.”
After the event, all the players were asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire that had a multitude of pertinent questions regarding the tournament. Those queries are currently being analyzed.
All in all, it was deemed a tremendous success by the Players and Officials. All results of the CATS data (from every shot, from every player) are also being analyzed. When completed, a detailed report will be sent to WTBA President Heikke Sarso for review.
STAY TUNED!
The Beginning
The year was: 1956.
The place was: Hillsdale High School in San Mateo California
My first recollection of Billy Hardwick was that of disbelief. What a sight it was. He was a sophomore, a year behind me in school. He was all of 5’3” and weighed-in at exactly 99-pounds.
He came out and (tried out) for the Varsity football team. The Head Coach, Frank Collins, looked at him and said that he was too small to play, but since we were a new school and needed players, he told Billy that he could hold the blocking-bags during practice. He also told him that because of his size (or lack of it) that he wouldn’t be able to issue him a team uniform.
But, Billy had guts and said that he still wanted to play and practice with the team. It was a cold and rainy day in September. There he was in his ragged, old sweat-shirt, sweat-pants and wearing his tennis shoes. The shoes were those old “high-top” canvas style and the laces were tied around the tops about 4-times. His skinny, little ankles were way too small to fill-up the tops of the shoes and it looked like he was walking around with two small “sacks-of-potatoes” hanging off of the bottoms of his legs.
The practice field was very wet and muddy that day, and the first chance I had to block him and the big blocking-bag that he was trying to hold-up, I put a little bit of an “extra” effort into it. The poor little kid had no chance. He went slipping and sprawling and sliding before eventually ending up on his back in the middle of a huge mud puddle. On his way down, all you could see were arms and legs going in every direction as he tried in vain to maintain his balance. It was an absolute riot. Even all of the Coaches were laughing.
I intentionally humiliated him once again when I reached down to help him up and purposely stepped on his foot with my football cleats. He let out a scream and rolled over (face first) in the mud. Now, he was covered from head-to-toe in the sloppy quagmire. It was hilarious. Everybody there was howling. Everybody that is, except for Billy. Looking back though, I was probably a big “bully” for doing that to him. Even though he never said it, I am sure that he hated me for doing that to him.
Basically that was the end of his football career. He did go on to play on the basketball, baseball and cross-country teams. Despite his slight stature, he was a fierce competitor. As the years went by, he would eventually prove “that” to everybody. His burning desire that he possessed soon became evident when a new bowling center opened in our town and he was finally able to find (and master), his sport.
During that year we became the best of friends, and that friendship has been a close one for 6-decades. I owe him a lot from what he has taught me and the countless doors that he has helped me to open. We have (personally) endured a lot together and I have countless stories about him. I will be telling some of them here……at least the ones that are suitable for print!!!
History tells us that he did go on the Tour, twice becoming Bowler of the Year. He was voted in the top 20-players of all-time and inducted into both the ABC and PBA Halls of Fame.
Today, Billy is alive and well and owns a very successful bowling center in Memphis, Tennessee. I still see him now and then and occasionally talk with him on the phone. If you see him, tell him that I said hello.
By the way, he did pay me back. Yeah, he was the rotten egg that got me into bowling!
Bowling Bedlam - The Lane
The playing environment of bowling today may be as complex, unpredictable, and chaotic as any time in the history of the game. We’re not talking about the recreational league or club game where the participants just want to have fun, and the conditions are designed as such. We’re talking about professionally maintained and controlled tournament environments where bowling sports people compete.
It is in this type of sporting environment, along with the basic premise of playing well physically and mentally, that the decisions the modem player makes will ultimately determine whether they perform up to their expectations or have to wait until the next event comes around.
The players of today have to choose how to execute their delivery using which type of bowling ball, with which layout, with what surface preparation, on what lane surface, with what lane characteristic, on which oil pattern, and following what group of players. The player must also change this strategy rapidly and often during any specific round of play or throughout the course of an event.
