Being a fairly good golfer for over 40 years, and absolute tennis watching lover(grips have moved to dramatically more western over the last 10 years), and a modest observer of bowlers over 10 years I have watched political correctness in many sports as the theories evolve etc over time.
When I first started golfing in the 60s teachers were teaching a 3 knuckle grip(which correlates to a lot of lateral under thumb for most bowlers in bowling). Then in the 70s they started teaching a 1 knuckle grip to reduce hooking for the top flite golfer. Now golfers in the majority have settled back to around a 2 1/2 knuckle grip.
Each grip in golf led to a different arm motion in relation to the ball that resulted in a certain ball flight. Also the different grips led to different amounts of forearm rotation depending on the amount of curve wanted. Weaker grips to hit a draw in golf needed to introduce a tremendous amount of forearm rotation to hit a draw(ala Johnny Miller). Stronger grips could still hit a draw with very little forearm rotation. (ala Paul Azinger or Lee Trevino when they wanted a draw)
I hope that it is understood that I have read Bill Taylor's book, talked to Bill Taylor in person, and watched a lot of good bowlers, and bowlerw who used to be good bowlers. I state my opinion mostly based My "observation" of watching bowlers and concluding after watching a lot of them. is that much like golf each person has a natural anatomy of where sort of THEIR neutral lateral pitch setting is. Where some people have trouble hooking a ball with lateral out pitch(me I coke bottle to my ring finger almost). Others have no trouble hooking with lateral out 1/4. (They coke bottle near or above their index finger).
I often watch the arm motion in relation to the ball right after release and believe that often new style bowlers with lateral pitches less than their anatomy (coke bottle test) often move their hand right after release slightly inside their line and then back outside to the right. Other old style bowlers often move their arm dramatically outside their line I believe if they are using old style or more like 3/8 or 1/2 lateral under pitches and a lot of reverse.
In person I have been amazed always at watching the lefty Tish Johnson swing her arm out to the left gutter so strongly and yet hook it quite strongly. I never got a chance to talk to her about her pitches or look at her ball but I would be quite amazed to find that she had anything but a dramatic lateral under pitch in relation to her coke bottle test.
Obviously I only being a non professional driller have seen fewer hands than our experts out here and will defer to their feedback on these ideas. It is my observation that many more hands call for lateral under than lateral out(would I say 80/20 as far as percentages...maybe).
Obviously sports have their politically correct changes over time as teaching trends change back and forth with new equipment etc. Sometimes these changes do not benefit the average player. In golf 1 knuckle grips left many players in the 70s with hopeless slices. Fortunately the game has come back to matching more the golfers natural anatamy in recommending grip strength(ie abiltiy to rotate the club back to square).
In bowling I have observed some...quite a few very good bowlers decide to go lateral out with coke bottle tests near 1/4 under and end up with lack of rotation to play in, and sore elbows, and shoulders. Some of them have even bowled better on certain sport shots when squaring up and decided it was the way to go. I also aware that a shorter than traditional full span or semi span allows one to use pitches different from a coke bottle test and leaning more towards lateral out to prevent one from topping or coming over the ball from the shorter span.
This is analgous in golf to what Johnny Miller did to establish such strong rotation in his forearms where he relaxed his front elbow and arm to add dramatic forearm rotation to propel his club to slightly closed when he wanted a hook this while gripping the club in a much weaker 1 knuckle grip position. The relaxed front arm was his way of supplying rotation from a grip that weaker and was mostly designed to hit a high towering slight fade!
From these observations I occassionally get asked by players way better than I am if I see anything to change.
I have been gratified that one of the best players in Florida has improved his game by going more reverse and more lateral under(in line with his coke bottle test) and resulted in him raise his league averages up about 17 pins in the last 3 years and to also increase his number of 300 and 800s per year by a factor of about 8! When I met him he already had many sport titles and continues to be extremely proficient in this area.
I am also gratified to have helped a friend of mine who's lateral under position thumb damage was atrocious that he made changes over the past two years and has gone from 1/8 under to 3/16 out and setting his leagues on fire to the tune of about 15 pins increase per game. There are thumbs like that lateral out no doubt! I am not against them if appropriate for the hand and if the arm motion through the ball bears out the lateral position.
I dont' believe most of these observations are a result of Bill Taylor's 1974 book but I may be just a parrot...
Regards,
Luckylefty
PS my favorite method I have heard about on this site is Jim Ensminger's change method between league and sport where he goes lateral under and reverse for open league shots to laterals nearer 0 and less reverse for constricted area sport patterns. Smart!
PPS I really hope that my comments here could help establish dialogue about Tish Johnson's pitches, and also more from Just Rico about the views on Lateral pitch from the tour and his experience in seeing many many many more hands than I do as a home based guy...
It takes Courage to have Faith, and Faith to have Courage.
James M. McCurley, New Orleans, Louisiana
