BallReviews
General Category => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: avabob on June 29, 2012, 09:19:29 PM
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Another post about the most hookiing ball promoted me to finally make this post that I have been considering for a long time.
People understand that it is necessary to minimize deflection on pocket hits to maximize carry. What they don't understand is that additional entry angle in and of itself does not reduce deflection, it merely changes the angle of deflection. The best example of this is the pocket 7-10 which was rare 40 years ago before bone dry back ends and high friction shells became the norm. The 7-10 is a result of a ball that has good entry angle but lacks rotational energy ( rolls out )
In order for a ball to actually deflect less, it must still be releasing rotational energy as it enters the pocket, regardless of how much entry angle is achieved. A high rev release with low axis rotation, that still has rotational energy will deflect less and carry better than a ball with stronger entry angle but little or no rotational energy remaining.
Why is this an important concept? Because if people really understood it, nobody would care what the biggest hooking ball was anymore. Rather they would care about what core and shell matchup would allow their roll pattern to release rotational energy at the proper place for any given amount of oil. Heavier longer oil is best attacked by stronger end over end roll and a straighter trajectory.
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End over end means less axis rotation which mean for a weaker ball, less hook. So the strength of the ball matters because you can roll a stronger ball more end over end on heavier patters and still create the entry angle necessary to carry. My hypothesis. What do I haver wrong?
CC
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Interesting post. I'm still a rank beginner but have noticed while experimenting on the lanes that my plastic spare ball can have a perfect pocket hit with high entry angle but leave weird pins, like the 7-8 or 8-10. On the other hand, my Freeze either strikes or leaves a 10; I rarely get splits or unmakeable spares if I do my part.
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More axis rotation does not mean more revs, it just describes the angle of the axis to the lane. A heavy handed player can achieve as many revs with a 20 degree axis rotation as a 45 degree axis rotation, the ball just hooks less. Pete Weber generally is considered to have the most axis rotation of any pro, but does not have the highest rev rate. Sean Rash has an extremely high rev rate, but does not have a particularly high axis rotation. However he still has enough axis rotation to hook the ball a lot.
The greater the axis rotation, the greater the hook ( all other things being equal ), and hence the entry angle. As the ball moves down the lane it loses axis rotation, partly due to hook, and partly due to friction. A ball that has lost all axis rotation deflects more at a 6 degree entry angle than a ball that still has some axis rotation even if the entry angle is only 3 degrees.
The misconception about hook and rev rate goes back to the days when friction was hard to find. With the old balls a high rev rate did no good unless you found friction. There was a very direct relationship between hook and rev rate with the old balls on wood lanes. Hence hook could be thought of as a measure of rev rate. Today, there is so much friction that even an old low rev guy like me can hook the ball a lot with enough side roll ( axis rotation ). The problem is that exess friction makes my low rev release burn out as it crosses too many boards. By lowering my axis rotation I can play more direct with the same rev rate, and the ball will store more energy for the back end without hooking as much ( assuming I have adequate ball speed )
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To simplify it even more, people want more area. They want to miss their mark by as much as possible either direction and still get to the pocket with a chance to carry.
They see many pros with lots of revs destroy the pocket and pins fly everywhere and attribute that to big hook. Thus if their 200 rev rate self has the biggest hooking ball they will then have an even great area to miss and still get to the pocket with a chance to carry. Most bowl on THS and tend to struggle on many occasions trying to fight the lanes to throw their hook monster instead of playing the shot.
As PB3 mentioned in an article, most bowlers on a THS can get to the pocket with 3-5 different bowling balls no problem, it is a matter of playing the right ball and line to carry.
Todays bowlers attribute hook to carry, and also to having maximum area to spray and prey on the lanes. You can also attribute many trying to throw the ball two handed as another fad of that thought process.
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Good points kidlost. Speaking of 2 handers, I find it amusing that the Belmonte, the most proficient 2 handers, is great at adjusting his axis rotation to the condition, yet all the wannabes just use it to hook the lane more. I don't know if anyone else remembers, but when he won using a plastic ball a couple of years ago, he lost his reaction at one point and ultimately squared up more with less hook to regain his carry.
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Good point. He was suppose to revolutionize the game. They showed interviews of PDW talking about what effect it will have and its the new wave of bowling. It isn't new. It is what people to weak to throw with no thumb one handed do. Local bowler here has every bit the speed and revs of Belmo and does it one handed with no thumb. There will be more fads to come....
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The reason it won't revolutionize the game, is that it is simply too difficult and physically demanding for very many people to become proficient at it.
Guys have been hooking the ball a lot for 60 years, but it has always been the Carters, Webers Anthonys and WRWs who win all the money throwing it straighter. Only for the briefest period during the 80's was the game dominated by power players hooking the lane, and it took a unique combination of urethane balls and extremely short oil patterns for that style to dominate.
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For many years I thought I needed the latest and greatest hook monster. Since then I have had a revelation that energy retention and maximizing carry are far more important than the number of boards crossed. More hook does not always mean higher scores. Matching the correct ball reaction to the lane condition should be the priority. My 2 cents.
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There was a time when the strongest hitting ball hooked the most. However, the introduction of high friction balls 20 years ago really changed that. Prior to that, balls went through a longer transition from skid to rollout as they cleared the heads. The resin ball has so much surface friction that it transitions quiickly from skid to rollout unless you have good ball speed. However good ball speed and too much side roll ( axis rotation ) causes too much of a skid snap reaction that is hard to control as the lanes transition. It can work well on house shots where you can control where your ball comes out of the oil, but puts you in jail on flatter patterns, and forces you to play angles that are not optimum for carry.
