Building Your Stance

November, 2024

One of the biggest things I see in bowlers who come to me for lessons is that they pay very little attention to building their stance. Every one of your shots is important so using the same way to build your stance helps make everything that happens after it more consistent. It all starts when you 1) pick up your ball, 2) position your feet, 3) setting your upper body with the correct posture, and 4) putting your fingers in your ball and setting its position. The video below that I did for the Storm Evolution program gives you a good system on how to build your stance. Not everyone has to do it the same way, but you need to have a uniform way to start each of your shots which should help bring you higher scores.

Building your stance is important for consistency. This video shows you how to do it.



 

Target Direction

October, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the hitting my target question in this month’s August, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

I hear all the time after a student rolls a bad shot “I missed my target”. They say this instinctively because the ball ended up at the wrong place at the pins and they think not hitting their target was the problem. Actually hitting a specific board at the arrows is not as important as the direction the ball is traveling. You need your ball to start in the middle of the lane where the oil is and arc to the outside dry part of the lane to get your ball to hook back to the pocket with some angle.

You can hit your target at the arrows at different angles and your ball can end up at very different places at the pins. The key is what physically happened to make your ball travel in different directions even if you hit your target.

Virtually no one sees their ball hit the board they are looking at—more importantly is executing a good shot physically. A breakdown in your form will cause directional misses. If your ball is traveling in the right direction but breaks too late or too soon an adjustment on the lane is in order, but if your ball travels a different direction each shot, you need to make an adjustment with your physical game.

Every shot you make you must have a plan for it. The first two things are always 1) where you stand and target to align yourself correctly for the direction you want your ball to travel; and 2) how you want to release your ball.

With a plan you can think backwards from the pins to your form to understand how you physically rolled the ball to produce the direction your ball traveled and where it ended up.



 

Bend Elbow for Power

September, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the elbow bend question in this month’s October, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

For the longest time elbow bend in the arm swing was taboo. But going back to Don Carter in the 1950’s and 60’s, then Earl Anthony in the 1970’s and 80’s proper use of elbow bend was effective. Both Don and Earl players exhibited control while being able to get enough on the ball to carry with elbow bend throughout their approaches.

Starting in the 1980’s elbow bend was becoming the catalyst for the high rev players like Bob Vespi and Jimmy Keith to unleash powerful balls. They both exhibited a lot of elbow bend during their swings.

Fast forward to today, excluding the two handers, almost all the high rev players use elbow bend. The difference with the contemporary players is they have high back swings. Some of the high rev PBA players that use a lot of elbow bend are EJ Tackett, Marshall Kent and AJ Chapman. Many others use it in varying degrees. On the female side some that do it are Daria Pajak, Verity Crawley and Stephanie Zavala.

Using elbow bend is easier than cupping the wrist. You can have a very free swing going back without cupping your wrist, then on your down swing bending your elbow starts when your arm is parallel to the floor. This uses gravity which makes your ball feel lighter than cupping your wrist on your back swing.

With the need for revs and speed, a high swing and elbow bend are the two main ingredients for one-handers to develop the rev rate to keep up with the two-handers.



 

Speed vs. Control

August, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the speed vs. control question in this month’s February, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

With the very strong balls of today, speed is a very important part of being able to control your shot and carry. The cores and covers of today’s balls make them rev up fast and hook more—having the correct speed helps you keep your ball under control.

The key to speed is it needs to match up to your rev rate, turn and the lane conditions. You basically want your speed to be very consistent and on the firm side to be able to increase or decrease it a little without distrusting your consistency.

To increase your speed, it must come from increasing your momentum to the foul line. Using your hand and arm muscles to increase your speed doesn’t work as it usually disrupts the consistency of your shot.

The easiest way to increase your body momentum is to get your ball started sooner at the beginning of your approach. Doing this will increase your foot speed naturally because your brain “tells” your feet they need to stay in time with your swing which automatically causes them to speed up. The key to this is you need to let your arm swing back and through to your release and finish and not force it—like a metronome.

To roll your ball slower you need to move your ball slower at the start of your approach which will make your feet move slower and slow your swing speed down—but still with a metronome consistency.

