This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, December, 2020
Experts agree (except for those who don’t): the most important aspect of a bowling ball, especially at the highest levels of the game, is its surface. Whether the cover stock is reactive resin, urethane or plastic is obviously important, but more than that, it’s the precise surface of that surface that really matters.
A reactive-resin ball that comes out of the box with a 2,000-grit finish may be perfect for some bowlers in some conditions. In others, a bowler may want to use that same ball, but with a shinier finish (higher than 2,000 in this example) or a duller finish (lower than 2,000). In most cases, a ball with a shinier finish will hook later on the lane and a duller finish will hook sooner.
Intuitive so far.
To dull the cover, we want to add surface to the ball. In order to add surface, we must remove surface. Yes, in bowling, we refer to removing some of the surface from a bowling ball as adding surface to the bowling ball.
This process is why ball reps don’t own any clean jackets. Using sanding pads to scuff the bowling ball (the entire ball by rule, even though the track is the only part that touches the lane), the surface of the ball becomes duller. Although the shards and dust all over the ball rep and surrounding area make it clear surface has been removed, we now say the ball has more surface.
That’s great and still intuitive, but what do we achieve when we add surface by removing surface? We’re looking to find friction, specifically between the ball and the lane. The rougher the surface of the ball, the greater the potential for friction. Getting absurdly technical, but still intuitive, the higher a ball’s Ra value (no one knows what this stands for but it measures the height of the peaks and valleys on a ball’s surface; think the depth of treads on your car tires) and RS value (again, no one knows what this stands for or why RS is fully capitalized but Ra is half-capitalized, but it measures the distance between the peaks and valleys; think the distance between your tire treads), the rougher the surface of the ball and greater potential for friction.
Of course, physicists will tell us friction always exists when a bowling ball is in contact with a lane. From the shiniest ball on the most voluminous oil to the dullest ball on an outdoor lane in downtown Reno, there is always friction.
To appease the large number of physicists who subscribe to this publication, we should clarify: when we say we’re looking for friction, what we actually mean is we’re looking for more friction. Generally, we’re talking about finding friction at the end of the oil pattern or in parts of the pattern with less oil volume or even some spots broken down in the front and middle parts of the lane.
Sometimes, we want to find friction to use the friction and sometimes we want to find friction to avoid the friction. The latter case can lead to lofting, when we’re hurling the ball over the friction we don’t want, thus allowing us to get to the friction we do want, all the while creating a totally different kind of friction with anti-loft community.
Understanding what surface means to your bowling ball can have a profound impact on your game. If you can create the potential for more friction by adding surface to the bowling ball by removing surface from the bowling ball, and if you can consistently get your ball to the ideal break point where the desirable friction resides by avoiding the other parts of the lane where the detrimental friction lives, and if you trust the process and take it one shot at a time, you should be fine.