--Ted Thompson, bowlingdigital.com
Ever since I saw Osku Palermaa showcase his two-handed or, as he calls it, "twin grip" style in the televised finals of the U.S. Open, I've been enthralled by it. When Jason Belmonte came along and won a national title with it, I became convinced that it was the proverbially "greatest thing since sliced bread."
However, not everyone shares my view of this technique. Some insist that it's a form of cheating. I've never understood why they think this, other than the fact that some people reflexively believe that anything that departs significantly from the mainstream modus operandi of a sport and appears to confer a significant advantage over conventional technique to boot can't be fair or right.
For instance, when Dick Fosbury started high-jumping backwards and even won an Olympic gold medal using this revolutionary technique, he and his style had their share of detractors. Yet, the "Fosbury Flop" is now the norm in high-jumping, just as two-handed bowling may be in the future if observations reveal that it's not too damaging to the body over the medium to long term.
Nevertheless, bowlingdigital columnist Ted Thompson has posted an article that at least presents some kind of rational argument against the unfairness of the twin-grip style. In his ungrammatically titled Are today's two handed bowler yesterday's dodo bowler? Thompson argues that, like the so-called "dodo" balls that were ingeniously used to advantageous effect by some in the early 1900's until the ABC outlawed them in sanctioned competition in order to standardize the game and make it fairer, the ability of a two-handed bowler to use balls drilled without thumbholes and throw them either right side up or upside down to circumvent ABC limitations regarding side weights and various tournaments' rules limiting the number of balls that can be used in competition, gives him or her an unfair advantage over bowlers who put their thumb in the ball.
I suppose this is an argument worth considering. However, if we accept it, then we'd also have to prohibit even one-handed thumbless bowling or palming, and I don't see that happening. Furthermore, one way to at least partially defeat the argument would be to require even thumbless bowlers to have thumbholes drilled into their balls. They would still be able to effectively turn one ball into two by throwing it with the thumbole above or below the fingers, as I have done to good effect at times when palming my ball, but I personally think this should be allowed. And even this could be prohibited by the governing body of a particular tournament, especially by one that limits the number of balls a participant can use during competition.
So, I really don't think Thompson's argument is very compelling. What do you think, not only about Thompson's argument, but about whether two-handed bowling should be allowed?
