When Should I Use Surface on My Bowling Ball

When Should I Use Surface on My Bowling Ball

In this free video, Ronald Hickland Jr., CEO of Creating The Difference, demonstrates each grit of TruCut CtDSanding Pads and how they respond on the lanes.

Watch How to Adjust a Bowling Ball’s Surface if you are unfamiliar or need a refresher before continuing.

TruCut CtD Sanding Pads

Sanding pads are a required accessory to be competitive in bowling. They come in different grits ranging from 500 grit–5000 grit.

500 Grit will take the most surface off a bowling ball, creating an earlier hook on the lane with less backend reaction.

5000 Grit will take the least amount of surface off a bowling ball. It will make the ball hook downlane later, allowing for a bigger backend reaction.

Where to start

If you are bowling a house shot for league, start with the 2000 grit. It’s a good place to start.

If you notice the bowling ball is hooking too much, move up to 3000 grit and so on until you find your desired ball reaction.

If you notice the bowling ball isn’t hooking enough, move down to 1500 grit and so on until you find your desired ball reaction.

The image below illustrates the differences between the extremes in the bowling ball surface.

Check out the breakpoint location downlane and side-to-side location of each bowling ball.

The polished bowling ball hits the arrows at the 09 board and rolls to the 04 board (breakpoint) 40 feet downlane.

The 500 grit bowling ball (same bowling ball used for both shots) hit the arrows at the 09 board, and the breakpoint is the 08 board five feet shorter, 35 feet downlane.

Clearly, this is not where we want to be for our strike shot. For demonstration purposes, we used these shots to illustrate how each product works on the lane.

It’s up to you to experiment with each of the grits and get yourself lined up. The goal is to get your ball to hit the pocket consistently while achieving the three phases of ball motion.