This series of articles will try to shed some light on many of the variables in the current game of bowling and why the players of today need to be very open minded and aware of the total environment at all times when competing. The supplied information is all in the quest of understanding and to increase performance, not to create excuses.
The Lane
There is no question bowling balls of today are more frictional, hook more, and cover more area across the lane as it travels from the foul line to the pins. The modern core designs and coverstock compositions create more friction, which also makes the bowling ball more responsive to all the different variables that make up the playing environment.
There are different types of plastic film coated wood lanes which are the softest lane surfaces. There are wood lane surfaces coated different types of urethane which are the next hardest lane surfaces. The hardest and most common lane surfaces around the world now are synthetic lanes, with many different installation and friction characteristics.
We won’t get to deep into the specific manufactured hardness, friction, or wear properties of synthetic lanes, but keep in mind that all manufactured synthetic lane surfaces are different and how those surfaces wear from use is also not equal.
The USBC has performed studies that show some modern synthetic lane surfaces score best when brand new, some score better after a few years, peak, and then begin to score worse, while other surfaces score higher as wear and friction increases.
In regard to topography, the sanding techniques on wood lanes make those lanes much flatter than that of the installation of multiple synthetic panels. When a particular bowling center employed a strict resurfacing program, with skilled resurfacers, all the lanes in the bowling center was of high-quality and fairly consistent.
It is therefore a fair statement to say that wood lanes that are consistently resurfaced, screened, and re-coated on a consistent basis are more level than the synthetic bowling lanes of today.
One might think the contrary when only thinking about the synthetic panel itself. But when multiple panels are attached in sections on top of structures made up of other wood components, and more often than not on top of older wood foundations, it is easy to see the challenge for consistent levelness across a center using synthetic overlays. But it’s not impossible to achieve.
The current lane specification rules were written in 1937 by the American Bowling Congress, for wood lanes. The basics of the rule are the entire lane must be less level within plus or minus 40/1000 of an inch to be certified and approved for sanctioned play. The idea was that any groove deeper than the specification would allow too much guidance, or path correction, of the bowling ball after it was released by the bowler.
These level number limits also apply to crowns (hills), depressions (valleys), crosswise tilts, and lengthwise levelness. Surprisingly, only recently has the lengthwise level specification been added into the rules. The 40/1000 inch specification now reads “over 42 inches in any direction”, but only for new installations or centers that are changing from wood lane surfaces to synthetic overlays.
However, the overwhelmingly majority of the lanes are still inspected and passed by inspecting the lanes at only three predetermined points. These three inspection points are at a distance from the foul line between 10’-15’, 30’-40’ and 50’-55’. It is of course at these predetermined inspection areas installers of synthetic lanes pay most attention to.
Of course there are some very good installations and installers of synthetic lanes today but the reality is, installations are only as good as the time and care that is taken on a particular installation. Since the advent of synthetic lanes, achieving consistent levelness throughout a bowling center is a very difficult painstaking task and the tools and technology to level lanes in a more efficient manner have not been available. (Note: The recent invention of the Kegel Portable LaneMapper has made this process more efficient and attainable.)
Long time laneman and former PBA Lane Maintenance Director Len Nicholson states, “I’ve seen synthetics installed in 4-6-hours and they were legal according to the Sanctioning Body. This was in bowling centers that were changing over to synthetic overlays after their wood surfaces have reached their life limit. However, when the arena settings started on the PBA Tour and companies like AMF and Brunswick wanted to showcase their synthetic lanes, it would take them up to two days to get them as perfect as they could. And they were using their best installers performing the job on only four lanes!”
As the bowling ball travels down the synthetic lanes of today, it has to go slightly uphill sometimes, and then downhill at other times. The ball encounters random patterns of hills, valleys, and it encounters microscopic frictional differences, all without any uniformity.
By performing tests at the Kegel Training Center’s adjustable lanes in 1999 with top PBA professionals such as Parker Bohn III, Brian Voss and Jason Couch, it was proving that as little as 20/1000 of an inch, or 25 percent of the allowable tolerances, will affect the path and reaction of today’s highly responsive bowling balls.
