So the last few weeks, I've had very up and down weeks...like a 70X one week, 51X the next, 70X again, a really hard 60X...etc. 

 

So last night I was working with somebody after league, and we boiled down my problem to being a thumb hole that was not snug enough.  A loose thumb hole made me fall out of the ball in my downswing, which in turn led me to both force my arm swing and grab the ball at the bottom.  So we put some tape in there, and voila, I felt infinitely more secure in the ball and most of my grabbing was gone.  The grab that was there was my newly formed bad habit.

 

So looking back at my scores, I noticed all my good series were with gear that my thumb was indeed the most snug.  

 

So, I was just wondering, how important for your game is a snug thumb hole?   How about thumb pitch?  Slug, mold, IT, or just a hole in the ball?  I'm just curious so I have a point of reference for gauging thumb holes in the future.

 

The way this was explained to me was this...

With your bowling hand grab your opposite forearm, now release and grab your forearm again. The pressure you just grabbed with both times is not equal. This is no different from a bowling ball, whether it is grabbing at the bottom or in the backswing. THS lets you get away with this because of the larger area of miss room.

To stop from grabbing, I went to an oval thumb and changed my pitches drastically. I made all the grip changes in one day, not over time, and of course I struggled getting used to it because if I did grab, it was UGLY!

Before my pitches in the thumb were 1/8 right 1/4 reverse, bit size 7/8, a TON of bevel and sanding.

Now i have 1/8 left and 3/16 forward with oval 13 bit 4 cuts, very little bevel.

 

 

Brunswick Advisory Staff

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer and not of Brunswick Corporation.

My teammates give me crap for making lots of tape adjustments some nights. But sometimes when the weather changes or I haven't bowled in a few days for some reason, my thumb is just going to change size, and I have to adjust tape until it feels right, or my scores are going to show it.  If my thumb is a pinch too loose, I will inevitably throw every shot slightly different.  Likewise if it's just a little too tight and I have trouble clearing the thumbhole quickly.  But once I get the tape adjusted to where I can hold the ball with no grip pressure but still get out of it quickly, I can fire off a long string of strikes with any luck because I am suddenly more accurate and more consistent with my rotation, and the ball motion usually is better since I am getting more roll and less spin on the ball, if that makes sense.

 

I'm a skinny guy and have long, thin fingers, so I have to use a little different grip than many people.  My thumb is pretty flat, long, and has a fair bit of webbing.  I have gone to a slightly shorter span than before with 1/8" reverse and a decent bit of bevel because if I try to do the forward-pitch-and-very-little-bevel thing, my thumb just won't come out of the ball right, even with a relaxed grip pressure.  My thumb is just too long and drags too much that way.  So I use white tape in the front of the hole and then fine-tune my grip with black tape in the back and sides of the hole.  Usually if my thumb swells or shrinks, it's more on the sides than front and back, so it's really beneficial to me to use very thin black tape like FrankenTape on the sides of the thumbhole.

I recently got a RX1 and did not put tape into the thumb hole's back side - I normally have two pieces of white tape there. While I can hold the ball well and play it without different feel in span and grip, I have a tighter grip on it during the swing phase, esp. before the release. It is as if I'd subconsciously keep the thumb straighter in the taped balls, which offers a better grip through a higher contact area of the thumb. I never htought it would make such a difference, but a snug thumb hole seems to be truly beneficial.

DizzyFugu - Reporting from Germany
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