High Hook vs Low Hook Potential Bowling Balls: Basic Differences

If you’re bowling just for a week, you must have already heard the term “hook”. What does it refer to? Instead of “hook” you might have heard the synonyms like “hook ratings”, “hook potential”, and so on. If you have recently started to hook your bowling ball, you know how big of a deal it is. In bowling, the hook potential of a bowling ball is one of the most important and challenging aspects.

A bowling ball can have high, low, and medium hook potential. But which one is better for you? If you’re someone who still isn’t clear about this topic, now is the time. So before you buy your next bowling ball, make sure you know everything about high hook vs low hook potential bowling balls, and all the factors behind them. So stay tuned to the end.

Comparison Table Between Low Hook Potential and High Hook potential Bowling Balls

Look at glimpse comparing low hook potential and high hook potential bowling balls.

Criteria	Low Hook Potential Bowling Ball	High Hook Potential Bowling Ball
Core Design	Symmetrical	Asymmetrical
Coverstock Composition	Plastic or Urethane	Reactive Resin or Hybrid
Surface Finish	Polished	Matte or Sanded
RG (Radius of Gyration)	Higher	Lower
Differential	Lower	Higher
Track Flare Potential	Minimal	Significant
Total Hook Potential	Lower	Higher
Suitable Lane Conditions	Dry or Light Oil	Medium to Heavy Oil
Recommended Skill Level	Beginner to Intermediate	Intermediate to Advanced
Ball Reaction	Straighter Path	Strong Angular Motion

Please note that these characteristics can vary between different brands and models of bowling balls. It’s always recommended to consult with a bowling professional or review manufacturer specifications to make an informed decision based on your specific needs and lane conditions.

What is hook Potential?

If you are confused about hook, now take a look back about hook potential. In bowling dictionary, ‘hook’ refers to the relative hook potential of a bowling ball. When you hear advanced, professionals, and pro shop operators use the term “hook potential”, they are talking about how much a bowling ball can hook. Bowling balls with a high differential of RG (radius of gyration), hook more than bowling balls with a low differential of RG. 

Based on the hookability of bowling balls, they are divided into three different types. High hook potential, low hook potential, and medium hook potential. So how much do they differ in terms of performance? Let’s find out.

What are High Hook Potential?

If you take a look at a bowling ball’s specification where it says the differential is high, that bowling ball is possibly going to change its direction of motion at the breakpoint and make an angular curve right before it enters the pocket to hit the pins. Okay, let me simplify if it sounds a little mouthful. 

Basically, a bowling ball with high differential is more prone to break sooner on the midlane than to make a slight move before hitting the pins. So, the high differential bowling balls have their arching breakpoints on the midlane. Do you throw a bowling ball that does something similar? If your answer is, “yes”, then the ball has high hook potential. 

Bowling balls with high hook potential give a bowler the versatility of shooting the pins from different angles. Instead of rolling your balls and hitting only the headpin in the face, you can get your high-hooking ball hit 2-4 pins when it enters a pocket. The right-handed bowler prefer hitting the pocket between 1 and 3 pins, whereas the left-handed bowlers like to hit the space between 1 and 2 pins. 

A high-hooking ball increases your chance of getting strikes astonishingly! Moreover, the flexibility of hitting the pins makes it even more fun for bowlers to play. Because a high hook potential bowling ball enhances your possibility of strikes, you will earn more points for your final score.

Besides having no strict ways of bowling with this kind of ball, you also get to control your bowling ball on the lane more. However, they can sometimes be a little aggressive. If your high hooking bowling ball is designed to have sharp angular hook, you may have some difficulty controlling it at first. Once you get the knack for it, you won’t be able to play with anything other than a high-hooking bowling ball.

The coverstocks that offer the highest hook potential are reactive resin coverstocks. So reactive solids, pearls, and hybrids can offer the most hookability in medium and heavy oil patterns. Some urethane bowling balls can also have a high hook potential that can make a strong angle at the breakpoint. 

What is Low Hook Potential?

