We're at league tonight, standard THS. But my second-worst pair in the house, a pair that has extreme differences left-right from the get-go and also break down in an odd way, every time.
First ball of practice with resin goes screaming by the headpin and hits the 2 head-on. I throw four more shots with the ball and the best result I get is a ripper 9-pin. Next-best was the 3-6-9-10.
So I change balls to the weakest resin I have, and finally find a path to the pocket standing in front of the ball return and wheeling it at the right gutter.
I am not comfortable starting there, so I decide to do something I haven't done in probably 15 years -- start with plastic and throw it the entire game. I end up shooting 640-something to finish high on the pair. I leave 30 sticks at least out there simply by missing fairly easy spares. The other scores on the pair weren't bad, but I was the only one over 200 for each game, owing to the usual issues on this pair with breakdown.
So here's what confuses me, in no particular order:
1) Scoring with plastic actually felt easier than scoring with resin. Moves and adjustments actually made sense, and misses left predictable results.
2) If bowling with plastic is supposed to be "tougher," am I not as terrible as I think? Or is the fact I couldn't score with resin evidence that I'm actually worse?
3) Why don't more people bowl with plastic? Is going straighter with revs that difficult?
4) Is it weird that I found the room for error was actually GREATER with plastic? Pulled shots found hold pretty easily, while there was still enough dry outside to cradle a swung shot. And using plastic sure seemed to mitigate the differences between the two lanes on the pair.
Maybe the last point was due to the ball in question (Lane #1 XXXL Starburst) having a real core and better dynamics. Beats me. I now find myself pondering whether I should bowl the rest of the year with this ball rather than try to force resin to work.
Jess
