Reactive resin balls have opened up the "window of opportunity" for striking. Once upon a time, a bowler had to operate within a small set of parameters with great frequency to maximize his opportunity for striking. Approach, speed, direction, trajectory, etc..... had to be repeatable to within very small limits.
Now, because of reactive resin, there are more releases that fall into the "acceptable" region. An example would be a friend of mine that I have known for over 20 years. he was ALWAYS very accurate, but not very powerful at the release. He could hit his mark with uncanny accuracy, but his ball was "weak" at the pins, and often had too much deflection, leaving odd spare and lots of corner pins.
Fast forward to today. He is STILL very accurate, and still looks exactly the same when he releases the ball, but the difference is the ball no longer deflects. The gyroscopic weightblocks, and the higher friction covers, have made quite a difference for him. Back then, he used to average around 190. Now, he averages around 235, has many 300's, and a couple of 800's. He will also be the first to tell you he hasn't changed ANYTHING in his game.
Oddly enough, while resin has helped him, it has hurt me. I had a very strong release and, like the "power" guys of that day, pretty much ran over my competition. With the advent of the reactive resin ball, I found myself in the situation of having TOO MUCH release, and couldn't even use the stuff at first. I was hooking a black U-dot 25 boards, but couldn't keep an Xcalibur on the lane. It would literally hook completely off the lane at about 50 ft, and that was with me lofting the gutters. While it helped him with his game, it made me completely have to re-learn mine.
SO, is it the ball, or is it the bowler? It is neither, and it is BOTH. The ball changed the way the game is played, and in doing so, tilted the table towards a different set of bowlers who better fit the profile of what the resin ball prefferred.
It's the same thing that happened when bowling went from wooden balls to rubber balls, from rubber balls to polyester balls, from polyester balls to urethane balls, to now.
IF there is ever another great technological breakthrough in bowling technology (like oilless lanes), that will change the way the game is played, and would also change who is favored and considered to be the "good" bowlers.
I used to be considered the "best" bowler in our house, but now he (my friend) is, and all that changed was the equipment. It didn't change EITHER one of our skill sets, we're still just as good at what we do as we were then (once I got my release "adjusted"), but it DID change who could score doing what they do best.
Edited by Juggernaut on 1/10/2012 at 1:35 PM
