Factors That Affect Your Bowling Ball Performance

Center of Gravity (CG) simply refers to the heaviest part of the bowling ball.  Talk to any seasoned bowler, and he or she will nod sagely when you inquire about the CG while bowling.

There are a number of factors that affect your CG, and if you are aware of them, you will be able to spin them to your advantage.  Not all bowling balls are created equal, and seasoned players are actually quite often going to great lengths to alter their balls so as to squeeze the last ounce of performance out them.

Nothing affects the CG as much as the top and bottom weight of a bowling ball.  Granted, the ball is perfectly round and it is hard to imagine that there might be different weights that could even be discussed, yet did you ever consider that there is a little bit of extra weight added to the ball to make up for the material that is discarded when the finger holes are drilled? 

Failure to add this counterweight would result in your balls rolling down the lane with a quite noticeable wobble. 

Novices do not usually consider the fact that there are a couple of ounces of material missing in the top of the ball, yet when it is rolled it traverses the lane in a smooth fashion, as though the sphere were unbroken.

If you take a close look at your bowling ball, you will actually be able to see where its CG is located because it is marked with a small dot.  The counterweight that makes up for the weight lost when the finger holes were drilled is placed underneath this dot.

The weight of the ball encompasses everything from the coverstock to the core, which contains the weight block.

The core of a bowling ball is the part of the ball with the largest concentration of mass.  The sophistication and position of the core of a bowling ball are key features in the dynamics of a bowling ball.

The sophistication and position can be explained by the Radius of Gyration (RG), which is a property used to determine how fast the ball begins to rotate after leaving the bowler's hand.  RG is the measurement of where the weight is located inside of the ball (relative the ball's center).  The core position, size, shape and density can adjust the RG.

For example, a centralized core locates the weight in the center of the ball resulting in a low RG ball.  If the core is placed off-center, the weight of the ball is shifted resulting in a high RG bowling ball, or what is known as a cover-heavy ball.  Generally, the lower the RG, the quicker the ball will pick up its revolutions. 

Experienced bowlers have figured out that they can alter the performance of the ball by drilling the holes into one side of their bowling balls, leaving the directly opposing side slightly heavier.  This will affect the CG in that it will cause the ball to travel closer to that direction than toward the other one.

Of course, the alterations you will be able to make with these subtle shifts do not make up for skill and excellent lane conditions; conversely, if you make your changes ill advisedly, you may actually hinder your game rather than improve it.  Thus, it is imperative that you are completely certain of what you are accomplishing before beginning to drill.