I was assuming you were bowling on fresh lane conditions for league, do you bowl in a second shift league?

You are going to have to get Slowinski's book or review some of Ron Clifton's tips on www.bowl4fun.com, and try to figure it out for yourself, because I can't get a feel for the conditions. If the oiling machine is not functioning properly, it could be putting down anything.

A 39ft pattern will play from the 8 board usually with miss area to the outside because of the dry and hold because of oil to the inside. The best thing I can tell you if the ball is not making it to the 8 board is to move inside farther to try to find oil, the farther you move the more rotation you will need to get the ball to recover.

Uh... yeah! Sorry.. most important bit of information I neglected to release... yes, second shift. Those in front of us are, plastic ball bowlers who throw (mostly) right up the middle of the lane and spray the damned things all over the end of the lane.

I have read just about everything Ron Clifton has put out, and anything else that I can find as well LOL. I never get tired of learning about the sport, the techniques and tips that I get.. mostly from this board and people, like yourself, who go out of their way to try to help and I appreciate all of it greatly.

You are right about not getting a feel for the lane conditions as I described them... I think this is why I have been struggling to get to grips with them because I don't know what is actually down on the lanes. I am absolutely certain it is not as I have been advised, though!

From the tips and suggestions that you have given me, I have formed a plan of attack for next Tuesday and I will practice the plan on Sunday, regardless of the lane conditions. Then, come league night, I will sink or swim with "The Plan" and I'll report back. Actually, there are two plans with plan B being to go back what I know (plastic up 6) if it all turns to custard with Plan A

Thanks again.
Allan

Now I have a feel for what you are bowling on, Plastic balls carry oil down all the way to the pins, they don't flare so they don't roll over clean parts of the ball, so there is one long strip of oil being wiped off the ball and onto the back end of the lane after every shot they make.

I would suggest you buy a Lane #1 Liberator it is a urethane coverstock ball with a strong core that will handle lanes like this, try it in out of box condition first, then shine it as needed for more skid.

I would suggest finding a new league to bowl in next year with some fresh conditions or figuring out where the high average bowlers play and try to follow them. It is one of the hardest things to do is follow plastic ball bowlers, I have to do that when ever we bowl on the high end of the house they have an daycare league with a bunch of little kids with plastic equipment and feet that cant seem to stay behind the foul line, so there are foot prints, candy, soda and ketchup all over the approaches too. I usually have to spend the first hour of the night cleaning up after them since the porters don't seem to do it.

Thanks for the suggestions Coach Jim.. I may not be able to comply with these ones though...

The league IS the place where all the best bowlers hang out (I'm not one of them, but I bowl here to learn and compete. It is also the only money league, so competition is fierce (not that there is much available).

The centre is the only one in the city, so we have no choice as to where we bowl... the closest one after that is 200 miles South and it is only a small house (8 lanes) attached to a hotel/restaurant. Some of us are thinking of making a trip once a month to bowl there... just to get something different (wooden lanes, but well maintained).

Lane 1 balls are "unobtainium" down here (as are most) but the Internet has opened up a few possibilities if you are prepared to pay a lot for freight.

LOL about the kids tramping all over the lanes... the kids here are a bit bigger (teens and older) but show the same characteristics. I think that is why the front few feet of our lanes are dry. Lofting has always been my way of getting around that problem, but it is ugly and not conducive to good technique, I feel. As for the approaches... well, let me just say that I wear a sock on my slide foot and still stick hard some days... also very ugly and it puts a lot of strain on my ageing knees. I have managed to only face-plant a couple of times over the years... some days it is better to plant and deliver than to attempt to slide. Such is bowling life out in the colonies LOL.

Thanks for your help again, and I will report back as soon as I can (practice tomorrow morning... can't wait).

Cheers,
Allan

Sorry I was not clear, I didn't mean go bowl somewhere else, I meant follow where they were playing on the lanes and try to match what is working for them. Are they playing the lanes different than you?

Are they using different equipment, ball speed, higher/lower rev rate, more or less side rotation etc...

As far as the front few feet of the lane being dry, I have heard of certain oiling machines that have the buffer in the front of the machine and don't touch the first two feet of the lane. This is why Mika had to learn to loft the ball because this machine is so prevalent in European competition. The best way to loft the ball is the way Mika does it, just don't bend the knees as low and you will release the ball from a higher position. This way the ball still comes in for a landing albeit a hard one, but at least it doesn't bounce through the heads and lose all of it's rotation and dig in early.

Hi CoachJim, yeah, I have tried it but I don't have the rev rate these guys have, not the axis tilt (quite close to the helicopter type). These guys thrive on this type of lane and I have had my a$$ handed to me a number of times when the lanes suit them but when the lanes are oiled to the edge and the pattern is longer, I have dished out a few hidings of my own to these same guys... they don't like it at all!