Whether you want to increase or decrease your speed you don’t want to sacrifice your form. The most important thing of all regardless of your speed is the control and the consistency of your swing. Stay within the perimeters of your game for speed control and match up the right ball for your speed. If the best in the world can only control about a 2-mph difference from their norm in their speed up and down to be able to still make good shots don’t think you can do more!



 

Playing the Oil Pattern

July, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the mental game question in this month’s June, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

Finding the best place to play the lanes can be figured out a few ways. Most bowlers will go right to the area they are familiar with and play that area. The problem with that is you never learn anything about the pattern and could be away from the best place to play on the lane.

The first one thing you should always do is roll your first shots very close to the gutter and slow. You want to see how far your ball slides before it hooks, not caring anything about where it ends up. Then move 5 boards at a time for the next couple of shots and observe the length the ball travels before it starts to hook. All normal patterns have less oil near the gutter than in the middle of the lane and the key is to play along the area on the lane where the least amount of oil is and the most oil, commonly referred to as the oil line. This will give you the most miss room.

If there is a graph of the oil pattern of what you are bowling on you can use that also. Start out by playing the pattern where the lightest blue is on the pattern, just outside of where the darkest blue is. This way you’re starting where the least amount of oil is and then you can adjust accordingly along that area based on your ball reaction. Your adjustments can be ball selection, release selection for the appropriate ball rotation, slow down to play a little more in the oil or speed up to play the dry depending on your other selections.

There are three key factors to pay attention to on a oil pattern graph: 1—the length of the oil; 2—the volume/amount of oil; and 3—the shape of the pattern. To me the most important is the shape of the pattern as playing it correctly will give you the most area and control. The graph shown here is from the 2024 PWBA Greater Nashville Open and I’ve highlighted in the red boxes the 3 key things to look—1 the length of oil; 2—the amount of oil; and 3—where to play the shape of the pattern.



Mental Game

June, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the mental game question in this month’s December, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

Bowling is a game of misses, the smaller your misses are the better you are. Your mental game helps you understand the misses. The first order of business is to understand what you are trying to do so you can evaluate your misses and decide on a course of action to correct them.

There are three things to think about on every shot. What you are physically going to do, the line you are going to play and the ball you use. These are the 3 things you have to decide on with every shot.

Our job as a bowler is to play the lanes the right way based on the lane conditions, use the right ball to get the right reaction on the pattern to create the best angle to carry. This all boils down to our mental game, it’s our responsibility to figure out the puzzle to score. It’s not the ball or the lane conditions responsibility for our success. It’s our job as bowlers to figure out the best way to score or get the most out of our personal abilities.

Every ball you roll is the building block for your next shot, whether it’s a good result or bad. Paying attention to what happened or is happening is the key. Always have a game plan for each shot and be ready to adjust it based on ball reaction and carry.



Timing & Swing Height

May, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the speed and balance question in this month’s February, 1997 Bowling Digest featured column.

The ideal swing height varies as much as the different styles we see. The correct swing height to achieve a smooth flowing approach and finish is directly related to timing.

The key for an effective effortless release and finish position, your ball ideally should be ready to start the down swing as your slide foot is passing your bowling side foot. If your swing is still going up at the time your slide foot is passing your bowling slide foot your ball is going in the opposite direction that your slide foot is going. Not to say that your swing can’t be continuing up when you enter your slide, but it takes a lot of physical strength to make it work which puts a lot of strain on your body. Future PBA Hall-of-Famer (and newly inducted USBC Hall of Famer) Sean Rash is a great example of someone who has a late swing.

On the other end of swing timing is 6-time PBA Champion (including 2 Majors) Kris Prather’s swing. His swing is complete by the end of his second to his last step and is ready to come down as his last step starts. This timing has his feet, core and swing all traveling forward with the start of his last step which makes his shot effortless and versatile as you can get without having to use muscle.

These pictures show both Sean and Kris entering their slide. Sean’s swing is still going up and higher than it was at the start of his last step as his slide foot is passing his side foot while Kris’ swing is lower and descending when his slide foot is passing his bowling side foot. Sean’s late timing is power player timing and harder on the body, while Kris’ earlier timing is strokers player timing which is effortless and less stressful on the body.

So the moral to the story is you need to understand your timing relative to your swing height. The start of your last step is the key place to look to see your timing. By understanding your timing and swing it will help keep you from trying to do things your game is not built for.



