Choose Your Equipment Wisely | Bowling This Month

Article Contents

• 1. What to look for
• 2. The importance of matching up
• 3. Building my bag
• 4. The progression
  • 4.1. Right hook, wrong shape
  • 4.2. Right shape, wrong hook
• 5. Final thoughts

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Bowling balls…there are so many of them to choose from! How do you choose the best ones for your league and tournament arsenal? Do you fully and sometimes blindly trust your pro shop operator or the regional/professional staffer in your area? Do you do all the research for yourself? Or do you perhaps use a combination of these?

I truly believe that the more you learn, the more informed your decisions can be, not only when deciding which bowling balls to add to your arsenal but also when trying to match up the best to the pattern you are bowling on. To be clear, matching up means selecting the right ball and line for a given pattern. And since the pattern is constantly changing, so is the right matchup.

In this article, I will share what to look for when getting matched up to different lane conditions, the importance of matching up, the specific bowling balls I plan to include in my bag to kick off the league season, and the intended progression through each of them.

What to look for

The process of selecting the right bowling ball to match up to the lane condition can be paralyzing, especially with the large number of bowling balls on the market today. It can and should be a simple process, though!

If I have an idea of what the pattern will be based on a lane graph that the league or tournament posted, I may have some preconceived ideas about which line(s) would be better to start with and the potential progression of the pattern over the course of the block.

Regardless of my preconceived idea of the pattern, I will still plan on getting warmed up while sliding around board 20 and targeting between 10 and 15 at the arrows with my benchmark ball, which is currently the Ebonite …