These seemingly minute irregularities can cause a ball to increase its footprint which increases the friction between the ball and the lane. This will make the ball slow down more therefore increasing the hook potential. These topographical irregularities may also decrease the footprint between the ball and the lane which causes less friction. This makes the ball slow down less therefore decreasing the hook potential.
These random irregularities can make your intended shot possibly either hit the pocket heavy, light or in extreme cases even miss the pocket entirely.
When oil patterns that are designed to play more towards the outside portion of the lane are applied to bowling lanes which are predominantly crowned on the outside boards, it is difficult for the bowling ball to hook back into the pocket. Most short oil patterns are designed this way, and crowned lanes can make those patterns more difficult. However on longer oil patterns, or patterns designed to play more towards the inside portion of the lane, crowned lanes can sometime act like hold area which can increase mistake area.
On the other hand, bowling lanes that are depressed from the edge board can act like a race track with high banked turns on short oil patterns. The highest scoring lanes for short oil patterns are when lane topography is either slightly depressed or flat.
On long patterns however, depressions can take away hold area and make a long pattern more difficult since the ball will have a tendency to hook more. That is unless the player is on the other side of the depression. Then a depressed lane acts like that same banked race track a depression gives a player on a short pattern.
Unfortunately, rarely do synthetic lanes have a consistent character with regard to topography which makes it a challenge for both the players and the laneman.
For tournament players, depending on what lane a player begins their round on, these lane differences may determine a player’s equipment choice for the day or even where to play with no likeness of another. These choices can and often will cause the oil pattern to change in a different manner from day to day, squad to squad, pair to pair and even lane to lane.
A scenario often seen in leagues and tournaments throughout the world is when there are perceived differences in ball reaction, total blame is put on the oil condition when in fact most times it is the difference in the topography, surface friction of the lanes, or even the bowler themselves.
The below picture show a real world example of two lanes that make up a pair in a sanctioned bowling center.
The left lane of the pair is within specification, plus or minus 40/1000 inch, at most points throughout the lane. The right lane however has historically played notably different than its companion.
In this case, because of the extreme depression in the head area, and the excessive crowns in the mid lane and break point area of the lane, the right lane has always played considerably tighter. Basically the bowling ball is falling off the mountain in the midlane and then trying to climb the mountain as it begins it move towards the pocket. The depression in the head area also causes the ball to 'burn up' earlier which causes less back end movement. The players in this center say they are always lined up 4-5 boards different between these two lanes with the ball hooking much less on the right lane.
Take notice the points on the right lane that are within specification, which in this example are not many but only in the three aforementioned inspection areas. The left lane is also most level in those same three inspection areas.
Kegel has measured 1000’s of lanes and studied the scores of many different tournaments they have been associated with. They have found these topographical and frictional differences are the reason those “mystery pairs” tend to show up at bowling centers. It’s not always that those lanes or pairs are bad or out of specification and sometimes that one lane or those mystery pairs are actually flatter than all the other lanes. What makes them challenging is they are different than the others and players are trying to adjust to that one different lane off of all the others.
With all other things being equal, low scoring centers or tournaments are more about the lane surfaces throughout center being very irregular from lane to lane, while higher scoring can be more about the lane surface being very consistent from lane to lane.
In short, when centers have consistent topographical features from lane to lane, fewer adjustments from the players are needed.
Nicholson tells of an example from the PBA Tour at The Showboat in Las Vegas; “The TV Pair always played weird. The great PBA players always had problems. Scores on that pair were never up to par and eventually they changed the TV pair.”
If there is one thing you can take from this article, is to look at bowling lanes individually with each having their own unique characteristics. Don’t look upon a pair of lanes as both being the same or adjust to one lane in a pair off of the other lane unless you notice a specific trend in the center.
The balance between caring for the playing environment and it participants from the monetary pressures is one of bowling's sanctioning bodies’ greatest challenges. Our recreational fads will come and go with having to be continually reinvented to keep interest amongst those non-sporting customers. A healthy sport of bowling however will produce lifelong customers which every business person should want to create and sustain.
