In my ever-present quest for a ball to deal with our house pattern I stumbled upon an Ice Blue Power Groove in a trade deal with a fellow BR member.
Now this ball is drilled pin over the bridge and the cg stacked under. I saw this and thought..WOW!!! This ball will be great for what I want.
Here's the scenario...
basic top hat pattern with dry outside of 10 and what appears to be a swamp in the middle (on paper anyway). Now basic way to attack this is pretty simple...play just inside the edge, bump to just outside the oil and let it roll back into hte hole.
I am really comfortable with my Dirty Bomb on this shot (pin under ring, cg next to thumb, really low weighthole). I am able to stand 35ish and roll it 17 out to like 10, hit the dry and arc it back to hte pocket. But as the heads burn up the DB starts doing erratic things and I have had to do one of 2 extremes, neither of which I am real comfortable doing...more way right and play the 1st arrow so the ball has more lane to cover to get to the pocket or move and and play up the 3rd arrow with a tiny break and pray it doesn't split or ping the 10 on either shot.
So I figured this Power Groove would allow me to play a similar line but more a but more right with the feet to keep some carry.
Problem....this ball hooks a ton!!!! Why? I had to move deeper with this ball than I was playing with the Dirty Bomb. I found a nice home sliding around 38 and playing the ball over 22 out to 12 and watching the ball dive hard into the pocket. If I pushed it a hair wide it would go beak and leave me a split. I was throwing basically an up the ball release the whole night as well while wearing my Pro Wrist Glove (the red and black one) to keep from cupping my wrist.
I shot 241 with 2 outs in the first game and a 232 with 2 outs in the 3rd. Let's not discuss the middle game as there was a plethora of problems to be had that game.
Why is this ball so strong? Are we all fooling ourselves into thinking that we need the $200 balls for house conditions when a $110 out the door with inserts and slug PowerGroove will perform like this?
Opinions? Let's have 'em.....
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Doug Sterner
Doug's Pro Shop
Owego, NY
http://dougsproshop@aol.com
www.dougsproshop.net
Hide the women and children...
The Dirty Bomb cometh!!!
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