Question from Anonymous:
Q - I bowl with an ebonite cyclone but i am looking for a bowling ball with more hook on the back end. what ball will be good? My average is a 150, I bowl on Medium oiled lanes, and my speed is medium. I also bowl with a Brunswick Slingshot

A - I'm sorry I could not give you credit. I know your email address is SeeNoEvil... but there was no name for me to put in our show.
As for your question, I would like to talk about our Perfect Scale®. The Perfect Scale® can be used to compare the hook ratings of several bowling balls from all manufacturers. For example, the Cyclone is listed at 167.20, so you are going to want something a little higher. The slingshot is also a great bowling ball, and rates 157.60.

You can sort the bowling balls on bowlingball.com, by perfect scale. For example, from high to low, or low to high. And then start to decide how much hook you want. There are many other factors, do you prefer asymmetric, or symmetric cores? Solid, Pearl, or Hybrid coverstocks?
My (John Congdon) personal suggestions would be any of these. Roto Grip Critical Theory, Brunswick Nexus f(P) Pearl, or the soon to be released DV8 Hell Raiser Revenge.

Question from James Swanson:
Q - How do I adjust to longer and shorter oil patterns. I know the difference between them but I would like your thoughts on how to adjust.
A - James thank you for your question and your support of our show, we really appreciate it.
Outside of the obvious answer of making sure the ball you are throwing matches up to the condition you are bowling on, you can try any of the following on these oil patterns:

1. Adjust where you are looking on the lane. For a shorter oil pattern where your ball will want to start to hook sooner adjust your target further down the lane. This will create more projection and usually a little more ball speed. For the longer patterns, do the opposite, bring your target closer to you to assist in getting the ball down on the lane quicker and giving the ball more time to read the oil pattern.
2. Adjust your hand/wrist position. Flattening your hand out on the shorter pattern will create less hook and assist in getting the ball down the lane. On the longer pattern try and cup your wrist more and get the ball rolling mor off your hand to create more roll and hopefully turning into more movement on that pattern.
3. You can also play around with adjusting your starting position on the approach. Moving up for some people causes them to slow down their approach and that translates into slower ball speed giving your ball more time to hook. Moving back on the shorter pattern can adjust your approach and ball speed upwards creating moe length.

Hope these suggestions help.

How to contact us
Email us questions@talkbowling.com, Leave a comment on TalkBowling.com, On Twitter we are @TalkBowling

Last Week's Question of the Week:
Q - How many 300 games have been bowled on tv, and when was the last?
A - 21, most recently by Jason Belmonte on 1/8/2012

Question of the Week:
Q - On January 8, 2012, two jaw dropping events happened on the PBA telecast. One was Jason Belmonte's 300, the other was Josh Blanchard's sticking in his thumb hole and ending up in the gutter. What are your thoughts on how the media covered this event?
We would like to commend Josh's professional handling of this event and we are also happy to say that he was not seriously injured.




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