Ric Clint and I have been messaging each other a lot about heavy oil balls lately.
I realized I had some definite thoughts on what constitutes heavy oil play and thought I'd just lay out a little bit of it here.
Oh, how do I find it!! Well it's easy. As I don't have any honor scores all I do is I ask my friends hey any nice shots around here where they are puttin out nice league type conditions for tournaments and lefties are scoring well?
They say, "Oh yeah, over at overthere lanes about 30 minutes from here they've got a real nice shot". Now I get in the car and hope over to "overthere lanes"
and I say hey can I bowl they say SURE!, "By the way, just so you know last week a lefty shot 801 here in our tourney, and so well, we thought we'd make it
INTERESTING this week so we've put out a pretty long sport shot, I think you'll find it FUN and INTERESTING".
Well if I've heard this once in three years I've heard it 30 times.
So fun and interesting usually means a sloppy wet, that ball ain't gonna hook no way at the back, anyway if you can hook it 3 boards you just might win this thing!
Anyway, 600s are rare in these tournaments and often a 640 or 650 wins em, I haven't won many of them but I sure have shot a ton of 610 and 620s.
Here's the idea and I must say that the writings of Bob Hanson have helped me play this shot!!!
FIRST determine if the "Heavy oil shot" is a league heavy oil= lots of oil in middle and dry outside of
(5, 8, 10) or is "Sport heavy oil" = no real dry side to side only dry at the end of the pattern(43, 45, or 50). Easy throw a ball out to 3 at the breakpoint, you'll know!
So the strategy for the league shot is so easy, grab your favorite near stacked heavy oiler, (cg down a little is nice too) and get inside the oil pattern and swing out to the dry and watch em fly!!! Enough about that. Grab any Reactin Roll, Silver Streak Particle, Fuze Detonator, Throttle, Fear Factor, Vortex Particle and let er rip!
Enough about that!!
Now for example this weeks "Interesting and FUN shot" =reads 45 foot flat.
"DETERMINE Whether you need a ball that provides backend or doesn't. In other words is the pattern buffed at the end of the oil and smooth or does the ball jump when it reaches the end of the pattern! Either way grab your ball that has the appropriate backend, if you need big backend grab it. If you need smooth backend grab it. It doesn't matter if it is particle, reactive solid or even reactive pearl!!! Grab the right backend.
This weeks shot, I knew right away the ball was NOT jumpin and I needed backend. I grabbed my battle zone bullet(pearl), Spell(light load particle), and Reaction Rip (pearl). Move your feet as far to the right(for righties, or left for lefties) as you are comfortable, move up on the approach about 18 inches, lower ball in stance(I go from chest down to below waist(about mid thigh). Now take baby steps smoothly accelerate, look at the dots or closer not arrows and throw soft hand, firm fingers pointing slightly at the pocket. This week I threw 8 to about 10 11 at the break point generating only about 3 to 4 boards of total hook!
First game 247, next highest game in squad was I think 193!!! Yahoo. All around me players are using their Mayhems,Phenoms, Throttle and throwing some very "Fun and Interesting 150s, 140s and 160s. Now I get excited and drift back on lane close to normal starting position and go to hell. Still end up 4th. In general this is what I see in nearly every tournament I bowl in, No honor scores here!
The most interesting thing is I usually find that my same heavy oil monsters, low rg, heavy particle load don't work on this shot!!! The only reason I can really give is that they sort of because of heavy particle load and low rg want to sort of hook in the heads and midlane forcing one to NOT Point but to have to swing, and then because of the pattern they can't recover(nothing can recover).
Instead the focus on this flat shot is Picking the right backend, and being able to point. Lighter load particles(like the spell), Solid polished reactives, and even pearls have worked great for me as I throw about 12 mph on these patterns! In fact my highest score on these soaked patterns is a 68X shot with a Battle Zone Bullet! All around me bowlers were trying to make it with heavy load particles. I've also shot a ton of 640 on this pattern with a Polished Demolition Zone! Note now things are different for Lefties and Righties on this pattern as the 2nd and 3rd game occur, righty gets a little trough and the lefty gets to continue to enjoy "Fun and interesting", with maybe a one board move!
I've noted our esteemed colleague Bob Hanson talking about playing with polished reactives on these patterns too!
Hope this helps!
REgards,
Luckylefty
PS note if you try to swing it, you just won't be able to bring it on "fun and interesting" Feet on the point side of 20!
PPS my partner a strong handed 220 average bowler shot the 2nd high score of the tourney in the last game throwing a Command Zone Plum pearl at about 12 mph = 215. This shot really is "FUN and Interesting" NOT!
Edited on 2/24/2004 3:41 AM
