Dear Brickguy,

I'm guessing your process of getting information followed this course:

You described your game and conditions to Ric in your language, I dont know how in depth.
He then took that (probably limited) information and cognitively (that means in his mind) compared what you said to his own extensive experiences.
Knowing what works best he made a recommendation to you.

Now unfortunately it seems to have not been right for what you were looking for.

Consider this example:

A players tells his ball driller he wants a ball for controlling dry lanes.
The ball driller comes back to him suggesting a Slay/R drilled with the pin 1 inch from his axis.
The player takes it and throws it but doesnt see the snap hes used to from his bag full of stacked leverage equipment that didn't work on dry lanes. He doesnt understand why hes not getting the same look and goes around telling everyone that his pro shop guy is no good at making recommendations.

Now I'm not saying this is exactly what has happened here, but it looks to me that there was a connection missing between your objectives with this ball. I've no idea what you asked for but I would imagine knowing Ric has extensive knowledge of the Brunswick lines that he made a very good recommendation. You just probably did not communicate fully to him exactly what kind of look you wanted from the ball.

This raises 2 interesting points:

1. Know the value of your pro shop. If you are a regular at a pro shop, you can really talk to them. You can get them to see you play on the lanes and sometimes during league. They will know exactly the kind of things you like to see and can let you know which products and layouts will give you that. I'm sure Ric isn't too keen on the idea of giving out recommendations based on the highly limited information one can give over the internet, but when people proposition him to do so, he will. Next time, instead of trying to save a few bucks guy getting your ball online and trying to shaft your pro shop guy, let him provide the ball and have a real chat about what you want. They are trained and you don't know best.

2. Even if communication was excellent and you got exactly the right ball from Brunswick, its possible that Brunswick covers/cores dont match your game. Whether this says anything about either your game or their balls, I'm not here to judge. I have my opinions but I will keep them to myself.

Bjaardker hit the nail on the head though. Sometimes balls dont match up. Deal with it. If you think expect everytime you drill a bowling ball that its going to be the next cheater ball and your going to do nothing but strike, your quite mistaken. With such an equipment bias on the game these days you have to get pretty used to spending your cash on balls, cos you need alot of them to win and you cant always find the right balls for you.

Unforunately every so often we buy dud balls. Its very disappointing when one doesnt work for you but thats life. If you can't deal with it please dont blame the company. Lesser educated people who read posts might think you know what your talking about and they would unfairly be put off of purchasing balls from what is currently the best bowling ball company in the world. This could happen purely as a result of your ignorance.

Sorry to be so critical but I have had enough with people who don't understand the game blaming others for things and you happened to be the unfortunate sole I had a pop at.

n.b. To Ric Hamlin. I hope I did not use your name in vain here. I was just trying to fill in the gaps but correct me if I have used your name in any way you feel it unappropriate to do so.

"I think its funny when people are upset because a particular bowling ball doesn't work for their game, but their buddy is shooting "Lights Out" with the same ball. It's a matter of how you release the ball, speed, rotation etc., that makes a particular ball work or not work for you."

I agreed with the above comment totally, was using a big bully before but it didn't really work out for me so I sold it to my buddy and he is now killing daylight out of the pins.

I went out to purchased a AI and never regretted it. Maybe I have found the right bowling company for me...Brunswick that is....

i had a monster bruiser for about a year 1/2, and after about a year, it lost a lot of hook, then it just died.