How to Practice - Two Ideas to Get the Most out of Your Game
One of the first keys to improving your bowling game is to practice properly. You know the old saying, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”
This is one good reason why it’s very important to work closely with a qualified teaching professional. A qualified bowling coach will determine what parts of your game need the most attention and give you specific drills, exercises and corrections that will help you raise your scores. No matter what level a player you are, trying to diagnose and correct the problems in your game without a “second set of eyes” is an invitation to trouble.
Here are a couple of guidelines to help you get the most out of your practice sessions. Follow them and you’ll find that practice will turn from an arduous regimen into a productive and even enjoyable journey of improvement.
Chart Your Game
Even though almost everyone realizes that during a practice session, the weakest areas of their game should be the one’s of your main focus, we tend to spend most of the practice time doing what we do best. A simple approach to determine what areas you should be working on is to keep a chart of your game. That is, during every league session or bowling outing, write down the following:
How many times and what direction you missed the pocket (left, right, high, light).
What single pins you seem to leave most often on pocket hits (strike percentage).
What spares you leave.
What spares you missed and how you missed the spare (left, right, chop).
Each individual game score and the average of each game. (1st game average, 2nd game average, 3rd game average).
Do this for several leagues sessions or tournaments and you should see a distinctive pattern. From this information you will clearly see what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Develop a Plan for Practice
Here’s where working with a qualified bowling coach can really pay off in bowling higher scores. Once you have completed an accurate charting of your game, sit down with a knowledgeable coach and interpret the results. The instructor may see some specific trends in the results that are not apparent to you.
If your strike percentage is low, under 50 percent, then you may need to work on your ball roll, ball speed, or choice of equipment. If you are chopping the 6 off the 10, then you are probably hooking the ball too much at that spare. If you consistently miss your mark to the left, your timing may be too early. A professional teacher of the game can help you focus on the areas of your game that need the most attention.
When developing a practice schedule, keep in mind that the most effective practice is done over short periods of time versus spending hours throwing shot after shot at your local bowling center. A great time to practice is right after receiving a lesson because the thoughts and the feel you just learned are already fresh in your mind.
By following a structured practice regime, you will soon be on your way to higher scores with a better understanding of what makes your bowling game work.
Preparing for World Championship Events - The Short
Reprinted with permission from Bowling Digital
There have been a few articles written, seminars performed and many discussions or “concourse seminars” about how to train and play on the World Tenpin Bowling Association’s short and long oil patterns.
Federations, coaches and players throughout the world continually practice for these championship events but are they preparing correctly?
In August of 2007, the WTBA Women’s World Championship will be held in Mexico and in this article we will try to shed some light on some of the challenges slower ball speed players face and suggest an “outside of the box” approach to prepare for the short oil conditions.
We must understand and accept the fact that the majority of women players do not throw the ball as fast nor do they rev the ball up as much as the men players. Both of these playing characteristics have a tendency to make the bowling ball release energy too quick if the player is using a bowling ball that has a coverstock too aggressive or a core/layout that is too strong.
With the wide variety of available equipment on the market, it can be confusing as to which choice to make when deciding on what bowling ball to purchase or choose but there is one thing we should always keep in mind about the bowling game of today; “more is not always more” and actually many times “less is more.”
For slower ball speed players, mid-price performance balls may be a better choice than the high priced performance balls from many of the ball companies. Not all, but most of the ball companies tend to save or use there stronger reactive coverstocks and cores for the high end range of their product line.
Many of the mid-priced bowling balls are of the weaker variety with regard to coverstock and core. This however does not make those mid price balls less susceptible to knocking down pins and for slower ball speed players; they may very well be the better choice.
In times when bowling balls were not as aggressive as those of today, when a player left a “weak 10-pin” or a 5-pin on a seemingly good pocket hit, we knew exactly why the ball hit weak and more often than not it was because the ball was sliding too long or too much.
In today’s bowling game however, we have a relatively new occurrence of the bowling ball hitting weak by slowing down too early, or “burning up” as many like to call it.
