INDEX

Equipment Equipment Q&A  [1-20]   [21-40]  [41-60]  [61-80]  [81-100]  [101-120]   [121-140]  [141-160]  [161-180  [201-220]  [221-240]  [241-260]   [261-280]  [281-300]  [301-320]  [321-340]  [341-360]  [361-380]   [381-400]  [401-420]  [421-440] RJ December 7, 2003 Shorline WA Hi I am doing a report on kinds of bowlling balls and I was woundering what do you use Hi RJ, I don't have any full contracts with any bowling ball companies so I don't feel like giving then free advertisements. I hope you understand. Jack December 9, 2003 Boston MA Hi Walter Ray, Just wondering how you get your ball to get through heavy oil or people like ricky smith and jason couch cranking the ball and it comes back into the pocket. I can bowl pretty good at my bowling house with a 210 average and then I had them oil the lanes to PBA specs that were online and I could not get the ball to comeback hardly at all. It would hook maybe 5 board where I would normally hook it 20. So would you recommend a new drilling pattern on the 16 pd ball or get something that rolls earlier like a 14pd? Thanks, Jack Hi Jack, I am assuming that you mean Robert Smith as opposed to Ricky Smith. On the heavier oil patterns that we normally have on tour, I will use a sanded ball and or slow my speed down. Also it isn't always such a bad thing to go more direct to the pocket. You don't always have to cover a lot of boards to strike even though most of us feel that covering more boards is better. You might want to ask your local pro shop operator their suggestions as to what might help you in case you do bowl on lane conditions which have a lot of oil like the PBA uses. I would recommend practicing on those lane conditions to help you become better. Tony December 13, 2003 New Orleans LA Hi Walter Ray, I am one of your biggest fans. I love watching you bowl and I wanna learn how to bowl like you do. But as of now, I want to get 2 new bowlings balls. One for Oily/Medium lanes and one for medium/drier lanes. I stand on one 5 boards directly left of the middle of the lane and I aim for the 10 board counting from the right. Do you have any suggestions on what bowling balls would work well for those lane conditions provided the information I have given you? Do you prefer any brand bowling balls over the others? Thank You, Tony Hi Tony, Since I have never seen you bowl or the lane conditions that you bowl on, it would be unprofessional of me to suggest certain bowling balls to use. I would suggest that you have your local pro shop operator watch you bowl and have them suggest some balls for you to use. Good luck. George December 4, 2003 Montreal Canada Hello Walter and Paige, Have you ever tested any AZO balls made by someone we know at Lane Masters, and if you have, what did you think of them. Regards, GK Hi George, I have not bowled with any AZO balls that I know of yet. Bobby December 3, 2003 Chillicothe OH Which hammer bowling ball would you recommend for medium/dry conditions and dry conditions? How would you have them drilled up to go long and not snap at the end? I currently have a reaper with leverage weight. Thanks Hi Bobby, I am not familiar with the new Hammer bowling balls. But if your bowling balls are snapping too hard on the back end then you might want to try drilling a ball with the pin either between the finger holes or even left (for right handers) of the finger holes to tame down a sharp hook. The other thing is to look for an old 3 piece reactive ball or even a urethane or plastic ball. Steven December 3, 2003 OR Walter Ray, i have a question to ask.i just got some abs dyno thane tour ultra bowling shoes.they are really good.and i went to there web site on bowling balls.which ball do you roll with because when i saw the last dyno thane you were bowling with it is not on the ball list. Hi Steven, I use Dexter shoes. I can't really comment on those other shoes as I never really wore them even though I did have a pair. I use different bowling balls and have used Dynothane. I am not familiar with their entire line, but ball companies are always coming out with new balls all the time. John December 2, 2003 Liverpool NY I have an end over end roll and slow ball speed. I was wondering what ball matches these strenghts. Thanks Hi John, For a slower ball speed, you will more likely want a ball which doesn't hook that much, especially on dry lanes. You might want to look for a 3 piece reactive ball or maybe a urethane or plastic ball. It would depend on the lane conditions on which you bowl. Steve November 29, 2003 Femont MI I have three main balls I use. All have a similar pin placement but as for the cgs I have one with the cg out...one that is in... and one that is straight down. Although they have a similar amount of hook they vary in the amount of hitting power they have and it varies which one hits better on different lane conditions and different houses. Now what puzzles me is that one ball has a medium hook rating...one has a medium-high rating..and the third has a high hook rating...Yet they have similar amount of hook. I thought the medium rated hook ball would sometimes out hook and hit the higher hook rated balls because