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Damn Thunder! And people make fun of me for having 2 lockers. You got mostly Storm stuff and some Lane #1 it looks like. I'm all Storm except for the purple hammer. Here's all 26 of my balls. The stuff on the floor is what's going to Waxahachie.

LHB did something like this when I was in high school. I think we played 76 trombones. They invited area trombones, baritones, and tubas (me). This was late '80s so we were like the only people in the whole north end zone bleachers.

After starting league with the worst 2-week span in my adult life (527, 531), my local tour pro buddy told me to stop trying to hook the ball so much and straighten it out a little. I recovered after the Labor Day break with a 701 and then 748 last night on my birthday. Time to get ready to bowl against the 50+ crowd in Waxahachie this weekend!

That is a ridiculous disparity! That's the kind of shit Army tries to do to people with the wishbone.

So... King wins the heisman in 2024?

It's pretty damn close!

Nice work. Is it starting to feel a little more comfortable?

So you either meant 140 or 204.

24th out of 81 - just inside the cash, which is good considering I had a couple 160s in there. Made enough to pay for the hotel, but that's it. It was tough. Only 5 guys averaged over 200 for the weekend.

Awesome dude! Keep it going.

My Monday league teammate has been the head mechanic for years. He said they used to inspect every year. Now it's every 3 years, but he hasn't heard anything and it's been 3 years. Now they're going to come out with some kind of tiered certification, but that rollout has already been delayed. Seems like a giant clusterfuck. Dues will keep going up. Bowlero just bought their first center in the Austin area, so we'll see how that changes things. That was the place that hosted most local tournaments, so I hope they don't shaft the dude than ran them and we lose that action. BTW, I barely cashed last weekend in Houston. Made enough to cover my hotel. It was brutal. Only 5 of the 81 people averaged over 200 for the tournament, and everyone there was a 200+ league bowler.

The left can definitely be feast or famine. Often it seems like you either have the nuts or you're totally shut out. As for the 7-pin, that's a no from me. Since I started keeping my stats 8 years ago, I've left 565 7-pins and 2391 10-pins. Getting the 10 out is what can make or break you.

Sounds about right. FWIW, the difference isn't actually 5mph. The gun is at the pins. The house ball doesn't slow down much, so your release velocity on that is 17-18. However, a good ball slows down in order to hook about 3mph, so you're probably releasing that closer to 15. I'm constantly quoting Beastie Boys to myself - Slow & Low, that is the tempo.

Baby hook is a good start. That means your hand was in a strong enough position and your wrist was relatively straight. What you don't want is your wrist bent back and your hand on top of the ball. That's how you throw a house ball, and you can chunk one 20+mph doing so. With a stronger wrist and your hand behind the ball (or even on the side like holding a suitcase), it doesn't take much effort to produce a little side rotation and see that baby hook. Just expect that you're going to throw it several mph slower. If you try to throw it hard like that, you're gonna have a bad time. If you keep doing it, you'll start to get the feel of it.

You're trending the right direction. The more you do it, the more it'll come to you.

Will do. The first senior regional is 9/24, but I'll be in Houston going against the young guys this weekend.

From a PBA standpoint, just pay my membership dues ($325/yr), pack my jerseys with my name on the back, enter the tournament and show up. To be eligible for membership, you just have to prove you average over 200 in league. The bigger hoops are personal. I have a wife, 2 kids, and a full-time job. Ditching all that for a month next spring in order to bowl the first handful of tournaments will be a tough sell. And I certainly wouldn't be doing it for the money. I would consider it a success if I broke even. It's just one of those things I dreamed about as a kid watching the tour on Saturday afternoons. I'm better now than I ever was in my 20s or 30s. The more I watch the seniors, the more I think I can at least cash at that level. I don't expect to beat the several hall-of-famers out there, but anything can happen if it comes down to a 1-game match. Former MLB pitcher John Burkett beat those guys and won his first senior title a few weeks ago. That's motivation. Then again, I could be completely wrong, go out there and get my ass kicked. There are a few PBA Regional Senior tournaments in the next few months. Think of that like AAA ball compared to the big leagues. Those will be a good barometer of where I'm at.

Totally agree!