If a bowling ball uses up all its energy before reaching the pins as it does in the above video, it becomes “dead on arrival”, or in scientific terms, the bowling ball has lost all of its axis rotation and tilt and rolls completely in the direction of its travel.
In today’s bowling environment, early loss of bowling ball energy or ball speed usually happens because the player has chosen a ball with a coverstock that is too aggressive for the lane conditions they are bowling on for their style of play.
It could be that the ball surface is too sanded (dull), the coverstock is particle or just an overly aggressive reactive cover is being used all causing the ball to grip the lane too much and too soon.
Bowling balls can also use energy too quick, or slow down too much, because the layout or core of the ball may be too aggressive for the playing conditions.
Remember, high differential cores are more unstable than low differential cores, and this unstableness causes track flare. When a high differential core ball is laid out in such a manner to maximize track flare potential, the bowling ball will have wider track ring separations exposing a greater amount of clean ball surface to the lane, which increases friction on the lane. The additional friction makes the ball slow down sooner and release energy at a faster rate.
When a bowling ball releases energy too soon, it will straighten out on the backend minimizing not only your room for error on the lane but also decreasing your pocket strike percentage.
On the PBA Tour, some of the more talented players may use bowling balls or layouts which “burn up” to control the excessive back end ball motion on short oil patterns. This practice however is not recommended and in fact, even most of the tour regulars stay away from using this intentional strategy. Chris Barnes is really good at that technique, but as you can see in the above video, it does not always work out.
Proper ball motion through the pins cannot be to strong nor can it be too weak. The bowling ball must lose speed in the proper way as it travels towards the pins.
A ball motion that is too strong through the pins or that does not slow down soon enough, may not deflect properly causing spare leaves like the solid-9, solid-8 or even the 4-9 split (right handed leaves).
If the motion is too weak, the bowling ball may deflect too much causing spares like the 8-10, weak-10, 5-pin or a combination thereof. The misunderstanding today however comes from the weak pin leaves.
If the bowling ball is sliding through the pins or never quite grips the lane, it will deflect more and “hit weak” with most of us knowing what to do in this situation.
If a ball uses all of its energy up too soon by grabbing the lane or releasing its energy too early, it will also deflect and leave many of the same spares as that of a ball that slides too much through the pins and that is where it can get confusing.
Finding that balance between releasing energy and slowing down too soon or too late is what all players and coaches should be looking for first and foremost when analyzing how the bowling ball is traveling towards the pins.
The only way however to get this education is by watching bowling balls go down the lane on sporting conditions --- and that means watching a lot of bowling balls go down the lane!
Without this ball motion knowledge and awareness in today’s bowling environment, a technical bowling coach is only half a coach.
Whether you use a bowling ball with the pin in a very weak position (pins closer or farther away from your PAP), a bowling ball with a weaker core (less differential) or a bowling ball with a less aggressive cover (weak reactive, urethane or polyester) to achieve proper ball motion on the short pattern is a little bit trial and error but closing the mind to available equipment options in today’s environment can and may very well be detrimental to your success.
Another challenge for players of today on the short oil patterns is that most players simply do not have or will not seek out the opportunity to practice this condition.
Unfortunately many of the bowling centers block their lanes at the ten-board because most house bowlers “just like to stand on the big dot and throw over the second arrow.”
This of course leaves the sport players in a predicament on preparing for world championship events. If a player, coach or federation can solicit a few local bowling center proprietors who are willing to help their sport players and national team members prepare for championship events, here are some practice procedures that will help to conquer the short patterns.
As we stated in previous articles, “The Long and the Short of It”, the short pattern requires a break point that is closer to you than most of the medium length patterns. The short patterns are usually conditioned anywhere from thirty-two to thirty-five feet in length which leaves almost half the lane without conditioner.
If there is no conditioner to guide the ball into the pocket, then we are either relying on carrydown of the players we are following, the topography of the lane surface or the differences in friction of the lane surface for our margin for error.
