We are all products of our environment in the game. When I was young and learning the game my style was influenced by the greats of the era like Ray Bluth, and later Jim Stefanich. I loved the pure strokers, and it was an effective style to mimic on the lacquer finish I learned on.
The introduction of urethane lane finish really promted the revolution in the game that culminated in the of the power style favored by so many bowlers today. Urethane replaced lacquer because it was lower maintenance, and safer to work with when resurfacing. However, the oiling techniques used on lacquer produced a very difficult lane condition as the oil migrated down the lane rather than tracked out from the friction of ball releases. Lanemen responded by making use of heavy crowns, and tried to strip the back ends more regularly. The discovery that polyester balls reacted much better on the urethane surface promted the first boom in scoriing in the mid 70's ( actually more drastic than the introduction of either urethane or resin in later years ). The ABC responded by mandating flat oil patterns that caused many bowlers to become totally contemptuous of the ruling body. Lanemen struggled to put out playable conditions under the mandates of flat oil by continually shortening the oil patterns and stripping the back end, sometimes several times a week. Youngsters who liked to hook the ball found that the screaming back ends allowed them to develop a high rev big hooking release that carried so well on the short oil patterns that spares became an after thought.
All this was excaserbated in the eighties when that ABC, in less than infinite wisdom mandated even shorter oil, in the mistaken belief that the new breed of power players were getting their scores by using the oil to steer the ball into the pocket. All this did was provide a launching pad in the heads for bowlers to create all the revs and hook imaginable on the screaming dry back ends.
By the time the system of bowling replaced the short oil mandate in the late 80's, the environment favoring the cranking style had been around for almost 15 years. The resin ball was introduced shortly thereafter, making the oil pattern mandated by the system of bowling meaningless. The 3 units of oil required on the outside boards provided an effective out of bounds for urethane balls, but the resin balls hooked through such a low volume like it wasn't there.
When the sport patterns came into vogue the few straighter players remaining really had little trouble adjusting, but the guys who liked high revs and monstorous amount of hook were DOA. Overkill revs and power had been the name of the game for so long that few young people understood that carry could also be maximized more efficiently by matching up speed and rev rates with a straighter delivery.
The best example of the misunderstanding of the physics of the game today comes from those who think the resin ball favored the the low rev players. The majority of younger bowlers think resin made Walter Ray Williams and Norm Duke. In fact if Resin balls were suddenly outlawed without cutting back oil volumes and returning to extremely short patterns it is the power players who would suffer the most.
