Dang!!

Thought I was losing it when I saw the lead in to this thread in "Today's Active Topics". I don't remember posting anything recently...and as I recall, I'm "Oldtimer", not "Old Geezer". Oh...it's about another crazy 81 years young old coot like me hooked on bowling...phew.

As i've posted before, our house allows those of us 80 years and over free open bowling, so I'm down there many afternoons. I've developed shoulder impingement problems from repetitive wrong torquing of my arm, so, I'm bowling lefty this summer to give it a chance to heal. The interesting thing is that I'm learning more left handed than I was righty. Don't have the long ingrained bad habits to conend with, and the results show up immediately when I do something wrong.

I'm looking forward to bowling righty again, and to try to incorporate what I'm learning as a lefty.

Oldtimer

Gene,

Avid gave some very good advise. All of what he said pertains to changing the entry angle of the ball to the pocket. It can be frustrating to see yourself hitting the pocket time after time and leaving a flat 7 or 10. Stick with it and use the tips that avid mentioned and you should see those 7's start to go down. good luck.

I thought leaving solid back row pins mean the ball is getting into its roll too fast(or am I thinking too slow? I'm just learning this myself) and it's a tad high in the pocket. If that's the case, it seems like the adjustment you'd want to make would be to change your breakpoint a little further outside I think.

Please correct me if I made any wrong assumptions here because I'd really like to improve my carry percentage as well.

Usually if you are leaving solid back row pins it means the ball was still hooking as it hit the pins, you want the ball to be rolling as it hits the pins.

As the ball encounters friction it starts to lose axis rotation and stop going away from the pocket and roll straight with the boards for a short distance 2 to 3 feet in where the ball turns to roll toward the pocket in the direction of the left over axis rotation, if the ball still has axis rotation to lose or goes too far down the lane to where the ball is still hooking as it hits the pins, then you will leave a back row pin on a solid pocket hit.

This is another "old" thread. No pun intended.

It can also take a while to train your eye to see the difference between solid back row pins and weak back row pins. A 7, 8, or 10 (for a righty) can all be caused by weak hits. A 7, 8, or 9 can all be cause by coming in a little too high/strong. You have to l earn to watch your ball's reaction down the lane and through the pins to figure out which it is.

Might I suggest moving a half a board to the left to get the 7 pin, that's what I do when I leave a 7 pin on my strike ball. Conversely, I move a half a board to the right to stop laeving a ten pin on my first ball as well.

I think heard on PBA telecast it differs on what kind of corner pin you leave. If its weak or Ringing. If its weak i think the ball loosing it energy to finish and kick out that corner pin. Ringing its too strong entering the pocket. Both probally have to change your entry angle. Though i have had sucess with changing ball speed to kick out the 10 pin (righty)

Coch Jim, Have you heard from Gene Brady today and see if any of the tips you guys gave him remedyed his 7 pin problem. He sure sounded frustrated. You guys covered all the areas I would think of. If he still has it, one of the post mentioned the angle coming in. He might want to get some of the people at the house watch and see if the angle coming in might be varying slightly. I take spells of getting in the pocket, but being slightly high but not enough to ge a split, but just high enough to leave the seven or I'll be slightly low and leave that 10. The 7 is usually the one I get bugged with as the floor starts drying, I'm usually not payin attention till I let it get away from me a couple a times. It only take a slight heigth leave that 7.

Coch Jim, Have you heard from Gene Brady today and see if any of the tips you guys gave him remedyed his 7 pin problem. He sure sounded frustrated. You guys covered all the areas I would think of. If he still has it, one of the post mentioned the angle coming in. He might want to get some of the people at the house watch and see if the angle coming in might be varying slightly. I take spells of getting in the pocket, but being slightly high but not enough to ge a split, but just high enough to leave the seven or I'll be slightly low and leave that 10. The 7 is usually the one I get bugged with as the floor starts drying, I'm usually not payin attention till I let it get away from me a couple a times. It only take a slight heigth leave that 7.