Speed, Timing, Balance

April, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the speed and balance question in this month’s April, 1997 Bowling Digest featured column.

Controlling the speed of your steps and maintaining balance work hand in hand. The speed of your steps is related to the timing of moving your ball at the start of your approach. If you move your ball early your feet will go faster and on the opposite end, if you move your ball later your feet will walk slower. So to control your foot speed pay attention to the speed you move your ball at the start of your approach.

Having a consistent speed when you start the movement of your ball will help your overall timing and enable you to stay balanced at the end of your approach easier.

Here are two great examples of two bowlers that use different speed and timing. 5-time PWBA Champion including the 2023 US Open and 2021 PWBA Bowler of the Year, Bryanna Cote has a slower tempo so her ball placement is later into her swing. PWBA Champion and 2017 PWBA Rookie of the Year Daria Pajak has a faster tempo and a longer swing so she gets her ball into her swing earlier. Note where their balls are in the 3rd step of their 5-step approaches below. Both work well, so you need to know what your timing is so you can match your tempo to your ball placement and swing height to get the best results to be balanced at release point.



Roll, Don't Spin

March, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the "From Spinner to Semi-Roller" question in this month’s August, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

The most important thing in bowling once you develop a repeatable form is your ball roll. Today more than ever you need a ball roll that is very stable in its reaction to the oil and dry parts of the lane. Too much spin is created when your thumb rotates counterclockwise with your palm going over the top of your ball. When this happens, your ball will slide too much in the oil and can hook too much in the dry—giving you an unpredictable reaction.

How to correct this? 1—Concentrate on keeping your wrist straight and your thumb not moving and pointing it forward towards your middle finger; 2—With your palm behind the ball, release it out in front of your big toe with your palm going through the ball down the lane, not around it.

Your bowling side shoulder going down and forward will provide the turn of your hand—making it very inactive and help prevent you from coming over the top of it.

Your ball needs to be controllable when it exits the oil and encounters the dry. Besides your ball rotation, how your ball is drilled can help—consult your pro shop operator for ball selection and drilling help.

This picture of future PBA Hall of Famer Bill O’Neill shows what your release should look like—Bill’s thumb remains pointed forward in the direction of his middle finger at release. I have no pictures of PBA Touring Pros who spin the ball—as none use a spinner as their A game release.



Body Angles

February, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s February, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

This month's tip is on upper body angles at your release. There is a great difference between what is correct as it varies from bowler to bowler and it’s very dependent on the release the bowler has or is trying to develop. The upper body angles are created by the forward and lateral side tilt of your body’s core.

The basic rule of thumb to follow is the higher your fingers are on your ball when you release it, the less forward and side tilt your body needs. The more under the ball your fingers are at release zone the more lateral and forward tilt is needed in your body. The right amount of tilt for your release should have your bowling arm perpendicular to the floor, the ball by your ankle and under your head from a back view.

Today’s two-handers exhibit the most side and forward tilt because their fingers are directly under their ball and their angles can range from 85° forward to about 65° side. Players who have their fingers more at the equator of their ball or above need less tilt, ranging from as little as 30° forward and 27° side. So what should you strive for? The more under the ball your fingers are the more your forward and lateral tilt should be and the higher your fingers are on your ball the less forward and lateral tilt you need.



Angle of Entry

January, 2024

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s December, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

With today's bowling balls, lane surfaces and especially oil patterns, you can create more entry angle compared to when I bowled on the PBA Tour in the 1970's and 1980's when about 2.5° of entry angle was outstanding. Back in the 1970's and 80's more than that was not realistic because most of the lane surfaces were wood and the balls were plastic and rubber. Today reactive resin bowling balls plus today's oil patterns and synthetic lane surfaces all contribute to the ability to get optimum entry angles resulting in higher scores.

But before you worry about what your entry angle is you should concentrate on controlling the pocket. When you have command of the pocket then you can work on creating the correct angle to carry.

The more forgiving the pattern, the more angle you can create because you can miss outside your target line and the ball will hook back, creating more angle. But the longer and tougher the pattern is, less angle of entry is best to control the pocket.

