The insides of pro bowling balls | Hacker News Reader

The insides of pro bowling balls

popsci.com

188 pointsmhb50 comments

Pretty light on detail and its been a while since I bowled, but back in college movies like kingpin and the big lebowski convinced me to buy my own bowling ball. At the time it was around a 150 bucks for the ball I used, and it had a different material on the outside than the shiny plastic house balls that allows better grip(Plastic, Urethane, reactive resin, etc). In addition to the lopsided weight, you could drill it differently(and fill in previous holes) if you wanted to adjust the hook. I know that I was able to bowl above 200 consistently and frequently would get 230-240 without much practice(other than the recreational bowling). The main reason being that having a bowling ball that is able to find the pocket will knock down more pins. Lastly, having a custom drill to your hand and finger size allows you to carry much more weight. I bowled a 16lb ball easily. The house balls at most bowling alleys drill enormous holes in the 15 and 16 lb balls so you have to give it a death grip to hold the ball.

Modern bowling balls help a lot for strikes to be sure but a larger influence is the oil pattern on the lanes. Most places use a "house pattern" that looks like a "Christmas Tree" in that the oil pattern is nearly across the lane near the bowler and taper to a point in the center as it gets down the lane.

This pattern helps the bowler a lot since shots that are thrown out too far (pushed) encounter a dry lane surface earlier and the ball can begin to find traction on the lane sooner so it has time to roll over and make its way into the pocket. Likewise if the shot is "pulled" the ball will skid on oil for a longer time before it finds traction and can roll over and thus have a better chance of finding the pocket and still maintain some angle to give a good chance of a strike.

Professional bowlers do not use a "house shot" and in fact have multiple different oil patterns they use to make it more challenging. In general, a "reverse block" style pattern is used which means it is oily near the gutters and dryer near the center meaning imprecise shots are penalized harshly. But your typical bowling league doesn't have any incentive to use these types of oil patterns because everyone would be awful and not want to bowl there anymore and take their team to another house where they can score and enjoy themselves and delude themselves into thinking they could go pro.

This is believed to have had a negative effect on professional bowling popularity as a spectator sport as many recreational bowlers roll high scores because of the easy shot and modern ball tech and aren't interested in watching pros who don't appear to be much better.

So this would be the equivalent of the NBA raising the hoop by a foot without telling anyone that they did this making it look like the players aren’t much better than street ballers? Did the pros do this simply because otherwise everyone would play a perfect game every time making it boring?

Yes, pro's would roll 300 after 300 on a typical house pattern. It wouldn't be interesting.

I haven't watched in many years but I recall they started to show on broadcasts the oil pattern being used (they had 6 different types and they each had an animal name I think) and the announcers would detail how the pattern needed to be played for different types of bowler styles and left/right handedness. Lefties always have an advantage because fewer people bowl from that side so the oil doesn't get pushed around as much and they can create a "channel" from their own shots that "groove" the ball for them.

Each pattern has a different length down the lane (some are long, some are short) and different application of oil from side to side. A Google image search will show you examples.

I've bowled on them and they are humbling for someone who reliably shot over 200 on a typical house shot.

As a counterpoint, golf courses drastically increase the course difficulty prior to tournaments by growing out the rough and cutting grass on the green shorter (which lowers friction and makes the ball roll/bounce off the green easier). Of course, golf is an inherently difficult and frustrating sport even on the friendliest course conditions, so it's pretty hard to think the pros are no better than average joe.

Well that took me down an unexpected rabbit hole.

If anyone is interested, here are some of the PBA official oil patterns:

https://bowl.com/Sport_Bowling/Sport_Bowling_Home/PBA_Experi...

I love these types of charts. It looks like I am doing real work!!

A custom fit ball is so much nicer. It just falls off your hand.

This article is pretty crap, it really gives no insight into what a core does to the ball (mostly change the shape of how the ball curves, not how much). Like how does the article not make one mention of how the core causes the rotation of the ball to change as it spins to reveal clean coverstock (i.e. flare)? The article is purely Storm's marketing about what they say about different cores. Not to mention, the core has a relatively minor effect on the balls performance than the coverstock, yet that is barely alluded to in the article.

I was always disappointed that I can't get the ball to curve.

I now know a bunch of things need to be exactly perfect for this to be controllable or even happen at all.

I no longer feel guilty on company bowling parties to just shoot straight:)

meh, just two finger hook grip it and you can spin any solid core ball. it's just not great for your wrist long term

It's essentially impossible to hook a ball you get at the alley. They are made of polyester and just slide across the oil. You also don't have fingertip grips drilled in them.

