Carry Down: Observing and Adjusting

All right. Scott Pohl with the National Bowling Academy, and we're gonna discuss a very important part of lane conditions today, in particular carrydown. Well, what do we know? The lane is constantly changing. Each shot down the lane, that oil pattern isn't gonna be the same as shots prior.

In particular, most of the time, the first thing we see is carrydown. Well, what's happening here? Oil is being stretched at the end of the pattern. Our back-end reaction typically goes away, and we have to do something to work with this. This video is gonna show you a few different adjustments on what we can do.

In particular, we're gonna do with our feet, with the ball, and sometimes we even need to change zones. All right, let's get out to the video, and we'll show you what we mean. All right, so here we see the ball reacting really well, and it has a flush hit. What's happening on this shot here, you can see that actually carrydown is in effect, the oil pattern stretching a little bit, and we left the two-four-five-seven. Well, there's a few adjustments we can do.

First one that I'd recommend is just moving our feet and our target a little bit further to the outside. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. In this situation, well, you know what? Maybe it actually overhooks when we move a little bit closer to the friction, so what we need to do is move back to the left. Sometimes this adjustment doesn't work either, so I would recommend potential softer speed with that same ball.

Sometimes this reaction isn't working either, so we can actually go into another adjustment going with a stronger ball that's gonna react a little bit better in the oil and finish through the pins the right way. Once again, sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. In this example, moving that adjustment to a stronger ball actually overhooks when it hits the dry. So another adjustment we can make is actually a zone change. What we're gonna do here is move our feet left, as well as our target, just to get away from that friction overhooking.

And you can tell the ball stays online much better and goes through the pins the right way. Okay, so a lot of ways to deal with carrydown. Different adjustments there. Sometimes it's a trial and error. A lot of the time you're not gonna have everything available in your skillset, so I'd recommend get out there and practice it a little bit.

Go through each scenario. It's gonna allow you to be better when you get into competition or league for the next time. Another thing is, you know what? Talk to your friends about it. Sometimes they're adjusting with the same way.

Maybe they made that right adjustment. You can copy what they did. Vice versa, if you found the right adjustment, pass it on to them. Carrydown is gonna be an ongoing thing with lanes as each ball's changing that pattern, but I guarantee you having this set in your toolbox is gonna help.