OK Roto fans, I need some help here. The house I bowl in has made some changes in the type of oil and the patterns recently and my average has plummeted from 190 to 172 in just a few weeks. I'm a relative newbie when it comes to competitive bowling and I'm struggling to find any line I can play with my equipment under the new conditions. I don't know my exact stats but I am a high speed/very high rev bowler and normally I start off well to the left of the approach and play a line that sweeps across the boards then turns hard at the back end and crushes the pocket. My current arsenal consists of the following balls: Epic Battle, Epic, Oracle Vision, and Mercury. With these balls I've been able to find something that will work well regardless of the lane conditions in the past, but now none seem to work. The conditions I am seeing are plenty of oil in the middle, tapering all the way to the gutters with no real wall, and tons of carrydown. The funny part is that even though there is a lot of oil on the lanes it is reacting almost as if the heads and midlane were dry. Here is what I am seeing with my line-up:
The Battle is grabbing the lane way too early and over hooking. Moving to a deeper line or throwing the ball harder both get the ball closer to the pocket but the ball is dead by the time it gets there and hits soft.
The Epic is also hooking too much, but mostly on the back end. A move to a deeper line brings this ball closer to the pocket as well but I leave a ton of 10 pins when I do this and if I miss my mark by a little bit the Epic snaps into the head pin leaving some ugly splits.
The Oracle Vision gets through the heads without grabbing but just keeps skidding and either skids past the breakpoint and misses the pocket completely or if I adjust my line I can make it hit the pocket but it never makes a turn and hits soft.
The Mercury has been the best ball for the new conditions so far, but it's far from perfect. With the Mercury I move slightly to the right and play more of a down and in line but as with the Oracle Vision the Mercury isn't getting much traction on the back end and isn't turning into the pocket with any force.
The Epic and Battle have been my benchmark balls so my first thought was a surface change for either or both of them. The Battle is OOB and the Epic was 1000 grit polished. I knocked the shine off the Epic with a grey scotchbrite pad and it smoothed the reaction out some but the results were the same. The Oracle Vision is currently 1000 grit polished. Would a surface change to one of these balls get it down the lane but still have a smooth backend?
One last thought, I love the Orbiter core in the Mercury and have been thinking that a Saturn might give me more hit at the pins without overreacting like my stronger balls do. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks!
