Jeff Piroozshad

Ball Reviews - Piranha Retro & WOW! Pearl

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Columbia 300 for offering me a Regional Pro Staff contract. I am proud to be associated with a company like Columbia and have had most of my past successes with Columbia equipment. I feel confident with a Columbia ball in my hands and I'm sure that many more successes will follow. If anyone has questions about the Columbia 300 product line, please ask and I will try to help you decide on the Columbia ball that is right for you.

First Review: Piranha Retro

First, I must say that I never owned the original Piranha. I did, however, have two Blue Piranha/Cs and loved them both.

The Retro Piranha is a great piece of equipment. It comes in very handy both when the lnes get drier, but also on those wet-dry house shots. Many balls skid too much in the oil and hook too much off the dry for today's conditions, but the low flare potential of the Retro Piranha makes up for that.

The Retro Piranha's greatest asset is not its small flare, but its LATE flare. For the first 35 feet of the lane, the ball hardly flares any at all. This makes it extremely easy to clear the heads and retain energy in the midlane. The ball starts its flare at about 30 -35 feet and after that, comes strong on the backend. Even though the core is not especially strong, the late flare helps the ball retain more of its energy for the pin deck...in fact it often hits harder than the more high-tech stuff.

For anyone that has problems with control or needs something for drier lanes, the Retro Piranha would be a great addition to that person's arsenal.

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Second Review: WOW! Pearl

The WOW Pearl is, in my opinion, a very unique piece of equipment. First of all, the Pearl Particle shell (UFO Pearl) coverstock works great. It is aggressive in oil and not too aggressive in dry - this makes for supreme control without sacrifice of power.

The thing I like most about this ball is the way it retains its axis rotation longer than expected. When other balls have turned over and are in the process of losing energy, the WOW Pearl is still rotating on it's original axis rotation, even when it's starting to hook. This helps the ball retain more of its power for the backend. The ball goes into a very strong roll on the backend, but because it has saved its energy exceptionally well, does not roll out. It seems to keep coming longer than other balls. I haven't seen many other balls that tend to do this same thing, but the one that sticks out in my mind is the original 3-D Violet Offset Hammer. The WOW Pearl seems like it reacts very similar to that ball, just a bit stronger.

My WOW Pearl came with a 5" pin-to-PAP distance. I put the pin about 1 1/2 inches above my bridge, slightly biased towards the middle finger. The CG is kicked out 2 inches from the center of the grip. Because of the low starting top weight (2.25 oz.) I do not need an extra hole in the ball despite the offset CG. The final specs are == 6" X 4" X 4 1/4" == (pin from PAP X CG from PAP X pin above midline)

(I threw that last one in because I don't believe that pin and CG from PAP are enough - pin distance above the midline is extremely important also in my opinion, as a lower pin results in earlier hook).

4/13/03 - PBA South Region Classic Products Open - Lakeland, FL

I pulled a back-to-back this week. After bowling last weekend in Tampa, I decided to come back out and give it a shot this weekend as well.

I got to Lakeland on Friday afternoon, about 4 minutes before the practice session started (great timing on leaving the house before a 3 1/2 hour drive, no?). We bowled on PBA Pattern A this weekend. It's one of the shorter patterns, and combined with the wooden lanes, the oil did tricks on the lane during the whole weekend. But I will get to that later. I brought 9 balls plus a plastic with me. I didn't anticipate needing only one ball this week as I knew it would be one of the tougher patterns rather than Pattern B or E. The lanes change much, plus the backends are VERY sharp at the get-go. Accuracy is at a premium when the backends are so touchy, and you really have to attack the lanes the right way.

I tried playing outside, near the first arrow for some of practice. I've been working on throwing the ball straighter and making it roll out into the pocket in anticipation of a pattern like this, however the lanes were all very different from lane to lane and I couldn't find a consistent reaction, angle and release that I knew I could count on. I moved deep inside and found something that seemed to work well around the 18 board, going out to about 6 at the breakpoint. Oddly enough, the ball that worked best from this big hook angle was the same one, the ICON 300, that I used last weekend on the 42 foot long pattern. This ball is turning out to be one of the most versatile I've thrown (not that I'm complaining).

Continue reading "4/13/03 - PBA South Region Classic Products Open - Lakeland, FL"

4/6/03 Results from PBA South Region - Tampa Open

This will by my first Blog entry regarding tournaments and other competitions that I bowl. Remember that you can leave comments or ask questions by clickong on "comments" at the bottom of the entry. I want to hear what everyone has to say, and I'm happy to answer questions. Hopefully we can all learn from each other during the blog experience. :)

I have been looking forward to bowling in my first PBA Southern Region event since relocating to Florida last month. The competition down here is as good as it gets. Here is a sampling of the (rather intimidating) list of PBA Tour pros that bowl here: Walter Ray Williams, Jr., Norm Duke, Jason Couch, Steve Wilson, Jason Hurd, Roger Bowker, Steve Hoskins, Chris Hayden, Mike Machuga and Patrick Allen. I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting, plus the ones that just like to vacation in Florida and take in a regional or two while they're here. Doing well in the South region is not going to be easy. I know that going in, but I hope to become a better player because of the high level of competition.

Continue reading " 4/6/03 Results from PBA South Region - Tampa Open"

Jeff's Mini Bowling Ball Reaction Guide

Some of you might have seen my post on alt.sport.bowling about the web page I've been working on. For those not familiar, I've been working on a Bowling Ball Reaction/Layout Guide for peopel who are interested in learning how to map out their own balls, or who just want to learn the basics of what ceratin layouts will make their equipment do.

I'm still hoping to add some pictures soon, as soon as I get a digital camera :) but in the meantime, the meat and potatoes are still there. I'll add the trimmings soon.

Ball Layout Guide

Welcome to my BLOG!!!

Hello everyone! Coming off the heels of what was a great introduction of Fantasy Pro Bowling, I was thinking of something else I could do for BowlingFans.com. I saw one of Steve's posts about Web Logs ("Blogs") and thought that I could do something like that for tournaments, maybe leagues, practice sessions, etc.

So, starting immediately or sooner, whichever comes first, I will update this blog with my bowling exploits in all their glorious (and not-so-glorious) detail. I'm hoping that this will include the following:

Date, Location, Event, Format, Results, Lane Conditions (including PBA Pattern Letter), Bowling balls (and drill patterns) used, lines and angles played, different releases and speed changes and any other adjustments I make.

I'm hoping that this might help people who might not be familiar with PBA Regionals, assorted other big events, and the like get a feel for what a PBA member will do during these events to try to score as high as possible.

Granted, I'm not a PBA superstar. I'm just a Regional member who likes to bowl, but even still, I think this might be helpful to lots of people...including myself as I can go back and read them and maybe help myself out from time to time.

The best thing about Blogs is that you, the reader, can read the entries and then post comments and questions. It's kind of like an Interactive Diary.

I hope you all enjoy reading this. See you on the lanes!

- Jeff Piroozshad