I had the pin to cg setup at the in position but I'm being told by a knowledgable person that the medium rated ball does that because of its low rg rating. Could you straighten my thinking out on this. I hope to see you soon on TV again. I really enjoy seeing that fire that burns within you going for a win Hi Steve, Unfortunately you are asking the wrong person. I am not that technical about bowling balls. You also can't believe every thing you read in advertisements. I think that drilling balls is more of an art than a science. Hopefully I will be bowling on TV real soon, I definitely miss that. Bob November 24, 2003 Detroit MI comments: I understand you don't have a contract with a particular ball manufacturer, but can you tell us what brand and model the balls are on your web site in the Equipment section? Also, in golf a player is required to play with the same ball once the tournament starts. Don't you think it would add a lot more skill to have bowlers only use one ball in a tournament? (I know the ball manufacturers wouldn't like that!). How about requiring a bowler to stick with one strike ball per game so he would have to think about what the lanes might do later in that game? Enjoy watching you on TV and hope to see you win soon in 2003-2004. Bob Lee Hi Bob, I don't feel that I should be giving any free advertisement to a ball company, so I don't. Some bowlers think of their bowling balls like golf clubs. They want to use different balls for different conditions and lines to the pocket. It is basically apples and oranges to compare golf balls and bowling balls. It would probably make the players have to learn how to do more different things with their hand if they were allowed to use only 1 ball per block. And you should probably include no extra spare ball in that idea. But I don't think that is going to happen any time soon on the PBA tour. Jamie November 24, 2003 Flagstaff AZ Walter Ray, I wanted to know if there were many pros that throw a lighter spare ball than there strike ball. The lighter ball would create more reflection, less stressing on your arm, and less effort to throw i would think. It would seemingly make a great difference in a 50 game tournament. I might try this. Thanks Jamie Hi Jamie, I am pretty sure that pretty much all of the pros use the same weight bowling ball for their spares as they do for their strikes. The different weight ball would actually cause a bit of a difference in timing. There are a few spares where a lighter ball would be a detriment and a couple where the lighter ball would help. I would think that it would be better to use a similar type of weight, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't work. Good luck! Jay November 5, 2003 Bristol CT I was wondering what types of balls I should use if bowling on synthetic lanes and the lanes I bowl on are very dry on the back end. The ball that I have now breaks too much on the back end. Hi Jay, If your ball is hooking too much on the back end, it might be that it is "too" reactive. You might want to try an older ball that doesn't have as much surface or look into a 3 piece ball which shouldn't hook as much. I would ask your local ball driller as they should know what would work best for you on your lane conditions. Bill November 5, 2003 Fishkill NY Walter Ray, Thanks for taking our questions (its a part of what make you our favorite bowler); I wanted to follow up on the usual "what equipment are you going to use this year" (which I respect your no-contract response to) with a more general question about the equipment that you have ...... what are the different general variables/characteristics about a bowling ball that influence your selecting it??? Surface, hole placement, weight. And, are there general things about your bowling ball equipment that do not change?? Like the way they are drilled, etc. Thanks; and good luck in the coming season. Bill .... PS - Hope to see you in person in Albany, NY and West Babylon, NY and maybe Windsor, CT (got my "Dream Season T-shirt). PS - Greetings to Paige from Fishkill, NY !!!! Hi Bill, I am not really that picky about how to set up my bowling balls for drilling. I usually use a pin around 1 to 2 o'clock. I tend to like balls which are a bit more reactive than other pros. More importantly, if I like the way the ball rolls down the lane I am more likely to use it. What is odd, is that a lot of my balls hook nearly the same amount with just a little variation. So I do a lot more with my changing my speed to get different looks. Ross November 3, 2003 Oak Ridge TN Hi Walter Ray, Been a fan of you bowling for years, and since I'm going on 60, that quite a while. My problem is this. I've been a consistant 190+ average bowler in my local house for close to 25 years. I'm a stroker with a medium ball speed. I throw two types of bowling balls, a 16 pound Brunswick urethane that I have to get down early for a long, consistant roll, which I use most of the time. I was always fairly accurate with it on being in or near the pocket on most shots, and when using it for spares, I took pride being able to hit single pins nearly dead center, and picking which side of