steve s.

I'm a beginning bowler, or more accurately, beginning again more than a
decade after being a crappy league bowler in my **** years. Using an
Ebonite Vortex 2 Sanded.

I've been trying to nurture a (stroker) hook during the summer bad
bowler's league I've signed up for. The thing is this; sometimes I get a
great hook, sometimes I don't. At first, I thought it was a function of
a variant release from night to night. Now I'm not so sure.

Last week I bowled on a pair of lanes and a shot down the first arrow on
the right lane resulted in a hook that would go past brooklyn. I had to
speed up the ball quite a bit in order to keep it on the right side of
the headpin. On the left lane even if I slowed down to half the speed of
the perfect shot on the right line, the ball would finish maybe 6" from
where I released it. Pretty much no hook.

Tonight, the ball just spun and never really hooked at all. This is
pretty much par for the course at these lanes.

Two questions:

1. How do you attack these sorts of conditions? Am I not putting enough
revs on the ball? Currently I'm just starting right and aiming toward
the pocket with the little to no break. There is only one guy in our
league that gets any real hook in these situations, but he throws pretty
slow and puts more spin on the ball than the rest of us.

2. What sort of lane conditions cause this sort of reaction? One of my
buddies thinks it's because the lanes are really oily, another thinks
it's because they're not oily and yet another thinks it's because there
are a bunch of kids who push oil into the backend bowling straight.

Thanks!
Steve

yanksfanjp@aol.commander (the red sox must be

There's not much "bowling" knowledge here to know other than common sense. A
ball thrown slower will have more time to hook than one thrown faster. A ball
with more revolutions will have more ability to hook than one with less
revolutions.


All of the above may or may not aply at any time. Try to get used to looking
at the reaction of the bowling ball as a function of WHEN it hooks instead of
how much. If the ball never gets into a roll or changes direction, there might
be oil on the backend of the lane. If it hooks too early, there might not be
any oil in the front part of the lane.

Remember though, just because the lane seems oily, that doesn't necessarily
mean that it is that oily everywhere across the lane (horizontally). The
sooner you learn to move left and right to find the amount of oil and dry you
need in the amounts and places you need, the quicker you will become a better
player.

- Jeff

TV quote of the moment:

"I believe that laughter is the best medicine."
"We must be in the placebo group."