It's always amazed me at the lack of such a product on the market outside of stuff lane #1 made. Althought recently (the past 2-3 years) More ball companies have been creating products that fit your description. Brunswick has the avalanche urethane, I believe hammer had a Razyr (i think that was the name) which was a plastic ball with a core.  EDIT (I had it the opposite the razyr was a ball with a high end coverstock and no core) END EDIT Lane number 1 has made these for far longer than any of the "major" companies I believe though. They have the XL the xxl and whatever. Plastic balls with cores that have varying number of XXXX's in the name (more xxx = less hook iirc).

 

To show how far its come though, when I first got in to bowling and wanted a ball that would allow me to play straighter I bought a power groove thinking it wouldn't hook at all. Let's just say it hooked more than anything I had at that time. A year or so later brunswick came out with the avalanches and companies started making an effort to make "true" dry lane balls. 

 

Edited by danprince10 on 1/29/2011 at 8:41 PM

The reason they are that far left isn't that they don't have equipment that will let them. They are that far left because for most of them that's the easiest line to the pocket. These guys are the best in the world, and typically they break down lanes in a systematic fashion that ends up directing them to the extreme left, but its also the best option to get to the pocket. They start right, and burn a spot in the lane, and then move a little left and use the burn spot down lane as miss room. So they create a region in the lane where they have some hook to their right and some hold to their left. But as they play, they keep creating a bigger hook spot underneath where they are at, so they have to continuously move farther left to stay in the perfect forgiveness range. The amazing part is this method is effective pretty much as deep as you can get with enough power to still get the ball to make the turn and have angle through the pins. As they move left, there is still some oil on the lane to their right. BUT, it doesn't have any shape, it started flat, and had oil taken off the lane fairly evenly as the players moved across it, so it ends up fairly flat as well.

 

So in short, these guys have equipment, as well as releases and enough strength that they could play right and get to the pocket. But they don't have the forgiveness that they have if they can play left.

I have a Visionary Slate Blue Gargoyle, which is urethane pearl, and it outhooks some of my resin stuff. A teammate bowls with a Lane #1 Liberator sometimes and he was hooking the ball 20 boards on the USBC Blue pattern in scratch league this week.

 

The weakest thing I have is a three-way race between a Lane #1 Chainsaw, 900Global Link and an Ebonite Matrix Conquest. The common thread between each is that they're all drilled weak.

 

I think you can take a weak ball, drill it weak and get what you're looking for, but I do sometimes wonder why the pros sometimes keep opting to go left, left, left instead of pulling out plastic and going up the boards. My go-to shot when things get really dry is a Lane #1 XXXL Starburst straight up.

 

Jess

The answer to the question is that it's hard to do.

Everyone wants a ball that will respond to friction, yet be controllable, and still yet, carry every corner pin. Good luck with that!

The closest thing I have found has been my Avalanche Pearl Urethane. When the lanes are torched it does hook, but it's very predictable for me. In the last few feet before the pocket, instead of jumping through the nose it holds it's line well. Carry is better than I expected.

 

 

Well, there is the Norm Duke practice of getting off the corner and pointing it at the pocket. He did that for years on the Shark before they redesigned it. I'll get outside with my XXXL and point it at the pocket sometimes and hope for a high hit ... rather leave a 4 than a 10 playing out there.

 

Reason being, it's easier for me to point, turn my speed up and roll the ball from behind than to go far left, try to tilt and over-rev it and hope for the best. I realize most of the PBA guys have more revs than I ever will but not all the guys on tour are crankers. I think some of them play best when squared up and those guys (like Ciminelli did last year by using urethane at the WSOB) would do better trying to develop a straight game.

 

Jess

This is very true. I was fighting a horrific over/under after the front part of the lanes got torched in our city tournament yesterday, and since my entire team (including me) bowled some of the lowest scores any of us have shot all year, I tried throwing plastic near the end of the 3rd game up 5 just because it didn't matter at that point... and I left a split because it hooked at the arrows (and I literally do mean it began moving left at the arrows!) because there was just so much early friction.  I had to move everything left to find some oil just to get plastic down the lane! Friction is both the bowler's friend and enemy at the same time I suppose.