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Understood. But what about us average or slow rollers with average revs and axis rotation. More hook allows us to play more end over end with stronger roll to the pocket on sport shots with longer oil.
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On longer oil it is more important to get the ball into a roll, than it is to hook the ball a lot. It really depends on what you mean by average axis rotation. This gets into whether you are speed dominant or rev dominant. Slower ball speeds usually imply rev dominant. Even on longer oil, higher ball speeds ( 17+ in the heads ) are usually necessary to keep the ball from rolling out. Again hitting power is derived from the ball releasing energy on the back end, not from the amount of hook. Hook is really more of a by product. Said another way, it is not how much the direction has changed ( hook ) but how much energy is still being released to create change of direction.
I am a low rev player with low axis rotation. This does not prevent me from moving deeper inside as the lanes break down. What it does do is make me use a shallower launch angle ( less head belly ). If I change my hand position to increase axis rotation and get more hook but I lose too much rotational energy as the hook increases, and my carry percentage usually decreases. The only way to increase the carry is to increase my rev rate which I cannot easily do.
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To me it is all about matching up and getting the right angle for carry. And for me generally that is not a ball that would be considered a big hooking ball.
I tend to be more rev dominate so I'm looking for something to smooth out the backends.
The best ball I thing I ever had for that was a Columbia Red Pulse that I shined up to a high gloss. The ball didn't hook a ton but it was very controlable and it carried great.
The ball wasn't that popular around here because it didn't hook as much as many thought it should, but the touring pro's loved it.
Getting the ball to hook at the correct spot on the lane is much more important that total amount of hook.
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Gotta say +1 to you Avabob...can't tell you how many folks I see just in league trying to use way to much ball on what is basically a med volume THS at best, and all the while complain about their ball not hooking.
My favorite ball in my bag right now is the Solaris Blackout, lower diff symmetric core with a weaker cover, reminds alot of the Red Pulse Pinbuster mentioned, it gives me all the hook I need, and the advantage of the weaker cover is that my moves are smaller and less for three games in league, and it keeps me in the pocket the majority of the time.
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I have found that lower rev strokers like myself, and rev dominant players in general struggle to carry on house shots because they get forced to play too much out angle.
Much of the idea that I have tried to articulate in this thread came from experimenting with urethane on wet dry house shots. I found that I could play down the boards outside ten with the urethane and carry much better with the straighter delivery than I could by sending one of my reactives out to the break point with much more hook and entry angle.
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As time goes by, I find that the newer bowlers know less and less about the game, or the physics of why bowling balls knock pins over to begin with.
Go back, and watch some of the videos of bowlers from the 1950's, 60's, 70's, and 80's, and you will easily see that entry angle isn't everything.
Carry is about the path the ball takes as it goes THROUGH the pins, not the angle it hits the headpin. It can hit the headpin perectly, but have too much drive(or deflection), and end up going through the pins improperly to create carry on a consistent basis.
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Can't blame the kids for what they have never seen I guess. After all it dawned on me that the resin era is now 20 years old. Everyone always talks about entry angle but it is really revs and roll that fight deflection not entry angle. Any old guys out there are familiar with the term fall back shot. We use to see it a lot on wood lanes before urethane balls and short oil came into vogue. You could set a plastic or even rubber ball down inside 4th arrow with a break point barely to the right of 15 and shoot big scores. I once shot 790 760 back to back with a yellow dot playing that angle in an old tracked out wood house, and blew out a few 5 pins along the way. I obviously didn't need much entry angle to carry.
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I had a Yellow Dot and a Dick Weber Powerball for strikes and a Blue Dot for a spare ball back in the '70's. I played an outside line because I watched Earl Anthony and thought he was the best around (so I always wanted to be like Earl). This was all on wood lanes and I usually scored well - but I'm still trying the figure out the new lane conditions we have now.
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I remember well the first synthetics around 1980. The shot didn't really play that much different than on the hard urethane finish used on wood, but it did break down fast. Saw a lot of 4 baggers stopped on well thrown balls that went 4-6. Biggest change in the 80's was the trend to very short oil patterns ( 24-28 feet ). Those short patterns really provided a launching pad for the new crankers that took over the game during that decade. The introduction of the resin balls forced lane men to increase the volume and buff length of oil dramatically to combat the friction created by the resin covers.
The biggest difference from a bowlers point of view today, is the much greater ball speed that is necessary to get a good ball reaction. In the 60's and 70's speed was a killer because there wasn't enough friction between the ball and the lane to allow it to come out of a skid if the speed was too high. Today there is so much friction that it takes more speed to keept the ball from rolling out.
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Big Hooking Ball is what most want in my area. What I see a lot on the lanes is super high speeds and very low revs.
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You only need about 6 degree of entry angle for a strike!! The high revs, no thumbers and super strong cover and cores sometimes is way to much for today's conditions! I see a lot of these guys leave 8-10's, 7-9's, 4-9's, and 7-10's and when they get wound up about how great a shot it was. I try to explain to them that it happens with so much hook and entry angle. They can't understand that the ball was dead when it hit the pocket!!! I've been bowling since the 60's and have seen a big transition in lanes, oil, patterns, and bowling balls. The new bowlers now don't have a clue unless they watch older bowling videos or see ESPN Classic bowling from the 70's and 80's!!!
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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.