There is however conditioner on the first half of the lane which normally is extremely sloped on the short oil patterns. That is where a player will create their greatest margin of error so we must find a way to use that part of the lane in order to maximize our mistake area.
For a player to use the conditioned part of the lane, the bowling ball must react to the lane during the first thirty feet of it path towards the pins. This is not a ball motion the modern player is accustomed to.
Most players would rather see the bowling ball skid for forty feet and then hook sharply into the pocket. This looks impressive but it is not necessarily conducive to success in the long run and definitely not on the short oil patterns.
To get used to this early ball motion with continuation, I suggest a practice environment with less conditioner volume overall, a very short forward buff distance and then practice on this condition using only a polyester bowling ball!
In order to create this environment, we must first reduce the length of the pattern to the twenty-four to twenty-eight feet range. Then reduce the total volume of oil to the six to nine milliliter range. Finally, make the pattern fairly flat except for a large slope from the three board to the six board without any oil applied on the first and second boards, and maybe even not on the third board.
View and download the 'Short Plastic Practice 50 mic' oil pattern.
The reason for zero oil on the outside boards is because polyester coverstock bowling balls need “dry” to react on the gutter and for practice we want the players to be fearless of playing the one-two board. If the outside hangs, the players will move more inside and that is not what we want to get them comfortable playing the outside line.
Of course if a player does use a reactive based urethane ball on this condition, it will “bounce” off the gutter and they probably could stand farther left without negative consequences. A reactive based urethane ball will also destroy the condition too quick because of its porous characteristic.
By limiting everyone to polyester or even polished urethane bowling balls, you will create a repetitious practice environment that will breed the familiarity and reassurance we are trying to achieve.
For specific lane machines, contact the manufacture’s tech support department and they should be able to send you a pattern as a good starting point. You might also ask a bowling proprietor or mechanic to apply these conditions prior to their birthday party or glow bowling sessions since those customers do not use anything but polyester/urethane house balls and in reality, this “short oil-light volume condition” is best for those activities anyways.
This practice exercise will accomplish a few things:
1. This environment will get the players used to the ball motion needed on the short pattern. The polyester ball will look like it hooks sooner and then it will seem as though it straightens out on the backend. For the short pattern this is the ball motion we should be looking for.
2. This environment will force the players to get their sliding foot more towards the gutterso the ball will read the dry boards on the first and second board before the end of the oil pattern. If the sliding foot is too far inside, the ball will be in the oil too long and then skid directly into the gutter. Remember, most polyester balls have very low differential Rg values (low track flare potential) so the first couple revolutions will provide a continuous oil ring around the track area and the ball will not have time to dissipate that oil in the front part of the lane. When lined up correctly, the 3-5 board will become hold area if the players can hit the first and second board consistently and early enough.
3. This environment will force the player to align their swings with the path of the ball. If the swing path is too much inside-out, an extreme amount of gutter balls will also follow. The best and most versatile professionals use different swing paths for playing inside or outside lines.
Once this exercise has been practice a few times, obtain some recent past Championship patterns, apply them and start experimenting with different balls and layouts to see which combinations achieve a similar ball motion. You will soon see the short patterns are not that difficult to get comfortable with and your ball choices are not even that vast. You might even find the outside line is most enjoyable and becomes one of your favorite places to play.
From: James McGinty [mailto:james@teamstorm.com.au]
To: ted.thompson@kegel.net
Subject: Short Practice Pattern
Hi Ted,
Just thought I would let you know how the weekend went with our camp.
It was the final selection camp for the Women's worlds, and we had already narrowed the group down to 11 players for a 6 person team. The challenge was to cut it back to 6 by the end of the weekend based on Physical performances (Fitness), on lanes performance and an interview and team suitability. We had a lot of work to do.
Saturday we had a skill testing session on lanes using a short pattern with the emphasis being on sparing. To many of the girls surprise a lot of them missed plenty of spares due to their plastic balls hooking at the end, this was even after I warned them that they need to practise sparing with no side roll on the ball. It takes evidence I guess to make them change. We then had a session on playing short and long conditions and focused on ball reaction and the required shape, finishing with me showing them the short plastic pattern you gave me.
