To those who say Rober Smith is Tour Trials bound based solely on this switch;

At the level of skill of an PBA exempt bowler I think the ball you put in their hands means very little.  

When I say this I mean the wad of reason shaped like a sphere itself, and ONLY that.

There alot of things associated with a particular wad of resin that in the end are completely separate.  For instance, there is inscribed somewhere on that wad a makers mark.  It has nothing what-so-ever to do with the physics of your wad of resin, but if you believe that it does, it can have a MASSIVE impact on your game. Another thing that comes with the inscription is the help of that vendor.  Ever the the commercials for Verizon Wireless and their network? Same idea.  For the pro bowler certain wads of resin come with a braintrust which can be very important to their success.  There are many other things but this post is getting long.

You have a perfect example of this in the case of the Track staff of last season.  Two very talented National PBA champions joined the staff after longtime association with other vendors.  One of them couldn't get things together, barely making match play, and the other went on to appear on TV more than anyone else and even won.  The struggling bowler went back to his longtime vendor and immediately began to perform at the his previous level.

So having said that, it's the bowler(some are very independent;WRW, Norm Duke, Wes Malott; others... not so much) not the ball(but very possibly the balls "network").

And it remains to be seen what kind of bowler Robert is.