When I loft the ball, it is always from a more upright position and, as you say, the ball goes over the dry and plunks down a bit hard but doesn't lose too much energy when we have some oil down. Last week I was lofting out to about 6 feet and at the end of the night, you could see the ball revs almost stop when it hit the lane and I would miss my mark by several boards. I needed to get further left, I feel, and try to stay in what oil was in the middle of the lane but lacked the confidence to do so. I will see how Tuesday's lanes shape up.

Practice on Sunday was interesting, to say the least. The lanes were fresh and well oiled with the house pattern (36' , 6:1 5 to 5 with a reasonable amount of oil in the heads and only a 4" dry buffer at the foul line. It was nice to have some oil!! Obviously, this is not what we bowl our league games on but I tried out my plan which was to target the break point (5 board) and get my revs and rotation angle up a bit to try to swing wide and still get back to the pocket. Well this proved to be far more difficult than I anticipated though I did find a way to the pocket but it was in need of extreme accuracy. Some of the splits had alarm bells ringing and "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger" sort of came to mind as the ship strayed far off course! I got to the point where I was fighting the lanes trying to make them do what I wanted and the whole exercise came undone pretty quickly.

I picked up my plastic ball after a while, to try to get myself back on Track. Straight down the 8 board netted me 8 in a row until I finally washed a little oil down the lane. Then I got out the reactive ball again and found the extra length a much better proposition and didn't have to work so hard to get to the pocket. Target was now the 8 board but further down the lane than before. This method of lengthening the lane may bear further inspection. I'm not sure that it is legal or not, but it may help out - who knows??

Anyways, Tuesday is tomorrow and it brings another league match. Looking forward to it and trying out my plan (modified a bit) and I'll try the plastic ball down 5 - 8 and see if there is a solid shot there as well as it may be the easier way to keep my scores up and if I could repeat the eight in a row, that would please me even more!

Cheers and good bowling to all,
Allan

That is why I was suggesting a urethane ball like the Liberator, look into getting a urethane covered ball of some sort.

Ok, league over and done with for another week... not entirely happy about my efforts but you get what you get!

Oil pattern was quite different to the last few weeks - a bit more in the heads and oiled out to about 2. Length of the pattern seemed to be shorter than usual. I have a feeling that it was the house pattern or very close to it. There was certainly no shot out wide so i trundled the plastic up the eight board and that provided me a solid shot for the first 1 7/8 games. After that, it was very dry, patchy and tricky to find a spot to live in. The reactives were burning up too soon, so I stayed with the plastic all night and just tried to move in a little. Scores were 189, 163 and 134... a bit better than those of late but not where I expect to be.
Interestingly, the "Big Guns" had horrible nights and couldn't score well with their out to the gutter shots. I think only two bowlers posted 600+ series (our anchor was one of them and only by virtue of a 254 in game 2 (opened the 10th frame when the lanes broke down completely).
I wasn't game enough to try the Pro Hook (Urethane coverstock) as the plastic was facing up pretty well and giving me at least 9's most of the time. I struggled with the spares (some splits but mainly 10 pins) as the ball would either hook away from the pin on the very dry backend or, if I targeted a little earlier to allow for the hook, it rolled into the gutter. Frustrating last game!

Thanks for your insights, CoachJim, I appreciate all that you have done and will continue to try things out. For practice this week, I will try the urethane ball and see how well it performs.

Cheers,
Allan

That's good you already have a urethane ball, most people in the states don't because they don't need one for the most part.

You should have tried the pro hook you might have learned something.

As far as spare shooting goes, you need to learn to throw the ball dead straight which means pulling your index finger in toward your middle finger and spreading your pinky and following through with your pinky towards your target, some people can't feel their fingers that well so if that describes you, try following through with the inside of your elbow toward the target, and use the middle arrow for aiming purposes because it probably has the most oil in that area of the lane which will also help the plastic ball go straight at your spares.

Sunday practice and we were informed by the lane tech that certain lanes had been freshly oiled with the league pattern! I was able to get one of those lanes and chose to use the Pro Hook. My main aim for the session was a slight modification to my release to gain a more consistent roll on the ball. Nothing major, just to stay behind the ball a little longer so that the rotation of my hand co-incided with the release (I have been turning my hand before release, cutting down the revs a bit).

The fresh pattern was still light on oil, but more like what we have been getting (compared with the previous League Night). The Pro Hook was very consistent (even if I screwed up my release) and a 10 to 5 line would take the pocket very niceley and there was a little room for error on the outside (nice) but inside would go Brooklyn every time even if I missed my target by only a board. Shooting spares on the left could be done by going straight up 8 and it would take out any 4 and/or 7 pin. Very dry backends from the 10 board and to the left, softer outside of 10. No matter, these are just observations and I really wasn't chasing the pocket, just repeating my release until it was solid.
10 pins were not a problem with the plastic ball (and I had plenty of them to shoot at ) with the modified grip you proposed. Thanks again.

League on Tuesday (tomorrow for me) so we will see how that goes.

Cheers to all,
Allan