This graphic shows 3 different angles of entries to the pocket along a straight line — 2, 4 and 6°. To create a 6° of entry angle from about 45 feet down the lane that this graph indicates (the red line) is very difficult to do — it looks easier than it appears. The only bowler in my 50+ years of professional bowling as a student, player, and coach that comes close to doing this and being accurate is Jason Belmonte. His ability to be able to do this is why he is the best.

Pay close attention to how your ball is going into the pocket and through the pins to see why you carry or don't. I hear bowlers say all the time after a good pocket hit that didn’t strike "It should have been a strike!" — if it was supposed to be a strike it would have been! Something isn't correct when the location is good and the pins don't fall.

Neil Stremmel's article is a very detailed and technical study of angle of entry, which includes charts showing the angle of entry for the lower average player to professional bowler with the length of a pattern and the optimum board number to strike at. CLICK HERE to read the article.



Using Tape

December, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s April, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

Learning to use tape to adjust the size of your thumb hole if it shrinks or swells is one of the most important things you should learn to do to play at a high level. Humidity, heat, cold and friction can cause your thumb to swell or shrink and prevent you from getting a clean consistent thumb release.

When my students get a new ball I recommend that their thumb hole be large enough to accommodate 3 to 5 pieces of tape when their thumb is normal size. I train all my students how to use tape correctly relative to their thumb shape—whether they have a round, flat, or oval thumb.

It’s critical that you have a firm hand position without excessively gripping your thumb hole—sizing your thumb hole correctly helps you do that. Excessive griping shortens and slows your swing down and decreases your chances of executing a good consistent release.

Everyone’s thumb shape is different and taping and shaping your thumb hole is an art that takes time to learn. Regardless of the system you use, learning to tape is critical if you want to increase your scores.




Making the 10-pin

November, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s June, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

Making the 10-pin for a righty or the 7-pin for a lefty is many times the most dreaded spare for bowlers. There are some things you can do to help make them.

The first thing you need to do is make a decision on the ball you want to use—preferably a non-hooking, very hard, polished ball that doesn’t hook. With a non-hooking type of ball you should use a release close to your strike ball release with a couple of adjustments. First of all, let your ball roll more off the front of your hand reducing your turn. Second you should reduce your rev rate a little. What you shouldn’t do is change your style by trying to throw the ball hard—you should try to maintain your normal form and tempo.


Bobby Habetler shows the proper form to pick up a 10-pin

The next decision is where you should stand. It should be the opposite corner of the pin you are aiming at so you can roll your ball across the middle of the lane with your target around the middle arrow. Next, align your sternum to the pin, draw an imaginary line from the pin back to the arrows and ultimately to you. The mental thought is you want your ball to travel along that line to the pin. Then let your arm swing through to your finish position without using your hand to guide the ball. Let your body angle and swing project the ball along your intended line.

With the proper alignments and mental picture of what you want to do will greatly help you conquer those pesky corner pins.




Sliding vs. Planting

October, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s October, 1995 Bowling Digest featured column.

To slide or not to slide? Basically, there are two ways your last step can go. The first is your foot lands flat with your knee flexed which promotes a slide which can vary greatly in length depending on your timing. The other is a plant which happens when the toe of your last step points upward and your heel makes contact with the floor first. In this case your leg generally straightens out which causes you to have an abrupt finish to your shot.

For the overwhelming majority of bowlers sliding is better. It allows you to have a smoother finish, and you can develop a more well-rounded game allowing you to play more angles with different releases. Planting on the other hand restricts your ability to play a lot of angles because in the last step of your approach your knee will straighten out causing your upper body to get way behind your foot. When your foot finally lands flat your upper body needs to advance forward quickly to get it in the correct position to release your ball out in front of you onto the lane. Planters are better at rolling the ball with straighter angles because of the big upper body shift planting creates, it just doesn’t allow much time to finesse the release.

Changing from being a planter to a slider is very difficult if you have been doing it for a long time. Instead of trying to change to sliding I suggest you work on taking shorter steps, playing straighter angles, and rolling the ball. This way you can maximize on what planting allows you to do.

These pictures of my students Abby Starkey and Cody Hadley show the beginning, middle and release positions of the last step of a slider and a planter. Whether you are a slider or a planter the key thing with your last step—and really for most of your steps—is you want your head over your leading foot as that step finishes. Both players do this—but get to their last step differently.




