There are different options in ball surface preparation, but why isn't polish working the way it did a few years ago? Welcome to another edition of Pro Shop 401. Let me answer that in a few short words: slicker oil. If you have been using more aggressive equipment, but see others scoring with what looks like a ball surface that someone sanded , but forgot to shine, you are correct. The slightly sanded surface can cause a ball to make a move to the pocket at a more controllable angle to increase the pin carry. A problem with some of the newer balls is they break so abruptly, the sudden change of direction can cause it to lose the effective roll applied at release. Sanding of the cover changes the entry angle just enough to give the bowler a different pin reaction. For example, you saw Patrick Allen and Jason Couch face off in the Dick Weber Classic back in January. Couch's ball was factory finish while P.A.'s ball was slightly sanded. Allen's ball rolled more end-over-end while Couch's was broke sharper at the backend. Don't get me wrong, P.A. can turn it a bit, but for him that particular roll and ball cover prep worked on the 'strip' oil pattern used at the Weber Open. Couch, on the other hand, was able to create his optimum reaction by using a ball with its factory finish shine.

     In general, a sanded surface will give a smoother breakpoint while not squirting past a desired breakpoint. The grits used to sand these ball covers are not what has been used in the past, either. In the first days of resin (early 90s), most balls came from the factory finished with 400 to 600 grit sandpaper. Now, the finishes are 1000 to 400 grit. Ebonite has introduced a product known as Abralon sanding discs, which promise a cleaner cut while keeping the fresh cut dust out of the ball. In fact, the whole fine grit sanding also goes back to the early 90s with many of the cranker-style players adapting their games to this newer coverstock, which didn't require as much applied force to achieve the same result. These group could get the regular urethanes to skid/snap like the balls of today do, but resin presented a much different problem. The balls themselves were already more rotation-friendly, but most of the time reacted too strongly or not quite enough. Sanding of the shells at 600 to 1500 grit gave the cranker a more controlled breakpoint. Sound familiar? Crankers had the same problems with urethanes in the early 80s when plastic was the only cover choice. That is when polishing urethane covers became an option. These days another factor is differing synthetic lane surfaces. Some of the original surfaces still in use are getting to be 20 years in age and are developing worn track much like a wood lane does in two years. Newer lane beds are harder and the thicker oils can move around inside the oil pattern area quite easy while drier areas can appear to get larger, then smaller. Sometimes a ball can react differently in the same area only a frame or two apart. Once again, thicker oils and more aggressive reactive resin covers are the cause. Where did all these findings come from? The biggest ball drilling lab on the planet today; the PBA Tour. Find a ball technician who grew up with plastic or rubber shelled balls and you can get about the same speech you just read here. It's night and day....and night. This concludes this edition of Pro Shop 401.

     Could the next star of the PBA Tour be a 20-something? The average age of the current exempt player is 36 with not much chance of that number dropping anytime soon, but this kid just might have what it takes to tame the older crowd. I have seen in person what Sean Rash does to a bowling ball and it made my jaw drop. Once he plays lanes a bit more old school like he did in his two wins earlier this season, he could have the breakout year sooner than Tommy Jones did. Better yet for the PBA, he is a better marketing choice for the many 20-somethings they are trying oh-so-hard to reach. One more win this year and he will become the leading candidate for Player of the Year. Add an appearance in the U.S. Open or World Championship shows and he might have enough ammo to pull it off. Four wins might be a slam dunk. But Rash? Why not? He's personable on camera, doesn't come off as too brash to older viewers, but brash enough for the X-Games crowd. It's helped he's won each time he's made the TV finals, and either mom, dad or both have been there to enjoy it all. Whether he is mature enough to carry it through is unknown right now. Some can, but most have trouble at first before settling in. If you doubt this, have you noticed the deer-in-the-headlights look of Bad Rex after a Bears loss? Even some of the wins, you can't read Grossman very well, almost as if he doesn't know what he wants to say. My point is this, the national media machine is something bowling doesn't have to deal with at the moment and can be very intimidating for anyone. The next star of the PBA Tour is going to have to be willing to deal with it along with being the cover boy of all the industry trade mags. But what this sport and the PBA needs is to have someone breakout of industry stardom and take us to the next level-the rest of the outside sports world, like someone who can speak the seven famous words I've said will announce bowling has truly arrived; live from New York, it's Saturday Night. You get the picture. He may not be a Tiger Woods, but if someone can get the outside world to enjoy the TV show like the rest of us do, it's going to be a slow climb.

     One indication toward this might be his win at the Baltimore Beltway Classic earlier this season. His strike ball in the first four frames on the Cheetah pattern didn't look good at all. Then he began to roll the ball up the back more than twisting it. Only two shots of the next 19 did not strike. (Yeah, I know, shake it off.) An adage from some of the great bowlers in this modern era goes like this: in order to be truly great, a player has to have command of two of the three way to deliver a ball. Hooking it a lot to strike, throwing it with less hook to strike, or throwing it dead straight to strike. Most have one of those three down pat. If Rash can add a second, and signs are there that he is, we might be watching the birth of the next great player in PBA history. Based on Brunswick tour rep Rick Benoit's notes on the Baltimore stop, Rash played the lanes in a smarter way rather than falling into the all to familiar trap of overpowering every pattern all the time. And this time last year, few knew who he was. Now with three titles under his belt, who knows?