So what does a low hook potential bowling ball do? Well, bowling balls with a low hook potential are quite the opposite compared to those with high hook potential. If a bowling ball has a low differential of RG, it is more likely to roll straight instead of making any significant change in direction during rolling down the lane. 

A low hook potential bowling ball is unlikely to make a curve at the breakpoint. In general, bowlers who are new to this sport prefer playing with a straight-rolling bowling ball. These bowling balls that roll straight are the low hook potential bowling balls. So does that mean only novices can use low-hooking bowling balls? Not really. 

Besides beginners, experienced and pro bowlers can also utilize a low hook potential bowling ball. What do they use them for? Well, to get those stubborn spares. Every bowler loves to have a low-hooking bowling ball in their arsenal for its ability to roll straight. They also appreciate the fact that not too much effort is needed to control these bowling balls. 

Typically, plastic or polyester ball rolls straight for having the lowest hook potential out of all the bowling balls on the market. Some urethane bowling balls can also have low hook ratings that make amazing spare balls. 

Medium Hook Potential:

So what are bowling balls with medium hook potential? As you can tell by now, both high and low hook potential bowling balls have their own perks. So what are the benefits of medium hook potential bowling balls?

Well, medium hook potential bowling balls make a smoother arching motion at the breakpoint. They are easier to control than high hooking balls and less straight than low hooking bowling balls. Bowlers who want to start hooking, should go for a medium hooking bowling ball and then gradually move to a high hooking bowling ball. 

Both urethane and reactive resin bowling balls can have medium hook ratings. Keep an eye on the differentials to understand how much hook potential your bowling ball can offer.

How do you measure high hook, medium hook and low hook of bowling ball?

Based on the differentials of RG, a bowling ball hooks. As I have just mentioned, the higher the differential, the more a ball hooks. But how can you tell if a bowling ball has a high hook, medium hook, or low hook potential? 

One of the best ways to tell if a bowling ball has high or low hook potential is by using a particular scale created by bowlingball.com. This hook rating measurement scale is called the “Perfect Scale” aka PS. The PS value can range from 1 to 300. The higher the number, the higher the hook potential is for a ball. The smaller the PS value, the lower the hook potential. So with the help of a number, you can easily tell how much your bowling ball has the ability to hook.

Generally, polyester bowling balls that are known for having the lowest hook potential have a hook rating of 5, on average (as per the Perfect Scale of bowlingball.com). Similarly, other bowling balls like urethane, reactive, etc can fall either under the mid-level or high-level hook potential section.  

According to the measurement of the Perfect Scale, the highest hook potential ever recorded is 237.7. This means a bowling ball with that hook rating score has the highest hook potential that no other bowling balls have. The score you get from using the Perfect Scale tells a bowling ball’s hookability pretty accurately. If it says it’s a high-hooking ball, it is indeed a high hook potential bowling ball and vice versa.

If you can’t seem to figure out the functionality of the Perfect Scale of bowlingball.com, you can guess your bowling ball’s hooking ability by looking at its differential value. The greater the number, the better hook that bowling ball will represent, and the lower the number, the less like the ball is going to hook.

The hook potential numbers or the differential values are always uniform. But if you want to throw some different bowling balls and figure out their hooking ability yourself, you can also do that. For that, you will have to roll all of your chosen balls as straight as possible. The ones that will roll straight from start to finish are low-hooking balls. Oppositely, bowling balls that curves (more or less) indicate that they have a high hook potential. 

When you compare different kinds of bowling balls side by side, I want you to remember that there are some other factors that determine a ball’s hook potential. So instead of just rolling a few balls, looking at the hook ratings, or checking the differentials, make sure you know the type of coverstock the balls have. The coverstock finish, core type, RG, etc, are also factors you should take into account because the ball’s overall performance, other characteristics, and durability, can impact a ball’s ability of hooking. 

Conclusion

So what do you think will prefer: a high hook vs low hook bowling ball? What matches your bowling style best? If you were a tad bit confused about hook ratings of bowling balls, I hope I could help you out. Not gonna lie, the bowling ball hook ratings can be a little tricky. So before you make a new purchase of your bowling ball, give this article a read. Good luck and happy bowling, me fellow bowlers!