Do you need a resin ball for sport pattern bowling?

[Hammer]

Can you get away with using a ball like the Blue Hammer urethane ball? The Blue has 5 factory drilling layouts. Drilling #1-standard layout-length with aggressive backend, medium to heavy oil. Drilling #2-length layout-length with less total hook, light to medium oil. Drilling #3- strong layout- strong and controllable hook, heavy oil. Drilling #4- low RG layout-early hook with smooth arc, fresh backends with Wet/Dry. Drilling #5-full roller Layout-strong arc, medium to heavy oil. As you can see with these layouts it seems like you can set up this urethane ball for conditions from light to heavy oil conditions. So is a urethane ball okay for a sport pattern or would a resin ball be better? Has anyone here used a urethane ball on a sport pattern and had success? Where does a sport pattern rate as far as amount of oil from light to heavy? Besides the layout you can work the surface of the ball for more or less grip.

[75lockwood]

Can you get away with it? yes, but when you get into sport bowling the conditions call for a certain approach on playing the lanes, which is why pba players have those nice 6 ball rollers, while you can still bowl, your scores many not be very good

[Zothen]

Urethane balls are best suited for short sport patterns that are under 38'. Urethanes will not work well on long sport patterns unless it is very light oil.

Zothen

[EboniteKid299]

Certain sport patterns yes, like Zothen said though urethane won't work on the longer patterns no matter what you do, you would use urethane as a possibility on the shorter patterns like Viper and Cheetah. I bowled on a 33 foot Sydney pattern and my Blue Hammer was the only ball I could get a look with.

[billf]

Keep in mind, the patterns came about as a way to combat the easy, high scores resin balls were getting. The oil was shorter and thinner when urethane was the popular, high end ball.

Can it be used? Yes.
Is it ideal for best results? No, not on the longer or heavier patterns. Unless it's a tournament then it works well when the pattern breaks down. This past summer I used urethane on almost every pattern in the third game with good results.