Hi Spook,
Hope i can ans some of your questions correctly.
the exact reason for reading the lane is that, firstly, a player
will have to decide which ball to use at the game start, roughly
can be decided by the first few practice throw, and secondly, as we
all know, the lanes are oiled with a thin layer of oil, in specific
pattersn, such as long oil, short oil, christmas tree oiling...wat
have you. As the ball rolls down the lane, the oil shifts all over
the place, some stick to the surface of your ball, some carried
down into the backend. ok, ball hooks when it encounters friction,
so all these moving oils affects your ball reaction.
For example, on fresh oil, your high end particle ball follows your
line, retains most of its energy, and when it reaches the back end,
hooks in beautifully. But after 1 or 2 games, the oil would have
carried forward, so the lane heads may become dry by now. So now if
you throw the same particle ball with the same line, the ball will
react with the lanes much earlier than compared to your initial
condition, so the ball will lose its energy much earlier, by the
time it reaches the pins, it may hav much less energy, and
therefore you may observed that the impact is much smaller. Also
since it encounters friction so early in the lane, it may overreact
and overhook, making it hard to control.
So now, decision making. A) you can either use the same ball,
change your bowling styles, release, rev, ball speed or line to
fight the lane. or B), change to a suitable ball to match the lane,
instead of making drastic changes to your bowling style.
