"Bowling Blind"-con't

Demo Days

That was "Swing"ing
In recent years, bowling ball companies have been producing bowling balls en masse trying to find out which ball will draw the greatest revenue gains for their company. Unfortunately, and this is for another time and about 30 pages worth of discussing, most bowling ball companies have failed to stick with the bread and butter for two reasons: 1) technology is always advancing so one company is going to always come up with the "best damn bowling ball, period" and 2) they fear getting outstripped by other companies who make the advancements.

What certain companies have failed to realize is that most league bowlers will often stick with a bowling ball the garnered past success for them and is affordable. Most bowlers will not willingly purchase a ball in the 140-210 dollar range for a ball that they have never tried before and in tough economic times, it makes perfect sense: you cannot reasonably invest in a product that you have no idea if it suits your wants or needs in particular. In the last few years, bowling ball companies have also buoyed their new products with what they have called Demo Days. Demo Days are nothing short of public viewing for bowlers to try out a company's newest release and with little money down: free. Nothing quite like a free deal but there a few caveats involved in Demo Days, primarily the one in which it is highly unlikely for a pre-drilled bowling ball to fit as properly as your custom fit bowling balls that you are throwing. However, one of the great pluses in Demo Days are that you can get a bowling ball to fit close to your specs within seconds with the brand new switch grips invention. A simple twist and click and bingo...you got a thumb slug and two fingertip grips ready to go.

This past Monday at Bowl Long Island-Patchogue in the Ebonite Monday Open, Columbia 300 showed the public their newest release, the Power Swing. To avoid getting super technical and boring my fellow readers (all 5 of you, thank you!) the Power Swing is Columbia's newest high performance release bowling ball designed to create more overall hook downlane, which for most league bowlers is a premium while performing on "blocked lane conditions" (copyright: John Jowdy) but due to its 4000 Abralon surface, it does allow more control in the heads due to its matted finish. Now every bowling ball company releases a bowling ball with advertising and marketing ploys telling you, the bowler, that their new bowling ball is the best ball on market today. The upper level bowler chooses to look past that and into what bowling ball is working for them at the present time (whether it be manufacturer, core design, coverstock) but one thing that can spark interest in a bowling ball is what happens when a good player gets his/her hands on it and they build up the bowling ball and push it to the moon.

Luckily for all my five readers...I can safely push the Power Swing because I used it Monday night during the Demo Day. Not just for 5 minutes in practice, not for a few games before my league to see what it does...I chose to use it in my league that night.

What does it do..?
It does kick off the friction to the left (I am left handed...right for righties) and it does something that most players enjoy seeing once it gets in the pocket area: it carries everything. Most off pocket hits still had enough carry to get through the pindeck and leave an X on your scoreboard. It does create area for more overall hook downlane and the surface does help get it started soon enough to where a miss inside of target will lay off enough and a miss wide can can grab the lane and make the move (warning: this wasn't the US Open I was on...it was a THS but it was worth noting facts).

What does it NOT do..?
It will not make a move in the oil line...repeat: IT WILL...NOT MAKE A MOVE...IN THE OIL LINE!!! I stand corrected, it does move off the pattern but it does not finish hard enough causing weaker carry. In the first game, I was trying to play a tighter line through the heads around 18-19 with my feet angling to the left to get into 8-9 at the arrows. Ball had good movement...good roll...not so great carry. Light hits weren't there, high hits were marginally there, but a 210 with a high performance ball was not what I was looking for. Seeing this, I moved about 3 boards right (who said lefties can't move in?!?) and elected to circle the conditioner more at 11-12 at the arrows with a breakpoint at 4-5...the result was a 279 game with the only non strike being a shaker 10 in the 4th frame which I got it inside of target down lane (12 at arrows, 7 was the breakpoint) and the carrydown created a late arriving ball that really had no chance of striking. The third game was more of the same with striking but carry went down a little bit for a 234 game (when the ball started laboring, a move right and more hit did the trick just fine) for a nice 733 series using a ball I had been using for 3 hours. One more plus note: on my fill shot in the second game, I moved about 6 boards left to 16-17 with the feet and tried to take some hand out of it and play the dirt on the outside part of the lane. The result was a clean whistle strike so playing the friction also worked as well but playing in the track was not the best look for this ball. Either a significant move left of right worked best.

Overall, the Power Swing worked out very well for me and I must safely say that it would be a ball that I am interested in adding to my bag for the tournament portion of the season if i have to play more in the center part of the lane given the lane conditions or if in league night where there are multiple left handed bowlers on the lane to where the outside part of the lane might get swirly. Not only did I throw it during league but a few other bowlers tried the Power Swing during league and had similar results which would be striking a fair amount. Rich Lee, who is third in the league in average with a 238 clip tried it and fired games of 258-247-246=751 playing up the boards and throwing it firm. Fellow lefthander Paul Bajorski was bowling one pair to the right of me and also shot 279-762 for the night and he was getting more tilt on the ball. Me being the fool I am tried the track area and puckered a 210 out there until i got smart and moved right. It should also be noted that both Paul and I bowled with another lefthander on our pair playing around first arrow so the decision to move right for the both of us was the right decision.

For a list of our league standings check out this site: http://leaguesecretary.com/LeagueFiles.aspx?LID=41312&IFTID=1

The Demo Day was a success in my opinion and I would highly suggest any player looking into a new ball for the next swing of league or tournaments search all the major bowling websites and see when they have a Demo Day available in the area or consult a pro shop operator at your bowling center to evaluate what you need for your game.

Coming shortly: Bowling's #1 vs. Bowling's #2 at long last!