Tyveil, it would be hard to hurt my recent scores, no matter how much experimenting I do! I am hoping for an improvement, but time will tell on that front, only 4 hours to go before league, so I will know real soon. Good luck to yourself and BSchaff... go the 500 series!
Cheers to all
Allan

Well, it is late at night and just got back from the lanes, averaged 135 for the night (well below my average) but had a blast nevertheless. New ball hooks a mile, even on the sh**tty conditions we are experiencing. I started too conservative, off 20 over 13 and was on the left hand side of the headpin most of the night. I wasn't confident enough to really step left so took it a board at a time through the match. I wound up on 35 over 12/13 before i got the ball into the pocket and started to put strikes on the sheet on a regular basis. The reason for the low scores was me not making my spares. I used a plastic ball for the first time for right hand spares and constantly missed to the right. My aiming point was off by about 5 or 6 boards every time (because I usually use my reactive ball and get about that many boards going across the lane). It has been a very long time since I started on the left hand side of the lane with my first ball, so it took a while to get back into the swing of things (so to speak) but once there... it was great. Bowled a game right after the league was over and ran up a nice 197 (still having trouble with spares but I will get that sorted eventually). I think things may be back on the up once more. Ball is a Big Time, and rolling at about 21Km/h. I am not sure of the drilling specs but the Pro Shop guy said that it was a 45 deg layout with a 4" pin to PAP with the pin under the bridge and the CG on the gripline (does that make any sense to anyone?) to roll up early and hook as soon as it found some friction. I think he got it right! I am looking forward to the next session and getting used to having more than two or three boards to play with on the lanes.
Cheers all
ALlan

Wow.. all kinds of adjustments - a new strike and spare ball all in the same night! Nice job on the 197.

Stick with the spare ball, I have struggled with mine ever since I got it about a year ago, but I'm finally starting to come around to at and it is definitely worth it. Any pro will tell you use plastic to take the lanes out of the equation. That and it's just a good feeling when you can throw a ball straight as an arrow and hit your spot 50' away regardless of lane conditions.

I even recommend using the plastic ball for left side spares. The system I've finally settled on that works is I stand 7 boards to the right of center for left-side spares and 7 boards left of center for right-side spares. I know the board I need to hit for every pin. Everyone has their own system though.

Good luck with your new ball. My new ball should be here Wednesday and hopefully I'll have it drilled and ready by Friday. Wanting to get some practice in Friday night before Sat. league since I'll not only be bowling with a new ball, but will also have another ball of mine redrilled using a different drilling layout and surface.

Thanks Tyveil, it looks as though the spare ball is the way I must go if I am to continue using the new ball... I don't think I would be able to get anywhere near a 10 pin with it, at least not on a consistent basis anyway. Good luck for your outing with the new equipment as well and I hope you have as much fun as I did finding out what it will do.
Good bowling all
Allan

Well guys I didn't bowl as well as I wanted to but I am extremely proud of the way I bowled on Monday night. In fact, I am more proud of that league performance than I am of any of my five 200 games. The oil pattern was undoubtedly the toughest I've ever seen and I was all over the lanes in practice. I pretty much couldn't hit water if I threw the ball off the side of a boat, so I wasn't optimistic about a great league performance. However, Monday taught me a valuable lesson... either you adapt to the conditions, or the conditions own you. I am extremely proud of the way I adapted to what I was facing, even if my scores aren't extraordinarily high by most folks' standards.

So my evening begins with my first practice ball heading right for the gutter... never a good sign. All the oil was in the middle of the lane and this was a bit of a foriegn concept for me. To give everyone a bit of background... when I bowl with my friends it is always after 11 PM, so I am for all intents and purposes your late night bowler for my practice. By that point in the evening all the oil is on the back of the lane so it's fairly easy to predict exactly what your ball is going to do and when it is going to do it. I obviously did not have that luxury Monday night, so I had to adjust. I ended up bowling a 130, 137 and a 143. It was disappointing in the sense that I did not hit my then 144 average but we took all 4 points and that is the most important thing to me. I am also very proud of the changes I made to allow me to get those scores... they were tough conditions and I adapted to them to still score well enough for my team to get the sweep. I am so very glad I got to bowl on these conditions because the point finally got driven home to me that if you bowl on the same shot you don't get any better at all. Yeah my average took a hit but you know what I'm a better bowler because of Monday night... I loved the challenge that the shot presented me. I am actually hopeful that I get a similar challenge every single week because at the end of the day, I want to say I conquered the lanes instead of the opposite being true.

So we should hopefully move into first place with this performance, and while my goal of a 150 average took a bit of a hit I've still got half the season to get there. I'll keep everyone informed.

Well, I didn't think we would have a good night as we did last week but we did. We took all 7 points again and we're now sitting in 2nd place. I averaged a 189 for the night (201-168-199)which is much higher than my 150 current average.

I've been practicing putting more revs on my ball without getting too out of control and it paid off.

Very nice series Lefont.

Well done BSchaff, some of the nights that have been the toughest and I have scored below average have been the most satisfying as I know that I bowled well. Keep it up. Congrats to Lefront, too. A very good series and definitely well above average. I would be very happy with those scores at the moment. More revs, a little more angle to the pocket and a bit more room for error... higher scores as long as the lanes will allow you to use it. Cool!
Have fun, guys, will catch you next time around.
Allan

Thank you guys... I learned that we'll be playing the team that is in 1st place next week so i guess we'll have to bring it again if we want to get to 1st place. It adds a lot more pressure. That's something I still need to work more on it: the mental game. These guys are very good, they have a 712 scratch average. They are three high average(over 200) guys and one of the guys' wife with lots of handicap (about 90)

Bowled my first game with my new ball.. 218. It definitely has a lot of roll throughout but it needs oil. Was throwing it across the center of the lane and still had to put it up after that first game. I'll try to use it for league tonight where we usually see a lot of oil.