Any Pro-shop to recommend?
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I guess most of us bowlers who are currently training under coach Thomas are in for a good deal.
Reason is Jae passed me a ball, Columbia's Complete Chaos. Thomas did a rundown on the specs of the ball, and then suggested a drilling pattern which was discussed with my regular driller, Unc Sam. They decided that 4 x 3 3/8 (remember? prata?) will give me too much problems and toned down to 2.5 inches all sides. That is a triangle which they draw from pin, to CG to PAP I think...or was it the balance hole?
I'm looking forward to getting the ball on Wednesday...
haveing drilled 2 balls under Sam and the 3rd one coming up, I feel that Sam IS a pretty good driller. But you need to show him your style of play, and what conditions do you want the ball to be played under. Usually, the first ball he drills for you is not up to expectations. But it gets better and better with every ball.
But he's very conservative about widening the thumbhole, so you have to tell him to widen it REALLY BIG.
Also, coach Thomas recommends that you keep a copy of your measurements after you drilled the ball. If it so happens that you drill another ball somewhere else, you can refer back to the measurements and use it again. Also, it helps you and your driller to make changes based on previous measurements and adjust from there.
Good luck! -
P1
But you need to show him your style of play, and what conditions do you want the ball to be played under. Usually, the first ball he drills for you is not up to expectations. But it gets better and better with every ball.
I think the above can be said of [b[all[/b] drillers. Btw, the "triangle" is always between the PAP, CG and pin of a ball. CG is not even that important these days. Pin and PAP distance is the lion's share of the ball reaction equation, all things being equal.
Airgrinder
I don't think it is too wise to keep changing drillers for the reasons which you quote. For instance, when your ring finger was stretched you should have gone back to him and worked the problem out after explaining to him.
Folks, there're a few things to getting a driller:
1. No one driller works for everyone. It is important to have chemistry with the person who translates what you want to what you get. This is simple to understand.
2. You have to discuss what you want and what to do to accomplish those objectives. And i don't mean objectives like, "more hook" or "hook later". You don't have to be a technical guru to describe what you want. Here are some examples of things you can work out together - where you want the weight of the ball to sit in your palm, how much slack do you want on your span, et cetera.
3. Ball drilling is an art. Unless you are buying a ball with a very complex asymmetrical core design, you can pretty much throw the drill sheet away. And forget about how many inches your CG is from the PAP or how large is your balance hole or stuff like that.
All these are numbers. Statistics. They are for reference and hold true only for a ball at rest. Once you throw a ball, dynamic weight takes over the static weights. And good ball drillers know that there is no way in heaven any machine can even measure dynamic weight as it changes. If you are at a driller who is obsessed with static weights, you better move on.
This means that your driller is trying to match what you tell him to what you want. It is guesswork at best. That means the bowler and the driller must both discuss solutions. Nobody gets it right first time.
All this means a good ball layout comes from committed and accurate feedback on the bowler's part (since the good drillers are asking anyway). More often than not, it's the bowler who supplies bad input to the driller before blaming the driller.
P.S., I made a minor adjustment to the way i throw the ball two years ago. That meant my grip was no longer the way it was. To get the best possible feel, i used an old ball to plug, drill, and re-plug to experiment with different layouts. During that time, I spent up to three hours during every re-plug session inside Walter's shop doing nothing but discussing what changes to try next. And we're talking about changes the size of one-eighth of an inch per time. (Like everything in bowling, make changes one-at-a-time to find out which one works). We drew diagrams, discussed my hand's idiosyncracies and played with pitches, et cetera. And we didn't even talk about ball weight layouts because that changes with different balls.
5 layouts later, I found the layout that I am still using till this day. And all my balls have since been re-laid with it.
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Wow. Dun think I have this chance though. Anyway, good for u. Ya, I will stick to one when I found one that I think could be trusted as in giving the best to bowlers, and not primarily money-oriented.Originally posted by harmzuay:..... To get the best possible feel, i used an old ball to plug, drill, and re-plug to experiment with different layouts. During that time, I spent up to three hours during every re-plug session inside Walter's shop doing nothing but discussing what changes to try next. And we're talking about changes the size of one-eighth of an inch per time....5 layouts later, I found the layout that I am still using till this day....
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I guess I am a bit too late on the topic, but I guess I wanna share my 2cents worth of thoughts.
Unless you are like ....Hamz... You guys would not know what you are getting yourself into.
No one driller want's to correct the ball drilled by someone else. And most would say the latter was wrong.
I agree w Hamz that you have to explain the problems you encounter. Like when you bowl, the thumbs cannot come out etc.
Best of all, always get the driller to watch your game. Most driller can bowl but may no be the best. Someone mentioned about Jack Wong, he may be too straightforward. But that's his character.
I had already had about 14 or so balls.... can't remember the exact no. But I had not changed the driller, I just changed the ball and my style and layout.
One must be technically learned in order to know what you want, but one must also have good fundaments if not, no driller can meet your "expectations"
There is one saying "Its the bowler and not the ball or lane"
By the way, my driller is Razali at Vision pro-shop, he is now located at the Grassroots Club at Yio Chu Kang. Anyone interested to go to him just let me know and may be I can come along too.
My final advise for beginners, go for the extreme, go for a ureathane ball with semi fingertip and 0 pitch for finger and thumb.