multiple woods spare I wanted to hit. Baby splits were no problem as I usually made most of them, with a fair amout of makes on larger, offset splits. My ball speed is probably a tad bit slow, but when I try to pick it up, I usually tend to pull the shot. The second ball is a 15 pound Purple, Rhino Pro. I was leaving a lot of 10 pins on good, pocket hits with the urethane ball, and I read an article that said the Rhino might help that. As the 10 is my toughest spare, I was please to see that the Rhino carried the 10 pin on pocket hits, but left me the 7 pin instead. That was a good trade off since I could make the 7 pin 99% of the time, and the 10 pin about 80%. As such, my average went up from the lower 190's to the upper 190's. Here's the problem....the last six to seven weeks, (and I think it's due to a new oiling patter used by my house), I can't get either ball to react the way they used to. When I set the Uertane down just over the foul line for my controlled roll, it hits and takes off left immediatley. In order to compentsate, I must loft the ball to just behind the arrows to stop it from over breaking. However, lofting the ball does not completely cure the problem, as now, the Urethane doesn't have the time to get into a nice forward roll. It's very unpredicatible. One time it might not break at all, the next it will overbreak if I'm a tad bit short of my mark, or if my speed drops down just a bit. The Rhino, just wont break on these conditions. I've "baked" the ball a couple of times to remove oil build up, and even sanded it, but that will only last for the first two or three frames of the first game, and then it becomes saturated with oil again, and stops breaking...It just seems to never come out of the skid. My spare shooting has suffered, because I used to adjust off my strike line for all my spares, but I now longer have a predictable stike line, and the ball reacts "strangely", to say the least. My average has dropped from 198, which I finished up with last year and started out the first three weeks of this year, down to 178 after last weeks poor showing. Next week is our 10th week of bowling for this season. I know you can't really tell me what I'm doing or what is causing the problem from my description, but have you ever run into anything like this and how did you get out of it? Do you think it's time for a new bowling ball? Thanks, Ross Ramsey Hi Ross, I can't understand how the urethane ball would hook more than the reactive ball! Did the urethane the ball hook more on the old oil pattern? If it did, then that would at least be consistent. You might want to chat with your local pro shop operator and ask them about the new oiling pattern. It might be that you need to adjust your line to the pocket or maybe a new ball might be in order. I would recommend trying to line up your spares off of a center target between the 3rd and 5th arrows as opposed to your strike line. You might also want to practice a few extra games to get a better idea of how the new oil pattern might play. Good luck. Jim October 27, 2003 Homer N.Y. Walter Ray, With all the ball manufacturers coming out with a new ball, which seems like every 10 minutes, many of which are discontined after a short time, how do you keep up with all the hi-tech equipment? Are you constantly changing or do you more less stick with certain ones for a period of time? Also, how many games are most of the new balls good for before change? Best Wishes for another great year! Thank you, Jim Hi Jim, I don't keep up with all of the new bowling balls, especially balls of companies that I don't use their equipment. When I get a ball that I like, I will use for quite a while. I probably drill the least amount of bowling balls of the top 40 players out on tour. I think that bowling balls can last from 50 to 200 games, but a fresh surface will normally hook more than a ball which has many games on them. But a ball can be resurfaced or polished so that it is almost like new. Some bowlers like to have a fresh surface for almost every block that they block. But pros on tour with agreements with ball companies can drill a ball about as often as they want. Nap October 26, 2003 Saudi Arabia Is blade particle for wood or synthetic lanes? Hi Nap, I am unfamiliar with what blade particle is. If it is a new ball, I don't think that the type of lanes makes as much difference as how much oil and where the oil is put on the lane. Jeremy October 23, 2003 Sikeston MO Walter Ray, I was just wondering i read on the pba website that you are on staff with Track now is that true? Thanks for your time and good luck on tour this year Hi Jeremy, I do not have an exclusive contract with Track and thanks. Randy October 20, 2003 Sabina OH Walter Ray, I wrote you last year about the old Crush/R that you used to throw. You responded that while you loved throwing it, you thought that it would probably go quite a bit straighter than todays equipment. I just wanted to let you know that I finally found one on e-bay and it actually out hooks my Ebonite Apex Addiction (particle) and Storm Core Power LRG (also Particle Polished). It sides further but, has a much larger backend