Catch This Bowling Technique: The Hook Ball

When your first begin bowling, the bowling technique you probably use is called “straight bowling.” In this style of bowling, you simply point the ball towards the pins and shoot. While bowling this way is perfectly acceptable, and in fact, you can bowl a pretty good fame that way, if you want to get serious about bowling or improve you score, you have to stop leaving the strikes to chance and incorporate some more advanced techniques into your game.

One of the first more advanced moves people turn to is the hook ball. This little trick can seriously increase your scoring potential by giving you a lot more control over where you ball ends up and which pins you knock down. The problem with straight bowling is that to keep the ball out of the gutter, you have to send the ball down the center of the lane. While this may keep your ball firmly in the lane, it is unlikely to end up giving you a strike (except for those few occasions when you get lucky, and the pins knock each other over). Sending the ball down the middle of the lane is more likely to split the pins in half; you’ll knock down some, but then there will a few pins left on one side and a few pins left on the other side, with a gap in the center.

It will be next to impossible to knock the rest of them down on your second turn. Even if you do manage to grab yourself a spare on turn two, relying on spares won’t win you a game if you’re playing with people who are throwing strikes. That’s where the hook ball comes in. The hook ball allows you to put a little bit of spin into your shot and angle the ball to aim exactly where you want it to. Throwing a hook ball is all in the release. As a general rule, you want to release the ball when your thumb is close to the bottom, and give it a little spin with your fingers. With the correct spin, the ball should travel in a straight line until it reaches the “break point”, the point in the lane where the ball begins to turn towards its target. When it reaches the break point, the ball should gradually arc out and then curve back in directly towards the pins you are trying to hit. If you want to throw a perfect hook ball, you will need to know your axis rotation and axis tilts habits.

These terms refer to the amount of vertical and horizontal spin you tend to put on your shots. You can get a general idea of these by looking at the position of your hand when you release the ball, but the best way is to get someone else to watch you throw a few shots. Urethane balls are the perfect balls for throwing hooks. There texture helps you get just the right spin on the ball. When you have the right ball, all you need then is practice, and plenty of it. Learning hook balls can be a time investment, but that investment will be repaid in dividends in your high scores.