I had a Super Freak and sold it because I did not think that I would see enough oil in the house I will be bowling primarily in this year. I was wrong, so I picked up a Phenom-------I was going to get the Phenom anyways because the ball just looked too awesome to pass up.
Both balls are great. Just finished my first league with the Phenom tonight and it did very well----when the bowler put it where it had to be. It gets great length for a ball that has such an aggressive coverstock. It gets down the lane much further than the SF. These 2 balls can easily coexist. The SF rolls up sooner, and for me, played better when I was playing straight up the boards. I am going to have to hit 60ft of oil before I will be able to square up with the Phenom.
The Phenom recovers great when playing across alot of boards. The league I used it on tonight had heavy oil in the heads and the backends were flying to start. I had to play standing on 35 hitting 18 at the arrows and ran the ball out to about 7. I have thrown many dull balls before, but never would recover from this far and still have enough energy left to be strong at the pins. In the 2nd game the oil carried down, I moved to RT to 30 board hitting 16 at the arrows and playing out to 7 board. It handled the carrydown better than any ball I have thrown.
The jury is still out on the Phenom, I cannot give a honest "review" until I have used it for several games. So far though, this ball works great.
On the same pattern last year with the Super Freak, I was standing 25 to start (remember, the SF is not as angular at the breakpoint) hitting 14 running out to 8 board. When the oil carried down I was standing on 19-21 board (usually) and playing 12 out to 8.
So these two balls gave me 2 totally different looks on the lane. The Phenom seems to be stronger at the pins, and probably playable on different patterns where if there was not enough oil outside because I was playing straighter the Super Freak would roll up probably 5 ft sooner.
goodluck
