Picking the Right Bowling Ball for a Long Oil Pattern

Okay coaches, we've talked a little bit about finding the axis point and understanding ball motion and trying to line a player up. So Lindsay's coming in today. We're going to have a good practice session. And so Lindsay's brought in, kind of her five core bowling balls. And I talked about earlier, we need to find the axis point on those five bowling balls. And then we're going to have a couple of different patterns that we're going to try and get her lined up on with her five, you know, core bowling balls. Kind of like every player has their arsenal, and from the weakest ball to the strongest ball. So Lindsay's brought in her favorites today. And I ask any coaches, you're going to have a student or a player that has certain balls that they really like and certain things that they get great success with. So today, we're going to find those, map those out, have Lindsay throw a few shots, on a couple different patterns, and we'll see what we find out. We've got two patterns out on the lanes today. We got a longer pattern, and we've got a shorter patten. Almost gave you away what they pattern link was. The idea is, me as a coach, and you as a player, we want you to go out there kind of blind and try to figure out, what do you see on the lane? I'm going to give you a little bit of a hint, that it's a longer pattern. And then the pattern on the left lane is going to be a little shorter. So now you, trying to find your bench mark bowling ball to start first with. So let's throw a shot and here with your bench mark ball, in where you think you should be playing on the lane, and we'll talk about it. Okay. Okay, so first shot, high flush. And it's a bench mark bowling ball for you, solid, reactive. We'll talk a little bit about those in a minute, each one of those layouts. So where was your target in the lane? About 12. Okay. Your target. And you're standing pretty straight with your feet. Not much angle. And we notice that the ball was really direct down line. And it worked out really well. High flush strike. So that would be maybe a good start, to find out, okay maybe this is pretty good on the lane. So now I want you to take what you would think in a bench mark bowling ball, throw that a couple of a shots, and then, I want you to switch to a different ball and try to find a different line, but still have pretty close to the same exit point. Okay. Okay just keep throwing a few. Okay. So we've taken a couple of shots here and this the bench mark bowling ball. Kind of a medium reactive bowling ball, solid, reactive. That bench mark that you're going to use on a lot of different patterns. Now notice the first couple of shots, very good, and you were really accurate on those first couple of shots. But we notice the third shot, we got it in a little bit, it went high, and then the next shot it got a little right and it never wanted to hook back. So we know that we don't have a lot room for error with a ball like this. It's a shiny surface, it's a long pattern. So we would we want to make a switch to either a sanded ball or a ball with a little more aggressive, core coverstock. So let's make an adjustment. Go to what you would feel comfortable with in a more aggressive bowling ball. Okay. Okay. Little more aggressive ball because there's a little bit more area there. Because the idea is we're trying to get us a ball that's going to maximize a little bit of room for us because we are humans, we're not hitting exactly that one dot every single time. We have a little bit of variance on a couple of boards. Even the best players in the world miss by about two boards. So still right in the pocket there. Let's throw one more and then we might make another ball change to see something a little bit different. But we're using now, we've switched to a very aggressive, asymmetrical ball with some sanded surface on it. So it is one of her strongest balls in her bag. So knowing it's a longer pattern, she's made an adjustment here. So let's continue to watch a few more variances here. So all three shots have found the pocket. One was maybe a little right and one was maybe a hair inch, so it gives you a little bit more room, right? So we see that this is probably be the ball we'd want to start with. A very aggressive, asymmetrical ball, and pretty much a sanded cover. But I did notice that, you left a couple of half 10s that would be probably a good ball to start with, because we know in the beginning on a long pattern there's so much volume and so we want to make sure we keep that pocket, don't give the pocket away. And we know that scores aren't always big to start in a long pattern usually, and we know that the shots going to break down a little bit. So what would you be looking for when they start to break down? What would you want to do? I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't move too far left. And then at that point I'd look for a ball to go a little bit longer and then kick more in the backend, so that I could keep my lines parallel and not move, have too wide open, because on a longer pattern it's not going to recover. And then if you try to square up too much with a more aggressive ball it's going to hook left immediately. So I want to give myself the most room for error. Absolutely. Phenomenal. And that's what we see a lot of times is players feel like they can stay in the same ball and they keep trying to move father and farther left and all of a sudden their feet are 16, 18 boards to the left of where their target is for a right hander, and all of a sudden, when the ball flat 10s a couple of times you're like, "What's wrong?" A lot of times the ball's gone away from them. So it'd be a like a golfer standing out on the putting green and he's trying to hit a put with a driver when he should be using his putter, or he's standing at a 100 yards, you can't hit a driver into a green at 100. It's understanding using the right balls at the right time. So let's much another ball change, kind of just to see what happens. We're going to go a little bit different pin placement, a little bit different coverstock and to see what we get. Okay. Okay. So she's thrown a couple shots here. We notice the first one was a little light, the ball went a little longer. And then you tried to make a slight adjustment with it and it kind of over-hooked down the lane. So we know that this is the ball that's designed to go a little farther down the lane and kick a little bit more in the backend, but we notice that the pattern still got a little too much volume in it. So we would see probably second, third game you try to make the adjustment, but we see the shape of that is pretty close. So the biggest thing we're always trying to do, is we're trying to get a player to understand what's going on with that bowling ball as it's traveling down the lane. And understand that, "Hey, I need to make sure I'm using the right ball at the right time." We talked about that of, biggest thing is, we want to make sure we can't coach the bad fit, now we can't coach the bad ball reaction. If she's trying to use the ball that's too weak, she feels like she's bowling in a really tight, we used to call it bowling in a phone booth. Instead of, we want to have a little bit of freer swing, because physically we want to make sure she's feeling comfortable making those shots. So now that's, you as a coach, you're trying dial that player in. So we know in a long pattern, little more aggressive bowling ball, give us a little bit of room for error. And as the pattern starts to change, Lindsay's going to look for some very key things. And what she said was really good, and you as coaches and players need to understand that, you're going to start looking for those same things as well. We're trying to look, "Hey, when the lane changes, I can't keep staying in the same spot, I've got kind of move my feet, and I've got to kind of move my target." Right?