Playing Wet-Dry Lane Conditions

September, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s September/October, 1994 Bowling Digest featured column.

Playing today’s typical wet-dry house shot condition can be tricky—even though it’s very high scoring. A wet-dry condition normally will have very heavy oil from about the 8 board on the right to about the 8 board on the left and no oil from about the 8 board to the gutter on each side of the lane and the oil length will be 40-43 feet long. The problem with this type of oil pattern is the ball hooks immediately in the dry area (right of the ~8 board on the right and left of the ~8 board on the left) and if you move into the oil (from ~8 board inward) the ball can slide all the way to the end of the pattern. This makes controlling your ball’s break point very touchy.

With a very wet-dry pattern when you miss your ball either over hooks if you miss out or under hooks if you miss in. This makes your down-lane miss actually the opposite of how you actually missed.

What you must do is decide if you want to play the oil or the dry. If you decide to play the dry you need speed, lower rev rate and turn, and use a ball that doesn’t change its direction quickly when it starts to hook. If you decide to play the oil you’ll need to use a ball with some surface on it so it rolls in the oil and won’t over skid and when it gets to the dry down the lane it doesn’t over hook. You would use your normal rev rate and turn.

So the moral to the wet-dry lane condition story is you need low reacting balls and releases to help you control the side-to-side reaction of your ball to consistently hit the pocket.



 

The Value of Footwork

August, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s April, 1996 Bowling Digest featured column.

One of the most important things in bowling is your walk. Your feet are the only thing that comes in contact with the bowling environment. As with any sport it all starts with the feet, without them nothing moves.

First off, the length of your steps are very important—they need to be the right length so that ideally at the completion of each step your head is over the leading foot as that step is complete. That way your upper body is leading you to the foul line and your feet and legs are pushing your upper body forward. Two-handers naturally create this because they use a lot of forward tilt.

The second important thing with your steps is direction. My pet quote for a right-handers walk direction is “left is right, right is wrong and straight is ok” (it’s the opposite for left-handers). Sticking with righties, walking right is wrong because you walk into your swing and your swing has a good chance of getting blocked behind your back. This will make your downswing have to go around your body, with any slight variance in the timing of the ball off your hand can severely affect the direction your ball will travel. If you release the ball early it will miss right, if you release late your ball will miss left, and an on-time release your ball will travel on the correct line.

On the other hand, walking left early in your approach allows you to get out of the way of your swing. This in turn allows your swing to move in closer to your body on your downswing creating a straight, inside out swing to your release. With your swing traveling in a straight line from the top of your downswing to your release (instead of having to go around your body) it gives you much more leeway on the timing of the ball off your hand to travel the correct direction down the lane. This type of downswing path is what all successful professional bowlers have which helps make them very versatile.

Walking straight is also good—players that walk straight generally roll their ball straighter down the lane and are very consistent. The draw back with a perfectly straight walk is it’s difficult to play inside angles and swing the ball out away from the pocket.

Pay attention to your feet right from your stance and the direction they are going to the foul line. If you can’t do certain things, it’s probably your footwork and swing direction preventing you from doing it. Getting help to correct your flaws and understanding them will go a long way to help you improve.



 

Equipment Selection

July, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the questions asked in this month’s August, 1997 Bowling Digest featured column.

Picking out the right ball for you can be very complicated or easy. If you are a once a week league bowler and bowl in one house on one oil pattern you only need 3 bowling balls—1) one ball for fresh oil that goes into a roll early and doesn’t over hook on the dry backends; 2) another ball to change to when your first ball starts hooking early causing it to lose energy and hit soft--this ball should be one that goes longer before hooking so when it starts to hook it has a stronger/more pronounced back end hook; and 3) a non-hooking spare ball.

For the bowler playing multiple leagues a week in different bowling centers and occasionally playing some tournaments the number of bowling balls needed will increase. You might have up to 6 balls to cover a wider variety of lane conditions—you might have a couple of asymmetrical core balls and a few symmetrical core balls. The key thing is to have a variety of cover stocks—pearl, hybrid and solids. The next important thing is understanding what the different cover stocks do and how your balls are drilled. You basically need to be able to look at your equipment and know what to expect out of the ball relative to the core, cover stock, and drilling layout. It’s not easy to understand, but very important so you can make more educated decisions about what ball to go to when the one you’re using doesn’t work. It’s worth the time to learn this so you can make quicker, educated ball selection decisions.