Pro's and bowling enthusiasts use the same type of ball (but fitted for their hand) for spares. You generally don't want a ball that can hook when trying to pick up a single pin. But strikes, a ball that can recover and angle towards the pocket and "roll over" right as it enters will store much of the energy you put into the ball and release it at just about the right time resulting in better strike odds.

It's not remotely close to impossible to hook a polyester house ball. You have to go out of your way to do it, but it's not even particularly difficult to get some movement.

I guess my point was to do it effectively and consistently in terms of scoring. I mean, serious bowlers and professionals use them specifically because they don't like to move.

Not true, if you get enough revs on the ball a urethane coverstock will curve no problem (IIRC most alley balls are urethane due to higher durability than polyester). Throw two handed with no thumb with your palm under the ball and axis rotation (i.e. the axis of rotation is at an angle to the direction the ball travels) and you will get significant curve.

They’re polyester. Urethane will hook much more easily but not as much as a reactive resin (polyurethane with plasticizers) ball.

Yeah you can hook it if you throw it like that but the context of the comment is rolling it reliably and accurately.

Polyester balls are made to go straight. Polyurethane is even difficult compared to modern resin.

Looked it up because I was sure I heard this before. Brunswick house balls are indeed listed as being urethane [1]. I can say from experience that my polyester ball is both less durable than a house ball and curves less than a house ball when thrown two handed.

There are plenty of professionals that bowl two handed like that, including the most successful bowler of the past decade. It is a completely valid and accurate method to hook the ball a lot.

[1] https://brunswickbowling.com/bowling-centers/equipment-parts...

And they all use reactive resin. No professional no matter their style uses a polyester ball for their first shot.

I'm terrible at bowling, but I've found that I can get kid-weight balls to curve by holding them in my palm (no fingers in holes) and tossing them with a gratuitous amount of spin. I'm sure that serious bowlers laugh or cringe, but I'm only there for the company of friends.

That reminds me of the Revisionist History episode "The Big Man Can't Shoot" which is about how Rick Barry shoots underhand free throws in basketball. It's a Malcolm Gladwell podcast, so take it with a pinch of salt, but his point is that the underhand method is far superior and still no one uses it because they're afraid it looks ridiculous.

In short: keep doing it the ridiculous way and ignore the serious bowlers ;)

I have no idea why someone like Shaq never tired underhand (maybe he did in practice). His free throw shooting was, by far, the weakest point in his game and no one is going to mock him, except maybe himself.

Basically, it is pride that kept him and others from doing it. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-shaq-shaquille-oneal-nev...

Most sporting skill is from repetition leading to muscle memory so you are able to do the skill consistantly every time. There are lots of examples of pros with "bad" form that still exceeded in their sport just because they had become accustomed to this "bad" form.

It occurs to me that the 'palm ' technique I described is actually used in candlepin bowling. But, worry not. I'm not self conscious about doing my own thing :)

I had no idea, now I'm disappointed that the pros aren't doing this with solid spheres.

I admit I had a similar initial reaction, but then I realized it's similar to golf clubs. Golfers don't use simple wooden mallets, nor do we expect them to. And part of the skill of the game is knowing when to use what when.

It is still very difficult to get a curve from a pro ball, it's just more possible. If you get one of these you are more likely to be confused with what it is doing that to suddenly be bowling turkeys and picking up spares.

Pro's use very difficult oil patterns to bowl on. You can't see the oil unfortunatly so people don't realize how important it is to making the game fairly easy or very difficult.

Most amateur bowlers who are holding a 200 average in their local bowling league would struggle to break 130 on the same oil patterns the pros use.

Pro bowlers don't make a lot of money and I'd wager many people on this Website have more income per year than a professional bowler. But they do have an opportunity for making money on endorsements for things like expensive bowling balls.

The ball matters to be sure. But the oil patterns used today in the pro circuits circumvent a lot of it. A pro would probably roll 300 game after 300 game on the types of oil patterns laid on a typical league lane.

[googling "oil patterns"]

Would it be more interesting if the oil was made easier for viewers to see?

It would

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1--KU5eBXBQ

I feel the same. Everything I thought I knew about bowling seems different now; of course those weird insides hook.

When I was researching robotics simulation I came across inertia tensors. Basically the way a rigid body rotates can be described by a simple mathematical 3x3 array that describes the mass distribution within the object.

