Adjusting to Flat Hits in the Pocket

Hi there, Scott Pole. I'm a three-time USBC champion. And what we're gonna talk about right now is something that is very important in bowling, in particular, it's when our ball has flat hits. Well, what do we see here? In general, the ball's deflecting too much.

We're gonna see that pocket, 5-pin, 7-pin, 10-pin, just not coming out at the right angle. Also, another one for right-handers, sometimes we leave the 5-7, the 8-10. Well, this video is gonna show you how we can work around that and not have those flat hits as much. In particular, we're going to show you how to make a ball change at that right time on what to do. Another thing is sometimes it's important to soften the speed.

Another way is we're going to change our release. How can we get that ball to be a little bit stronger, especially on the back end sometimes? And last but not least, sometimes it's just as simple as moving our feet. All right? Check it out.

All right, so let's get into one situation where we're going to make a ball change. As you can see, the ball deflects here. The next one we're going to do is go to a little bit more responsive ball, in particular, this one is a pearl cover from a solid cover, a lot more down lane reaction and goes through the pins a lot better. Another example is, you know what, if we're starting with a pin-down ball, you can see how it starts to deflect. We're gonna go to that pin-up one, much more response on the back end.

In general, we just want to see more change of direction on the back. Well, what does this do? It lets the ball finish a little bit better down lane. We're giving that ball just a little bit more time to do what it's supposed to and go through the pins. Another way is changing our release.

Sometimes if we can have a little bit stronger hand underneath the ball, for example, if we cup it a little bit harder, we're gonna get a little bit more revs on the ball, and it's gonna hit the pins better. Last but not least, a simple move on a flat hit can be just moving our feet, whether it's moving our feet with our target to the outside or even sometimes if we don't move our feet, and just keep our target a little bit further left, tightening up that angle can also counteract those flat hits. All right, so a lot of ways to work through those flat hits. I understand they can be frustrating, but you know what? If you can just go out to the lanes, go through some of these situations.

I guarantee you'll find a couple of things that work for you. You're not going to have such bad pin carry all the time. You know what? You're going to leave a pin and be like, oh, ok, I can make this adjustment now, or if the first one doesn't work, maybe you'll have a second one in mind. But you know what?

Your tool set would be a lot bigger, and I guarantee your scores will go higher because your strike percentage goes up.