Amyers...God love ya...you're like listening to the politics on the news....lots of criticisms...short on solutions. Even if...even IF...my analysis of bowling ball design and differences between balls is at best 10% accurate/informative/correct....it's still 10% better than just about anything else anyone else has done. Granted....thats because pretty much NOBODY does it. There are piles and piles (much like poo in many ways) of analysis of this ball or that ball or this other ball. But rarely do we see 3rd party analysis. And 3rd party analysis is essential given the ball manufacturers have shown a perpensity to at MOST flat out commit fraud (Motiv)...or in the LEAST...pretty much blow smoke up the *** of the bowling community trying to convince them that this next new ball is soooooooooooooo technologically superior to their release from 6 months ago....that you should spend $220 + $55 drilling so you can finally get that 800 series. All lies....all sales nonsense...with manipulated videos...no actual fact-based explanation why ball A is better than ball B.
So...enter a few video folks that claim to be more impartial than the bowling ball companies (not a high bar by any means)...enter things like PerfectScale that most bowlers are trained to dismiss as nonsense....and a few other online publications that at have at least tried to address arsenal construction or what the nitty gritty spec numbers mean. But too few and too far between...and none of them actually solve any problems. PerfectScale seems to be fairly accurate in overall hook measurement. Unfortunately, it is rather useless at actually putting together an arsenal, at least partially because it doesn't adequately tell the story of ball motion. As Bowl1820's (or VDub's...I forget) signature says...it's not how much the ball hooks so much as when. PerfectScale doesn't really even address sooner versus later...and thats a key concept in arsenal construction (I think). Rob had an interesting article on the use of RGs to assemble an arsenal. It was a very informative article and he may be right...RG may in fact be the best method (if you have to settle on just one).
I want to come up with a way to use multiple bowling ball variables to come up with a system that identifies which balls would be best suited for:
- 1st out of the bag, heavier conditions
- 2nd out of the bag, go-to ball on a typical THS
- 3rd ball out of the bag, good for practice and drier conditions, ball down option for ball #2 when lanes transition
You are absolutely right Amyers....THAT is not a very easy thing to create...which is probably in part why nobody has ever done it. But if you are creating an arsenal...especially the newer bowlers...and are not loyal to one brand or are bowling on a budget...something like that could be very valuable and helpful. It can't be perfect...too many variables...and at the end of the day skill and your physical game trump ball specs any day of the week. But...just because it's imperfect...doesn't make it rediculous any more than is any method any current bowler uses for arsenal selection...most of which can be summed up in, "I bought this one....then that one...and then this other one. I use this one on Thursdays, that one on Fridays...and this one every once in awhile."
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