 

Developing a Sound Targeting System

June, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the spot bowling question in this month’s May/June, 1994 Bowling Digest featured column.

Developing a sound targeting system for your game is fundamental to developing consistency. It’s not about hitting a spot—it’s about getting the ball to travel the correct direction down the lane in relationship to how the oil pattern dictates the lane to be played.

The easiest and best way to do this has always been to use the arrows and the boards between them. You first need to know the lane and approach by board numbers because they will give you reference points that are vital in making logical adjustments.

Knowing the basic math of adjustments using the approach and lane board numbers will give you an idea how much you should be adjusting. If you move your feet one board left and keep your target at the arrows on the same board the effective adjustment is 3 boards at 60 feet, which is the distance the head pin is from the foul line. That one board move with your feet creates an angle change that your ball travels through your target. If your ball continues on that angle change it would go 1 board to the right at 30 feet, then 2 boards right at 45 feet and then end up 3 boards right at 60 feet. Now if you move your target 1 board right and keep your feet in the same place the effective adjustment is 4 boards--One at 15 feet, 2 at 30 feet, 3 at 45 feet then end up 4 at 60 feet.

You don’t have to see your ball hit a spot—you need to see your ball early enough traveling down the lane to understand what your ball is doing then make logical adjustments based on your ball reaction. That’s why understanding the basic math of your adjustments is imperative—you make your adjustments based on mathematical facts—not from guessing what to do.

There has always been talk about the pros targeting 40 to 50 feet down the lane. When a player does that, it’s only used to pick out a destination they want their ball to get to at their break point. But they always draw their eyes to a closer target which normally is at the arrows—some pros such as Pete Weber, Liz Johnson and Wes Malott even continue all the way to the foul line.

The more you can take guess work out of our game, the higher the probability your scores will increase. Until you know the basic math of adjustments you really can’t progress to the next level of lane play.



 

Wrist issues? Add a gripping hole

May, 2023

This month’s “Bill’s Tip of the Month” expands on the extra finger hole question in this month’s October, 1997 Bowling Digest featured column. The following is Bill’s follow-up to his 1997 column.

One question I get asked frequently is “What can I do about a sore wrist and what will help it without having to stop bowling”? So when I decided to add a “Tip of the Month” to my monthly newsletter, I was happy to see this question addressed in my October, 1997 Bowling Digest.

Totally coincidentally BOWL-TV’s Analyst Craig Elliott asked me the same thing when I did some guest live-streaming commentary on BOWL-TV last month during the PBA World Series of Bowling in Wauwatosa, WI. The conversation developed with him and Mike Flanagan, BOWL-TV’s Lead Analyst and I told them that in early January of this year 7-time PBA Champion Dick Allen called me for some advice. He was experiencing severe wrist pain and was looking for some answers so he could continue to bowl. After some conversation I had two recommendations for him: 1) add a pinky finger hole and 2) go to a lighter ball. Dick did both—he went from 15 to 14 lb. balls and added a pinky finger hole as shown in the picture. He was able to bowl the 60 games of competition and probably another 15 games of warm-up and practice pain free.

What the pinky finger does is it helps make the ball feel lighter and easier to roll because it helps reduce your grip pressure. I have always recommended it to those with wrist problems, seniors, and those who want to continue using a heavier ball.

There have been a number of Hall of Fame players that have used extra gripping holes—Kim Adler, Mark Williams, Pete Couture and myself—all used pinky finger holes with success. Two other Hall of Famers have used an index finger hole for help—Dana Miller-Mackie and Steve Fehr.

Don’t be reluctant to try something out of the norm. Remember if you add an extra gripping hole that every hole has to have a finger in it to be a legal delivery now — it wasn’t that way back in 1997.

BTW if you aren’t a subscriber to BOWL-TV yet, you should be. Fantastic coverage of the PBA, PWBA and other important USBC events at a great price of $119.95 yearly or $12.95 a month (plus 15% transaction fee and applicable taxes). In my opinion, it’s one of the best values in bowling.