I won a free ball on this site, it was more expensive than I expected...

[ALazySavage]

A few weeks ago I was the fortunate winner of the weekly ball contest getting a DV8 Hooligan Taunt for one of the comments I posted. Before this gets taken as something it isn't, this is not a rant about how there are hidden fees or any complaints about the ball contest...it was 100% free with shipping included and there was a deal offered for drilling services. As for the ball I was not sure how I could fit it into my current arsenal, without saying more about it I had some ideas and didn't use any of them. Cedrick, my pro shop operator friend, went out on the lanes with me and had me throw all of my equipment on top of each other on multiple lines to see the differences of each ball. After seeing everything he went back to the shop and grabbed one of his balls and had me throw it (we have extremely close spans, fingertips, etc and only had to put a few pieces of tape in the thumb to get a good fit). The reason we threw this ball was because he has a layout you typically don't see and we wanted to look at how it rolled for me...it rolled great and decided that this layout would be worth the try. In addition to the good ball roll it was one of the best feeling balls on my hand and it was noticeable after a few shots...here is where it gets a little pricey.

My thumb pitch is an eighth reverse, his was a quarter forward. Being that this was a piece of equipment that I didn't know how it would fit in my arsenal I decided to drill this a quarter forward, thinking worst case scenario I would just plug and re-drill this ball. Cedrick drilled the ball right then and it was ready in 20 minutes or so and I had a significant practice session immediately after; at this point my practice partner showed up so we had three sets of eyes on the lanes. Essentially what was occurring in my swing is that at the bottom I was "scooping" the ball due to an earlier occurrence that my hand would slightly "fall" out of the ball so I would have to subconsciously grab the ball, the forward pitch removes this grab and the "scoop". Now I'm simply left with a few residual release issues that I will clean up now since the pitch issue has been fixed. It gets pricey because as you can guess, all of my other equipment is now at the pro shop having the thumbs plugged and re-drilled; this is a small price to pay for solving such an issue, especially since I don't know when, if ever, this would have been fixed otherwise.

Can't wait to see if this change can steal me a few pins on my average!

***editing done after responses were made to clarify my feelings on this.

[bowl1820]

You're looking at it the wrong way, it should be:

I won a free ball on this site and get a improved grip in the bargain!


What was the layout that "you typically don't see" ?

[manke]

That's your choice to have everything re-drilled. If your equipment is going to work better for you that should be all that matters.

[John Anderson]

Be glad you discovered the issue rather than not knowing about it. I'd be happy to have another small problem fixed. Next time you win a ball, send it my way so I can save you the trouble.

[ALazySavage]

Very happy the issue was found; didn't mean it to have a complaining/disappointed tone. I will post a picture of the layout when I have the chance.

[Amyers]

This should have been fixable by slugging the thumb holes and re drilling usually $10 at either of the pro shops I visit. Not much to fix something even with multiple balls.

[ALazySavage]

It ends up being around $20 a ball, not terrible; the added cost is because of the switch grips I use.