Hi, i was wondering if there was any ways of making my ball go longer through the lane before hooking. i'm using the black widow pearl with factory finish. i have tried changing my style of throwing the ball but never got it to where i want the ball to hit the pocket, and i just get more inconsistant. should i just polish it or would it be better to sand it down with a higher grit than the factory which is 4000
thanks for the tips in advance

Jason

4000 grit, polished will give it some length. Also, where do you play on the lane? If you are on the outside, you may see some early friction in the dry. Moving inside and targeting across the center oil will have an effect too.

Here is a list of things that make the ball go longer, I don't know which you need since I have never seen you bowl:

1. Move in to where the oil is

2. polish the ball to a higher grit 4000 polished is close to the end of the road without finding someone with 6000, 8000 or even 12000 grit polishing paper used in fiber optics. They make go longer polish like Black Magic in the green bottle.

3. Go to a weaker go longer type ball with a higher rg core.

4. Learn to scoot the ball through the heads instead of throwing it harder, throwing the ball harder makes the ball hook more.

5. Learn to increase your ball speed without forcing your swing by relaxing your wrist in the back swing and then cupping your wrist after the ball has fallen from the top of the back swing.

6. Go to a weaker release so the ball doesn't hook so soon.

Feel free to add to the list if anyone can think of other ways to make the ball go longer.

thanks for the tips. ill try to get it sanded and polished this week,
i am a palm bowler and i bowl from the left across to the right edge, and it hooks a lil bit too quick and hits towards the pins 1 and 2 but not 3 i want it to hit the pocket at pins 1 and 3 so yea thanks for the tip

Have you thought about putting your fingers + thumb into the ball? You'll have a lot more control. My teammate just converted from thumbless to a regular fingertip grip and he loves it.

yes i have, but i cant seem to get it right. i cant get enough revs on the ball. i am going to keep practicing it here and there but as of now i bowl with just 2 fingers.

If you are a thumbless bowler, then try putting less side rotation on the ball, go more up the back of the ball and go through the middle of the ball and it will go longer.

I suppose a regular fingertip grip would help...

I see a lot of no-thumb players shoveling high performance balls with insane revs but it goes left on them early and they have very little finesse. Control is hard to develop that way.

I don't have a lot of revs but I can play inside lines when I have to, I like dull balls for that reason.

One thing that could make a ball go longer would be to release the ball quicker and smoother onto the lane. If you're dropping the ball or lofting it, it's going to lose speed hitting the lane and is going to hook early. If you have a smooth release that you can barely hear, then the ball will go much longer and will have more action when it exits the oil.

Also, rather than going longer just cutting down on hook altogether, you can stay behind the ball more. Get it rolling end over end so that the change in direction down lane is minimal and controllable.

Most palm bowlers I have met don't use high performance balls like the widow line.. Most (that I have met) will use balls such as Tornado's or the Bash. I seen one guy try it with a Cell and was missing the head pin altogether. Just ripping it cross lane and boomeranging it back to the other gutter. These balls were not designed to be rolled thumbless. Just creating far too many revs for such a low ball speed.