These designs are interesting, but despite the weird bulbs or internal fins, the values of the inertia tensors could be compared objectively if they were available.

I wonder if there is an untapped market for both testing of existing balls and construction of new balls with precisely controlled inertia tensors. Eg. "Build me a ball just like this one, but with 3% more inertia around the z axis"

Bowling is my daughter and I’s weekly activity. We both just picked up our pro balls yesterday from the shop and tried them out. It’s a night and day difference from the house balls.

Yes, just having a ball fit for your fingers is a huge difference. And not being made of plastic means you can actually get some angle from revving it.

Keep them clean so they last awhile. Modern balls really soak up oil and should be cleaned after use.

It was fun learning about bowling ball cores from my fiance's father. He runs a little pro shop out of his garage.

What was more interesting to me was the dual angle drilling technique he used, a fair bit of math involved: http://www.bowlersreference.com/Ball/Layout/Dual.htm

I'm a former bowling enthusiast, even bowling professionally at the regional level. The article is right, the weight block is important.

But there is even more physics at play in the ball surface and the way the holes are placed. (Making the ball heavier in places relative to the part of the ball that is the 'track', where it rolls, can greatly change the way the ball behaves.)

For those with an interest, read sometime about a man named 'Don McCune', who went from being a middle-grade bowler to the dominant professional almost overnight because he discovered how hardness of the ball surface is important.

Candlepin bowling was pretty much the only bowling I found in massachusetts growing up. No holes in the the significantly smaller bowling balls, no removing fallen pins between bowls. Its different, but has fallen out of favor as a lot of the local bowling alleys have closed and large chains have moved in. It always seemed like an easier bowling to get started with...

I always thought those fancy curves of regular bowling were by crazy spins..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlepin_bowling

The article and comments together are great, because all at once I have a newfound respect for the complexity of bowling (from the cores to the oil patterns) and yet am bolstered in the feeling that there is something inherently casual about it, mostly because - and I cannot get over this - I had never even considered the possibility of _scented balls_.

That seems like a weird joke, and yet many of these highly engineered and fairly expensive balls seem to not only be scented, but, for some, to come in a choice of scents (matching their colours to some degree).

This feel like a modification of the rules.

EDIT: It is of course very cool.

Don't look at modern bows used by olympic archers.

Super cool stuff!

While I had seen how it's made on... How It's Made - they show non-spherical cores[0], I hadn't known about the "Smooth Operator" as a benchmarking tool before competition. One of those industry things that are obvious once I know it, but semi-surprised to learn.

I love How It's Made.

[0] https://youtu.be/YAOX1ekylnQ?t=106

> I love How It's Made.

I'm hoping that covid is the only reason they didn't make a 2020 season.

This seems more like an advertisement than a popular science article, which is a huge shame as it's an interesting topic.

Unfortunately a lot of science journalism is now funded by this kind of advertisement. The magazine publishes the story as handed to them by the advertiser without the journalist doing any scrutiny. No money changes hands so it's perfectly legal not to label it as an advertisement.

> Precisely shaped, meticulously balanced weight blocks leverage the laws of physics to help skilled alley jockeys throw a strike on most rolls.

This is why I've always considered "pro bowling" some kind of bad joke. What fun is there in a sport decided by someone making a tiny mistake and not getting a perfect score?

I am probably going to get yelled at about this, but I would say other sports are similar in nature. Darts and golf come to mind.

It's also probably why I still enjoy college basketball but the NBA leaves me cold. The pro players are TOO good and most regular season games bore me.

I mean, shooting and archery would absolutely fall into the same category.

In reality, Bowling is much more complicated than it appears at first glance. The lane is covered in a thin layer of oil in a specific pattern. The pattern greatly affects the difficulty of hitting the pocket at the right angle to get a strike (effectively your play surface is invisible). On top of this, the pattern changes as others bowl on it. So even when you know the correct line, in two frames you may have to change your shot a little to continue hitting strikes.

The pattern of the oil greatly affects how difficult the game is. Most league bowlers bowl on a "house shot" which will have no oil on the outside of the lane and more on the inside, this can make the room for error to be 5-10 boards, due to this many good league bowlers average 220+. You take that same bowler and put them on a "sport" pattern, or a PBA pattern, and they would be lucky to shoot 170. Those patterns may mean the bowler has 1-2 boards of room to miss, and potentially if you miss any more than that your ball travels off course by a couple pins.

This story from a few months ago illustrated this[1]. It's the story of one of the main bowling-ball designers. A math student who becomes a bowling-ball designer.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27324564

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