I eliminated surface because he said he can throw a back up and have it hook when the regular hook wasn't working. That''s why I was asking about drilling thinking maybe if the driller saw him bowl before hand and saw the back up ball he then may have drilled it to do just that. Now that all those questions have been answered it does only appear to leave a release issue. we both know it's nothing new for a bowler to have a poor release and not even realize it. We just approached the same question from different angles which is the way a forum is suppose to work.