After Discovering this website that allows you to compare balls regardless of manufacturer, I've been spending lots of time trying to tune my arsenal.

http://www.bowlingthismonth.com/ball-comparison/

if you enter a few balls you will see a graph with a Y axis of "Length" and an X axis of "Total Hook". Length is easy, and for the most part it seems spot on with all my balls I've compared for which I have personal experience. The "total hook" part confuses me. If I were to assume that if I throw Ball A at a certain angle across a particular volume of oil etc, it will end up at, say, Board 17 at 60 feet.. then do the same with Ball B, and it ends up at Board 18, than ball B "hooks more" than Ball A. (Give same speed, rev rate, layout etc) Or is it more of a measurement of oil volume the ball can handle. (Ie.. Ball A hits pocket in hook phase after skidding past the break point.. Ball B hits the pocket in its Roll phase so Ball B has greater total hook)

If so what changes would surface and or layout make to the location on the graph? I can reason that increasing surface would decrease the length, but would it also increase the "total hook" since its starting to hook earlier? So would the sphere in the graph move down and right as you increase surface? Conversely, if you decrease surface would it move up and left?

Or do you not really change "total hook" when changing surface... Just how smoothly it gets there and with how much energy left?