how can you tell if your Pro Shop is drilling your ball right? i am lucky and have a good Pro Shop but it seams like a lot of people are not as lucky my balls where all drilled with the same lay out and i did not no in tell i meet tony who show me the different lay outs

You ask questions and their opinions. Tell them what you want out of the ball and if you can, have them watch you bowl. Also understand some of the basic principles of ball drilling that is always a good thing to know. Plus make sure they are (insert Acronym here) that shows that the Pro Shop is certified to drill bowling balls. That always helps.

That blasted acronym escapes me. Help somebody

IBPSIA

Yeah that's the acronym I was looking for. IBPSIA certified is always a good thing to look for in a Pro Shop.

Word of mouth is great too. Before I owned a shop, I liked a shop that is willing to take time with me. Answer questions and explain things. That's within reason because sometimes a shop is so busy that they cannot stop for a 30 min. converstation about which ball is good.

I think things to watch out for are disarray of the merchandise. Outdated dusty merchandise and lack of merchandise. Shop hours that are not consistent. Those those things tell you nothing about the driller's ability it does show the probable financial position of the shop and how much the driller/owner cares about their shop. When a shop is not financially stable, its can be due to bad business practices, but more commonly due to the driller's inability to drill well. The margin of profit on bowling "stuff" is low, so most profit comes from service items like plugging and redrilling and fitting, mearsuring and drilling. If a driller cannot do these things well, eventually it will show in the shop's appearance.

All this is provided they are in a center (just using in-center shops here) that has decent business. If you have a bad center with few bowlers and few leagues then no matter how good you are its tough to make a go at a Pro Shop.

Erin

Being certified doesn't mean they know what they are doing. There are many certified pro shops that drill balls wrong, doing things such as stretched spans, reverse pitches and so on. A good Pro Shop will watch you bowl before they punch up a brand new ball for you if you haven't purchased from them before, ask you questions such as how you want the ball to react and what condition its for and so on. They can only do some of this with feedback form the bowler though.

If all of a person's balls have the same layout, there are a few things going on. Either that layout is their favorite, or works best for you (a few posters on here can testify to that from their own experiences), or the driller is just using a standard layout and not asking you any questions(again many posters can testify to that).

Man, if I was judged on the appearance of my shop I'd have been in trouble from the word go. But, Erin's last statement best described what I faced, and that was a lack of bowlers. I did garner a reputation as "a thumb guy" who was able to fix a lot of ill-fitted balls and I also was usually able to "drill blind" - meaning I was able to drill a decent ball without knowing much of the pattern the bowler faced.

Usually it was I who asked the questions and the bowler provided the answers, but in that vein you have to know what you're doing, for one, and two you have to know your customer and their triggers. Fortunately my customers were loyal to me and they trusted my judgment. And, there as well, I used to talk to people about their equipment and tried to educate them if they so desired. The way I look at it, an educated bowler is a better bowler with or without the ball, and if 30 minutes of my time makes them a better bowler in the long run, then the $150-200 they forked over for a new ball isn't as painful.

When I go to a Pro Shop, I like to be able to hold a conversation with the guy. When I start talking about what I want a ball to do, I want the guy to be able to say: This is the ball you shoudl get (and why) and this is the drilling we should do (and why). If he just says: "You should get this ball, it hooks a lot," run for the door. My old guy was okay. I could talk to him a little bit but he really steered people to one brand without a reason. My new guy, I can sit and BS for hours with about bowling. He is a real good guy to talk to. When I got my Cell this summer, we went over what I wanted it to do. A buddy of mine had one drilled up and I wanted it pretty much the same. We discussed it and went with the same drilling.

As for the way a Pro Shop looks, I could care less. The best guy I ever went to ran his business out of his basement. I was in college at the time and we would cram 5 of us into one of my friends Escort and drive the 2 hours to the Illinois side of St. Louis. We would get there at 11am and leave at about 4 or 5pm. If someone was going there to get something, 3 other guys would go with just to sit and talk with the guy. It was a really sad day when he retired.

I'm still bouncing around trying to find a good one near my area. Sure wish I lived near Sac-Town! LOL!

I am very lucky to have a Pro Shop like the one I use in my area.
The owners are former womens pro bowlers Aleta Sill ( 31 PWBA championships, Silver Coach ), and Michelle Mullen ( 4 PWBA championships, author of #1 seller "Bowling Fundamentals", and Gold Coach) Michelle is also my coach. They watch me bowl, they know my strengths and weaknesses. They will make ball recomendations, but will not push one to make a sale. They even talked me out of a ball, citing that I should work on technique, before I shell out more money for a ball. Whenever I am struggling, just a few minutes with Michelle often gets me back in form. But its up to me to stay there...LOL..I revert back to bad habits easily lately.

Their Pro Shop is like a candy store for bowlers, well stocked, good displays etc. They drill all my equipment. I can't say enough about them.