Sir Isaac Newton Knows Bowling

Written By Ted Thompson

Sometimes pictures, or in this case a picture and a video, explains it best. The video below is the championship match of the Trio’s event at the recently concluded WTBA World Men’s Championship. The picture is the Kegel LaneMap™ of lanes 11-12 at Dream Bowl Palace.

The final match was played on the WTBA Mexico City oil pattern which is fairly flat and 45' in length. Our after bowling tapes showed the optimum breakpoint was around the 10-11-12 boards on that oil pattern at this championship.

The ball tracks of the left-handers and right-handers during the trios championship match are on top of the LaneMap™ Slope Graphs.

Sir Isaac Newton, the father of gravity, was not surprised with the ball motion of the players during this match - Newton has known for a long time that gravity has the same influence on the bowling ball as friction, or lack thereof.

The green areas on the LaneMap™ have very little gravitational influences on the bowling ball. The light blue and orange areas are significant gravitational influences on the bowling towards the direction of the arrows. The red and dark blue areas are severe gravitational influences on the bowling ball towards the direction of the arrows.

Now watch the video below and see if you can see and understand what Sir Isaac Newton already knew. He has been whispering in our ear for many years that it's not always oil or lack of oil (friction), as the reason the bowling ball reacts differently from one lane to the next, or even in certain areas of the same lane.

Pay attention to the right lane and how many light hits the right-handed players have. Then look at the above Slope Graphs in the break point area. Those blue areas signify a significant slope to the right - which is why the ball has a hard time moving to the left. Slopes to the right beyond the oil pattern (for a right-hander) acts like "carrydown". But it's not carrydown causing those light hits - it's gravity,

Ted Thompson

Ted Thompson began his career in the bowling business in 1976 at the age of 15 working for the Florida based Galaxy Lanes chain. Beginning from the ground up in center operations, he has also been a long time Pro Shop proprietor, 40 lane center General Manager, PBA National Tour player, multi PBA Regional Champion, PBA Player Services Director, and even a bowling writer. Since 2004 he has been working with Kegel.

Ted has also coached bowling on many different levels. From basic Learn to Bowl classes and private lessons while in the Pro Shop business, he was also head coach for Florida State University, countless PBA professionals, and even coached Lisa Wagner to her last Player of the Year award in 1993. While working for the PBA, the late great Dick Weber even asked for some of his time. An experience Ted says "he will always cherish". Dick immediately won a Senior Sweeper and gave him $300. It was the most Ted ever received for an hour lesson, and it came from one of the greatest players of all time.

Recently, Ted has been deeply studying topography and the effects it has on ball motion. He is also on the Kegel Team helping make decisions for many of the oil patterns Kegel uses in competitions world wide, which has led to further development of Kegel's lane machines. Ted has a complete and unique understanding of bowling from many different sides.

Ted also named the world's and Kegel's most popular lane machine the "Kustodian ION" (pronounced "EON" in Europe) and spearheaded the creation of Kegel's Navigation Oil Patterns. The creativity may be heredity. In 1968 Ted's father created the famous Dodge Super Bee logo and spearheaded that marketing campaign.

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