Speaking of balls, where do they factor in to all this? Performance-level balls are actually pretty porous. Scuffing with 360-4000 grit pads or polishing can make them more or less so. The ball wants to dig into the oil and grip the lane in order to hook into the pins. In doing so, you will notice oil rings on the ball after every shot. Each shot picks up a tiny amount of oil. That's why people wipe off their ball before every shot. If you throw enough shots in the same spot and pick up enough oil, your ball is going to start hooking more. This is called transition of the oil pattern. When you see this start to happen, you have to adjust. There are 39 boards on a lane. We talk about adjustments in moving your feet or your target in terms of boards, ie. I might move my feet 2 boards left and my target 1 board. In the last few years, the PBA has been putting dye in the oil on TV shows so you can kind of see what they're bowling on and how it changes. Every ball has a different surface manufactured at a specific aggressiveness for different lane conditions. Figuring out which ball to use and where to aim with it is necessary to throw strikes. In addition, the cores of balls are very different and can be made to help the ball hook sooner, later, more, or less. Where the holes are drilled can also have an effect. If you could see the center of gravity (CG) of a ball as it's rolling down the lane, it would be wobbling. Balls are meant to be drilled off of it's stable axis. As it's rolling, it's looking for that stable axis. It's storing the energy you put into it until it hits that stable axis, ideally as it hits the part of the lane with no/less oil. It then hooks hard and hits the pins with more power. Think of it like hitting a wedge with with a bunch of backspin. Nothing happens when there's no friction (golf ball in air, bowling ball skidding through oil), but the instant it hits friction, both are going to go the direction of the spin. These other 2 things (getting lined up with the right ball/target and understanding, managing, and even anticipating transition) are just as important, if not more so, to high scores as being fundamentally sound with your approach. First image is a shot of the blue oil after a TV show. You can see the shape it started out as, but also where the traffic was and the oil is worn out. Next is what a high-end ball looks like after it goes down the lane. The wobbling CG causes the ball to flare as it's rolling, thus giving a fresh surface on every revolution. That's all I can think of now. Happy to entertain any questions or comments.

If those were my 2 options, I'd go see Josh at Killeen Bowlerama. Gary at Strike-a-Lott in Highland Lanes drills all my stuff.

Damn! Where are you? Some bowling alley nearby should have a pro shop in it.

All solid advice from Virginia. Fingertip is a must. Power and rotation come from the fingers after the thumb has exited the ball. One counterpoint is that the vast majority of high-level bowlers roll 15lb equipment. The stats have shown a very minimal loss in power is offset by a significant reduction in wear and tear on the bowler during tournaments that can last 20-40 games. Wulaw, before your hand was basically on top of the ball as you let it go. With this new grip, try to keep your wrist straight and your hand behind the ball as you let it go. It will take some getting used to. Definitely go straighter at spares.

Alright, here we go. You see people step across the foul line and immediately slip and fall on their ass, right? That's because of the oil applied to the lane to protect the surface. How and how much oil is applied is what determines the playing conditions. These are called oil patterns. Between the 2-D lane surface and the volume of oil and any one spot, you can envision a 3-D image of the conditions. In a typical league oil pattern that every center puts out every day, you have very little oil applied near the gutters. This makes the ball hook back if you throw it out there and increases your chances of a strike. Conversely, there is a high volume of oil applied in the middle of the lane. So if you miss your target left, your ball is going to skid more, hook less, and increase your chances of a strike. You can see how this gives you a greater room for error and makes it easier to throw strikes. In professional conditions (often referred to a sport conditions), the oil is spread out more evenly, giving you less room to miss right and get the ball back as well as less room to miss left and have the ball hold and not hook. Let's take a visual look at this. The "Chris Paul" is what a typical "house" oil pattern looks like. This one is 42 ft in length. You can see at the bottom that the outside zone ratio is 8.46:1. That's the ratio of oil in the middle of the lane to the outside of the lane. Any ratio greater than 8:1 is considered pretty easy. They used this in the Chris Paul Celebrity Invitational. The "Scorpion" is the same 42 ft length, but you can see the difference. The ratio there is 2:1, and this is something used in an actual PBA tournament. The majority of house oil patterns will be 40-44 ft in length. Sport conditions can be anywhere from 32-52 ft. The length of the pattern has a major effect on where you have to play in order to throw strikes. For example, look a the 32-ft "Wolf" pattern. You're going to have to play straighter and flirt with the gutter if you want to strike because the oil is so flat across the rest of the lane. Next up, I'll discuss bowling balls and what they do to these oil patterns.

If you want me to nerd out get full on technical with the explanation, I'm happy to oblige.

2 other things @Wulaw Horn Who did you buy a ball from that only had 1 15lb ball? And good shop should have more 15s in stock than any other weight. Also, fall leagues are forming now. You could probably find a short season league the runs through December at your local center.