So, I got the urethane ball..

[Botwin]

I added a Hammer Purple Urethane ball to my arsenal. I have a DV8 Grudge and a Track Cyborg. The Grudge is perfect for the freshly oiled synthetic surface in my league. Being left handed, I can play basically the same board all night with little adjustment. The Cyborg is the best ball for about 80% of my open bowling at the same center, where the lanes are somewhat dryer or messed up from parties, etc. There is a center that I like to bowl at that has wooden lanes, that are on the drier side as it is a small place with fewer leagues, especially in the summer. At this place the Cyborg is just a bit too aggressive, and its a bit challenging sometimes to keep the ball on the left side of the lane. In addition, there is a modern "fun center" type of place that seems to have a shorter pattern that, when dry, causes the Cyborg to break too early.

I got the urethane mostly for the older wood lanes. So, I went there last night which happens to be their only league night in the summer. The owner is great, and put me on the freshly oiled "spare" pair of lanes. During the first game, I did great. The ball had a very controllable hook, hit the pocket nice with some powerful strikes. The second game wasnt as good, but acceptable. I noticed after the second game, the ball hooked less and less. I think there was probably carrydown from my ball. I also was not wiping the ball after each shot. Yes, the ball was coming back with lots of oil on it. When I got home, the ball actually looked greasy. I cleaned it with some cleaner from the pro shop, and got it looking normal.

I think that if I cleaned the ball after each shot it would have helped, although there was nothing that could be done about the carrydown. I also should have switched to the Cyborg after the second or third game.

I am curious to try this ball on truly dry lanes, as a freshly oiled surface (even if it was wood) probably was not the best test.

[got_a_300]

I would have to say what you were experiencing was indeed carry down
as Urethane balls do tend to carry the oil down the lane(s) and it would
help if you were to wipe down the ball after each shot.

[RobLV1]

Modern urethane balls have cores, and therefore they flare all the way to the pins. It's really easy to blame plastic and urethane balls for causing carry down resulting in your ball hooking less and less, but it is burn, not carry down. Please see the article that I currently have on BTM entitled "The Dead Zone Revisited." In preparation for the article, I had a tape taken of the lane past the end of the pattern. There was only two places on the lane that had 2 units of carry down. The problem is that the reactive balls absorb oil VERY quickly for maximum hook potential.

Let me give you an example. A couple of years ago I was bowling on a trios team with a left hander who averages about 230 on a house shot. We both began to notice that after striking at will in practice, by the third or four frame of the first game, the lanes began to change very quickly. We both decided at that time to refrain from using the same line in practice as we were going to use when the lights came on. It works like this: once you find a good line to the pocket in practice, throw the rest of your practice shots to the outside of your real intended line. It has worked very well.

While many lefties have long been able to bowl an entire set with minimal moves, the strength of bowling balls today are quickly bringing that luxury to an end. The emergence of high rev two-handers like Jesper Svenson is just accelerating this process.

[Amyers]

Myself I'm not a believer that for a lot of bowlers that urethane is the correct answer for wood lanes or dryer surfaces. If you have ample speed and rotation the urethane works pretty well but odds are that regular resin would be working too. It's often that it's speed or rev challenged bowlers I see looking for this solution if you have either of these issues Urethane is likely to make the problem worse not better. Urethane hooks earlier than Resin by definition add into that most urethane has more surface 2k in the case of the purple hammer. Take a cover that's designed to hook early add in additional surface it's a recipe for burning up.

[ALazySavage]

From my experience the time to pull out a urethane ball is when the backends are fried to the point where you have to blend out the reaction. The earlier reaction I tend to see from urethane does not make it my preference when the fronts are burned up and this earlier roll does not allow for recovery. It is more of a situation where you are trying to manage a reaction and survive a difficult scoring pattern.

[Botwin]

Update: The urethane ball has been working out quite well at the house with the wooden lanes. The first time I used it there on a freshly oiled lane, I noted how the hook went away after the first game. Well, when I got home and took the ball out, it was greasy from all the oil on it. I cleaned it off, and the next time I went to that house, I made sure I was wiping the ball down after each shot. That did the trick, of course. I am now able to control the ball, get it into the pocket easily and get better scores. The reaction of the ball remains fairly consistent across 3 or 4 games.