reaction. That is on a 40' to 43' medium oil league shot. Have you been offered a sponsorship deal with a ball company yet? Or, would you prefer to stay a "free agent". When you were sponsored, did the company put alot of pressure to throw the latest release even if you did not care for it? Can't wait to see you on TV again, You are the MAN!! Long time fan, Randy Hi Randy, Did you know that you are in the hometown of one the greatest horseshoe pitchers ever, Harold Reno? Interesting about that Crush/R you found. Most of the older equipment out there is used by pros when they don't want much hook. I am still a free agent as far as bowling ball companies go. I wouldn't mind having a contract with a ball company, but I also don't want to sell myself short. When I was on contract with a ball company they pretty much let me throw the ball I wanted to, but I also realized that they would prefer the newer balls to be on TV. But I always felt it would be better to shoot 230 something with an older ball than 180 something with a new ball. If I didn't feel comfortable with a ball, I normally wouldn't try to throw it. Gene October 19, 2003 Melbourne, FL Hi Walter Ray, What is meant by the pin,I hear so much about is it that little dot I see on the ball or is it internal,and what does it do? Also, I am going to get a reactive resin ball from a fellow bowler,it is 14 lbs which means I will be going up 1 lb. for more carry. He tells me it hooks quite a bit.when I have the ball drilled to fit my hand can I have it drilled so it will hook less. Thanks Gene Hi Gene, The pin is the part of the weight block which comes through the shell of the ball. Depending on the tilt of the weight block the pin might be an 'out' or an 'in' pin. The mathematical relationship on how the pin position and how it will affect your roll is very complicated. But over the years, ball drillers have noticed that pins in certain places will affect your roll. You would be better off asking your local pro and what pin placements will to for your roll. If you want a ball drilled to hook less, ask your ball driller and they should be help you, but the biggest factor on a ball hooking is its cover. TG October 18, 2003 Hamilton OH Hi Walter Ray, wishing you the best.have you ever used azo or revolution ist bowling balls?if so could you please give me your opinion.the revolution-ist is a overseas ball that has a thicker shell.i am a right handed bowler and throw the ball about 13-14 mphs.i am a tweener,not a cranker or a stroker,but somewhere in the middle.with medium revolutions.can you give me some tips on how to pick up my ball speed?i use a 5 step delivery.i start at the back of the approach.i need more ball speed and revolutions.what layouts work best on house conditions,wet in middle dry outside? Hi TG, I am not familiar with Revolutions line of bowling balls. If you want to pick up your speed, then try to get more arm swing and specifically a higher back swing. I don't normally bowl on house conditions, so you should ask your pro shop ball driller what he recommends for you. Bob October 15, 2003 Pittsburgh PA Could you tell me what the spec's are on your grip? What is the span, finger & thumb pitch's, hole size, etc.? Thanx! Hi Bob, My drilling specs are 31/32 holes for the fingers (I use oval finger grips) and a 1 & 3/8 hole for my thumb (I use a customized thumb grip). The pitches on the fingers are 1/4 left for the middle finger and 1/4 right for the ring finger with no forward on either. The thumb hole has 3/16 right with no forward, but there is probably a slightly different pitch on the thumb hole in the grip itself. The span to the middle finger is 4 & 1/2 and 4 & 7/16 to the ring finger. The grips add about 1/4 to 3/8 inch to the spans. My thumb grips have a lot of bevel and I use about 10 pieces of smooth black tape on the back of the grip with a cork insert on the inside. Rich October 11, 2003 Chicago IL Hi Walter Ray, I wear a wrist support when I bowl because I have a weak wrist.Looking back at old pictures and videos of PBA bowlers back in the 80's and 90's, many of them including yourself wore wrist supports or gloves. Nowadays you hardly see them on tour. Just curious on why many pros stop wearing them. Is it more of a macho thing for a professional bowler not to use it? Or is there any PBA rules prohibiting them? Thanks and good luck in the fall tour. Hope to get an autograph when you stop by in Illinois. Hi Rich, Most wrist supports are for helping bowlers keep their wrists from 'breaking' into a weak position. Professionals normally have no problem keeping their wrists in the proper position. In fact, some of the wrist devices would actually keep some pros from hooking the ball as much as they do since they cup their wrists so much. Sometimes professionals were compensated for using certain products on TV even if they may not normally use them. I haven't used a wrist device for many years. Equipment Q&A  [1-20]   [21-40]  [41-60]  [61-80]  [81-100]   [101-120]  [121-140]  [141-160]  [161-180  [201-220  [221-240]  [241-260]   [261-280]  [281-300]  [301-320]  [321-340]  [341-360]  [361-380]   [381-400]  [401-420]  [421-440]