9/ to X could be as simple as plugging a weight hole or raising the surface.
Or throwing it better, which nobody ever mentions in this “modern†era.
It isn’t always the ball.
Not picking out, or on, anyone with this, it is merely an observation I have made that is so different philosophically from when I was learning to bowl. Back “in the dayâ€, if you weren’t knocking out the corners (especially tenpins for righties, or sevenpins for lefties) it was considered that you just weren’t throwing it good enough.
Now days, you leave a seven or a ten, and it is “Change balls†or “Changes surfaces†or “Change linesâ€, when back in the earlier times, it was “Throw it betterâ€.
God forbid that you try to tell anybody these days that they throw it bad. That couldn’t
POSSIBLY be the reason they’re not striking.
Nobody throws it bad anymore, they’re just using the wrong ball, with the wrong drilling or surface, at the wrong time.