A Spare Ball Is Advisable

Is your average below 180? Is your goal to raise your average by 10 to 15 pins? Then the easiest solution is to get yourself a dedicated spare ball and practice so that you are able to pick up at least two more spares per game.

Let's face it, the game has changed tremendously in the past forty years since I started bowling. Why, even in the past ten years, the changes have been quite dramatic. One of the key aspects is that if you want to get consistent with your spare conversions, you have to get a ball that will not hook and is predictable when you throw it at the pins.

Here are some things I use to argue my case for buying a plastic spare ball:

1) Urethane, particle, and reactive bowling balls are manufactured to combat oil on lanes. Read any bowling ball review or talk to any pro shop owner and you'll get the same story. Today's high tech balls are designed to cut through oil and try to give you the most hook possible. If this ball gets on a surface where there is no oil, it will hook even more.

2) There are different oil patterns that could be put down on the lanes; but, the back ends on most bowling lanes are now dry and only have "carry-down oil." The next time you are at your favorite bowling center, ask them if you can walk down along side one of the end lanes. After about 40 feet, look down at the lane and you will see there is no oil. If it is after some games have been bowled on them, you will notice oil streaks "all over the lanes" in many different lines - this is the "carry-down" you will hear people talk about. It is more dramatic if a lot of bowlers have bowled, say, after a league has completed.

3) Regardless of how many units of oil are initially put down on the lanes, they will dry up. This will make the back ends of the lanes even drier and most bowling balls other than rubber or plastic surfaced ones, will hook on drier lanes (as mentioned in #1, above).

4) If someone uses a dull or a plastic surfaced bowling ball, their ball will not absorb the oil as much as reactive balls. Therefore, more oil will be carried down to the back ends of the lanes and deposited there. Wherever their ball has rolled, there will tend to be a heavier concentration of oil than other spots on the lane. Have you ever heard people talk about the back end of the lanes being, "spotty?"

5) Face it, not everyone will get a high tech bowling ball. Instead, a lot of bowlers will continue to use their old rubber (yes, they're still around) or purchase a plastic bowling ball because "that's all I need to bowl with because I will never get serious about the game."

6) Not everyone bowls the way you do and neither do they bowl the same track line. This means that wherever, or whenever, you bowl, there can, and most likely will, be multiple track lines running down the lane.

In the greater majority of blown spares, the ball either hooks more than expected or you throw it too far to the right and it doesn't hook back. Why does this happen? Look at the list above and the answer is, "the ball rolled across a dry spot," or "the ball rolled across some oil on the lane." The point is, you just can't trust that a particle, urethane, or reactive urethane will hook the same way on the back end of the lanes.

With your dedicated plastic bowling ball drilled for no hook, the predictability of it will make it easier for you to make your spares. Of course, you'll need to dedicate some practice sessions to adjust yourself to picking up spares because you will be throwing the ball more directly at the pin combinations. The benefits of a higher spare conversion percentage, however, should, in the long term, convince you that getting a spare ball was one of the better moves you made in improving your average and scores

A Hui Hou! (See you again!).