Saturday night we went back to the bowl and I laid the plastic pattern, the lane surface was AMF HPL, machine was an ION set for 50 mic stream and the oil was Prodigy and Fizzion wash.
I have to say that the pattern played exactly as I thought a typical short oil pattern would play, all but 2 of the girls could easily hook the ball with a ball reaction that mimicked a Urethane or similar ball reaction on a typical short pattern. A few of the more skilled ladies were really ripping the rack, scouts flying everywhere, a couple of stone 9's etc. None of them believed it was possible that they could do what they were doing.
We had them practice for 15 minutes then had them score 3 games with 4 girls a pair moving across the 3 pairs as we went. The condition held up very well and all the girls commented that only small 1/2 board adjustments were required, with no one adjusting more than 2 boards (target or feet) over the 3 games.
The top 3 girls all were the girls with the higher skill levels, and they all had over 600 for the 3 games, the highest was 648 and I must say that she really played well, making fantastic adjustments with rotation and ball speed in order to get the ball roll correct. The majority were in the mid to high 500's with the last 2 that I mentioned not managing to make it to 450.
In my opinion this is an essential exercise for any player wanting to succeed on short oil, and the reaction is truly unbelievable. I was hoping you were right as I had not had a chance to lay it prior and had told the other 4 coaches of how it should play and it's intended purpose. All stated that they would not have believed it unless they saw it themselves. All the girls thought it was a terrific tool and thank you and Kegel for your involvement.
Mate if you need any more feed back on this please let me know and I will be happy to expand where I can.
Thanks again,
James
Team Australia
Never Stop Learning – Bowling’s Lifelong Lesson
Most bowlers enjoy the fact that their game needs continuous adjustments and self-improvement throughout the life of your bowling career. Much of that is done on a trial and error basis that develops sensitivity, confidence, and trust in order to play at your best. However, it is most important to make the learning process fun, not frustrating.
First, let’s look at the strike game and spare game. In my nearly 30 years of teaching, I’ve developed some key principles that I have found hold true whether you’ve just picked up the game or have played it for 20 years:
1. A repeating approach that produces misses of one kind is better than a great-looking approach that produces misses both ways.
2. Do not make unattainable demands on yourself. Make sure your instruction program fits your lifestyle, goals, and the time that you have in order to make the necessary changes
3. Find an instructor that does not teach everyone in the same manner to make all approaches look alike or to have the perfect bowling approach. Consideration must be given for your strength, flexibility, and your emotional approach to the game. Walter Ray Williams Jr’s game is a perfect reflection of his aggressive mindset to compete.
4. Your priorities should be addressed in a cause and effect manner, not necessarily by what is being taught or predominately being used on the Pro Tour. Remember, they are doing calculus and you are still doing arithmetic.
5. Practice alignment and swing path lines during your practice sessions. Practice throwing balls to different targets (pins) to check your setup and alignment tendencies.
6. Make sure you learn a drill for each change you make in your approach and spend a minimum of 25 percent of your practice time throwing shots with the appropriate exercise.
7. Limit your spare shooting practice to short periods of time, such as 20 minutes or less. Focus the time on making the spares, instead of trying to fix the look of your approach.
8. When making changes in your approach, throw shots at less than full speed.
Once you’ve made progress with your delivery and can control the ball direction during your practice sessions, the next step is to take your game to league and tournaments and execute. This transition is a challenge that everyone struggles with on occasion – regardless of age.
I’m of the opinion that tension, both mental and physical, must be addressed. World-class athletes from all sports say that tension is the most damaging factor in the ability to execute at one’s highest level. Here are some tips for handling these challenges head on:
1. Play bowling with motion and rhythm, not by mechanics and positions. It’s ok to practice swing mechanics and positions during your practice sessions, but thinking about it when playing tournaments or league will only stifle your ability to produce a consistent motion and rhythm.
