My fellow bowlers,
I have noticed a pattern emerging over the past 10 years or so, and it is only getting worse. It seems that a very large percentage of the bowling world is more interested in how many boards the bowling ball is covering, rather than how many pins it is knocking down. I know it's shocking, but it's true.
I have a friend who falls into this category. He owns four bowling balls, all very aggressive, and states that he really needs to find a ball that will hook more and allow him to open up the lane. Keep in mind, two of his primary balls are the Granite Gargoyle and the X-Factor Deuce! His style is raw; he cocks his wrist greatly and digs into the ball as hard as he can at the foul line, sometimes nearly falling over from the effort. He carries an average around 180, but misses an average of at least two spares per game. But he in not the only one.
In my travels to tournaments and during league nights alike, I often see several people using the latest hook monster chucking the ball wide and grinning from ear to ear as it comes roaring back. Of course, the ball only finds the pocket 1 out of 7 times, usually leaving a 7-10 in the process due to the extreme angle that the bowler is playing. Or if it's not the 7-10, it's just the 10, which might just as well be a split because the bowler has no concept and, it appears, no interest in picking it up anyhow.
The most-laughable part of this equation is the fact that some people are actually impressed with this way of bowling. I love it when someone nudges me and tells me to 'watch so and so throw the ball, they're really good'. So, I watch so and so do exactly what I've described above, and then prepare for the shocked and awed look on the person's face when I tell them that I'm not very impressed.
Now that I'm off of my soapbox, I'll get to the point. I'm not saying that hooking the lane is a bad thing. I have a friend who turns the ball so damn hard that I'm waiting for his hand to catch fire from all of the friction. And yes, it does look extremely impressive when he hits the pocket with such authority that it carries strikes on the lanes on either side of him as well as his own. But what impresses me more about this friend is not his ability to hook the ball, but his ability to make his spares when he leaves them.
I realize that many of you know this, but to those who don't, hooking the ball is not the name of the game ladies and gentlemen. The name of the game is finding the best way to score on given conditions. Sometimes that means standing left, throwing right, gripping and ripping and using every board from coast to coast to get the job done. However, there are other times when playing hard and straight dead at the pocket is the way to go.
In my scratch-match play league this year I was bowling with 15 people whom I had never bowled with before. Most of them hooked the ball quite a bit more than I did, but with good control. Still, they seemed to be shocked and amazed when I would point the ball straight up second arrow at arround 18 mph and rip the rack to beat them. It was almost as if they felt that my shots were of lesser quality, just because they were straighter. Forget about the fact that I hit my mark dead on the money each and every shot.
It just cracks me up that some people think that it is cooler to hook the ball and shoot decent, than it is to play straight and score. It's the same thing that was brought up in a post a while back about whether you'd rather string strikes or be a good spare shooter. Sure, we'd all like to string strikes, but if you don't make your spares in the instances where you fail to strike, you're done. End of story.
When did playing straighter become 'uncool'? I don't no the answer to that, but what I do know is that one of the premier players on the PBA Tour is also one of the straighter players. Sure, Rudy Revs and Robert Smith are fun to watch, but Walter Ray and his rocket to the pocket seem to be cashing a lot of checks these days.
I guess all I'm saying is learn how to hook the ball and play straight, learn how to make your spares, then try to be smart enough to know when to use what you've learned.
Gene J. Kanak
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Bowling is without a doubt the dumbest, most pointless, most idiotic excuse for a game that has ever been invented. So, what time are we bowling tomorrow?
