ESPN Sport Science

[da_cowman]

Has anyone seen the ESPN Sport Science segment that has been on recently regarding the Grooves on a Golf club?

For those who haven't, Sport Science is pretty much self explanatory. The show looks at the sciences behind sports, for example the amount of pressure in tackles, the aerodynamics of snowboarders doing a half pipe, as well as many other things.

This segment focuses on the golf club, and in particular the horizontal grooves that can be found on the club. Basically, Golf Club manufacturers discovered that by making the edges of the grooves sharper the club face will have less water and grass on it when coming into contact with the ball. The major advantage of this was when players were trying to hit the ball out of the rough.

The Golf Governing Body decided that these grooves made the rough too easy and brought in regulations for them. In essence, the rules they brought in made the grooves more rounded, not as deep and I believe not as long. (I could be wrong, saw the segment once and haven't found it on the internet) What this did was decrease the amount of the club face coming into contact with the golf by 50%, which decreased the amount the ball could spin by 50%, which increased the distance the ball would travel when it landed by 60%.

I believe that players can still use the non-conforming clubs, but in any sanctioned event which falls under the Governing body, the clubs are strictly prohibited.

I'm sure some members on here probably have more in depth knowledge about everything I just wrote, and I will continue to search for the clip on the internet. But the main point of this post was to raise the question...

WHY CAN'T WE DO THIS????

Why can't bowling restrict the strength of covers/cores in our major competitions...? It seems almost a necessary step for the sport to take to be taken seriously...

Cow

 

[amagill]

IMO, it's because the vast majority of league bowlers, are those who are your tpyical, "Bowl once a week" type bowlers. These are the bowlers who will cause a "storm in a teacup" because they can no longer ave 200 on a more difficult condition, or if you take away the "Strike-in-a-box" bowling balls & they will react the same...

Sad state of affairs I know, but unfortunately, many bowl centre managers, would not like to lose majority of their average league bowlers....

I agree though, I think their should be some sort of specifications that the manufacturers need to adhere to, in order to limit the amount of hook or revs, straight out of the box...

They have specs for pins, and all pins are weighed (supposedly) when a 300 is bowled, so why couldn't there be similar restrictions on the actual bowling balls themselves?

Great topic Cow, should be an interesting thread....

 

[dishman]

I thi'nk the point Stephen is trying to make is let league bowlers bowl with whatever they like. The restrictions would only affect those bowling at majors or internationally.
If the once a week bowler wants to bowl in these tournaments then yes they have to conform to ball regulations.
Honestly, though i'm not sure how this would be policed. The rule would almost have to be adopted internationally to make the ball companies make "tournament only" balls.
It would also be tough to monitor and compare the different coverstocks and cores between the bowling companies as you cant just look at a bowl and see whether the core and coverstock is conforming.

 

[jimcross]

Yes, remember that well. It was ' Ping' clubs which were the first 'square groove' clubs, which were banned for certain events, and I think were given some specific life, like 10 years or something. I owned and operated a Golf Course at that time, so followed it closely It was in the late 1980s, but now can't remrmber the details of the law suit which the manufacturers started against the U S Golf Association. Some sort of compromise was reached - could have been the allowance of their use for normal club golfers, etc. The point being that the USGA is an enormously powerful organisation compared with any Tenpin body, and the word at the time was that they would not have been able to finance their legal case without going broke. There is your answer why, in bowling, the manufacturers are unlikely to be challenged.

 

[RobbieB]

Hi Jim,
From memory the compromise with the Ping clubs was that they allowed them to be grandfathered out, rather than banned immediately - could be wrong though.
Now I'm wondering how many bowlers will turn up next week with square-faced sanding marks in their gear...

 

[Fitzy]

Good one Robbie, let everyone in on the 'secret'!
I've already chiseled out the square grooves in all of my gear. Wasn't sure whether it should be around the ball horizontally or vertically so I have crosshatched it! lol

 

[Michael Little]

I was reading a post on the PBA forum and one response during the post mentioned something about looking towards using balls that were only appropriate for certain patterns. Much similar to using different patterns and having them graded for tournaments.

In other words, if the pre advertised pattern was a short pattern, or had a low oil volume then the most aggressive ball that could be used would be something like an entry level reactive, urethane or plastic etc. If the next group of patterns were within a certain ratio/oil volume, then only mid range and low range equipment could be used and for sports or high volume patterns any ball could be used, so based on the difficulty or ease of the pattern would dictate the particular level of ball that could be used.

I thought this idea had a lot of merit, obviously hard to enforce, but it is one that possibly keeps all involved parties happy, the manufacturers aren't placed with too many restrictions on curbing their technology advances, as long as they dont cheat to get past any new regulations, bowlers who bowl league wont be affected, bowlers that already compete in tournaments already have a wide range of equipment so once certain types of equipment are voided, it could possibly mean having to take less balls travel wise, it may allow for reasonable scoring to re enter bowling. We could get back to the days of leverage weight a Blue Dot lol. I also like the idea from a pattern longevity point of view where a lot of players, especially the younger guys with revs who like to look good, immediately get on a pattern playing 20 brd with their hook monsters chewing up the pattern. If players are using similar spec balls in a range, it reduces the detrimental effect on a pattern that cant cope with the super soakers.

I am sure that even with all the old equipment still in bowlers equipment bags, it wouldn't be too hard to catergorize the bowling equipment new and old based on technical specifications etc etc.

And I guess with policing this for tournaments, then using the list, all bowlers would have to nominate the equipment they are using or going to use and submit a list to tournament officials that can be checked at any time, and to be honest, there are plenty of people willing to kick up a stink if someone wasnt following the rules.

 

[jimcross]

Good one Robbie, let everyone in on the 'secret'!
I've already chiseled out the square grooves in all of my gear. Wasn't sure whether it should be around the ball horizontally or vertically so I have crosshatched it! lol

You shouldn't have jumped the gun. They haven't decided yet whether they're using artificial or natural turf on the lanes.