2. Grip pressure and minimal tension in your hand, wrist, arms, and shoulders are critical for feeling the swing, the sensitivity for the bowling ball and awareness for its desired path, rotation, and speed. Thinking about your breathing between shots will help you relax and keep damaging thoughts from entering your mind. Make sure you breath deeply and rhythmically. This applies to not only the strike shot, but to the spare game as well.
3. After throwing a bad shot, do not express self-talk as what you did wrong. Such as, “I was too quick.” Give yourself verbal keys that will help you feel what to do to make a better delivery on the next shot. Norm Duke is a genius at doing this. After a bad shot, he always takes the time to feel the correct swing movement before throwing the next shot.
4. Practice your pre-shot routine during your practice sessions by always throwing shots to a target. This creates desired habits without thinking too much and getting too tight in an attempt to over-control the bowling ball or over-power the bowling ball on the lanes. Set your mind at ease so your body can perform.
5. Preparation breeds success. Brian Voss felt he handled the difficulties of tournament bowling by being well-prepared. That gave him confidence and put him in a peaceful mindset in order to compete.
In conclusion, the most important advice I can give you is to enjoy the learning process. Whether you’re 30, 50 or 70+, it is truly a necessary process that will follow you throughout the life of your game.
Length vs. Volume
We at Kegel hear it all the time with statements like “man, the lanes are really flooded today” when a player has trouble hooking the ball or “wow, the lanes are really dry” when the ball hooks more than they are used to seeing. The variables that make up the playing environment today are so complex that one would need a super computer and a physics degree to decipher everything involved. There are so many factors other than oil that make up our playing environment but oil is the one factor everyone likes to focus on and for the purpose of this article, we will discuss this elusive, controversial and unseen variable as it relates to length and volume.
The length of a competition oil pattern may be the most important factor in how the bowler plays the lanes. While I was PBA Tour Player Services Director and Kegel was the official lane maintenance provider for the PBA Tour, there was a flood of information provided each week by Kegel to the players. Some of the more observant players began to take notice of how each of the patterns played and correlated their observations to the posted pattern.
The one item that seemed to be consistent with how a pattern played and developed was the length. I’ll never forget PBA Champion Ryan Shafer telling me he only looked at the length and the number of 2 to 2 loads on the weekly posted program sheet. The length gave him an idea of where he was going to play and the number of 2 to 2 loads gave him an idea of the difficulty - it's no different today. Knowing the length of the oil pattern and how it relates to your style of play may be the most important information you can learn about oil patterns.
In basic terms, the length of the pattern will determine how much time the bowling ball spends in the dry part of the lane (back end) and therefore how much time it is able to hook. For example; a length of 34 feet using modern bowling balls will usually force a player to play a more outside line because of the excessive amount of hook the ball will incur as it spends over 26 feet in the dry backend.
On the other end of the spectrum, a length of 44 feet will only give the ball 16 feet of dry backends, and therefore less time to hook towards the pocket. Therefore the player will normally play a line that is “closer to the pocket” since the ball has minimal time to hook into the pocket.
When using pattern lengths in the 37-40 foot range, the lane surface is usually the greatest factor in determining where the optimal place to play is, and that is never really known until competition begins and players experiment with different lines and ball choices. In this case a player must keep a very open mind when it comes to strategy.
Volume of oil on the other hand is not really a good barometer of how lanes will play since knowing the volume in itself does not tell you where the oil is applied to the lane surface. This reality can be found by looking no further than a short-long pattern example of the 2005 WTBA World Ranking Masters patterns. In those two patterns, the short pattern had a total oil volume of 20.76 milliliters while the long pattern had a total volume of 20.02 milliliters of oil. This is because the basic structure of shorter oil patterns normally have more "wide loads" than longer oil patterns, which increases the overall volume.
Every player at this event would tell you the short pattern had more “hook” than the long pattern. The greater amount of hook is because of the longer amount of time the ball spends on the drier back end.
In short, assuming equal lane surfaces, the load structure (width) of a pattern and where the oil is applied to the lane front-to-back determines how much overall hook a specific pattern allows the bowling ball to have - not necessarily how much overall volume is on the lane.