In Defense of Bowling

"One advantage of bowling over golf is that you never lose a bowling ball." -Ernie "Coach" Pantusso on Cheers

Many people don't get competitive bowling.  People say how complex could it possibly be, its such a simple game.  While you don't need to be in shape to bowl (as evidenced by the high proportion of beer guts in your average league), bowling does require a lot of skill and training to perform on the level of the Pros.


Bowling is very much about muscle memory.  The more consistent you throw the ball, the more likely you are to consistently place the ball where you want it to be.  This equates to more strikes and more spares, which means a higher score.  While this seems logical enough to the untrained observer of the sport, the concept of lane conditions as well as the affect of different bowling balls is lost to the simple observer eliminating the more complex elements of the game.


Originally, bowling alleys were coated with a thin layer of oil to provide a buffer between the impact of the bowling ball and the lane.  More oil was placed towards the front of the lane while the end of the lane had less oil since people usually don't heave the ball 40 feet.  While this began out of a safety concern, people began to discover that the oil had an affect on the way the ball moved on the lane.  The high concentration of oil at the front of the lane caused the ball to hyrdo plane until it reached the dry part of the lane where the ball would gain traction and turn based on the spin placed on the ball.  Different oil patterns emerged which helped to increase scoring by laying down oil that would help move the ball towards the head pin by overloading the middle of the lane (so that shots there would keep skidding all the way into the pins) while the outside of the lanes would have less oil causing the ball to curve towards the head pin (the natural release curves the ball slightly inside).  Higher scores means happier customers, so this phenomenon developed.  While some oil patterns encourage higher scoring  many alternate oil patters were developed for more competitive bowlers that lacked the margin of error built into the normal house patterns.  While a professional bowler may average above 220 on a normal pattern, their average on more difficult patterns may be closer to 190.  As if the oil patterns themselves weren't difficult enough to try to read and play, the oil would shift over the course of a game meaning that the players will have to adjust how they play to compensate for it.


I know you're probably thinking this is ridiculous because you never even notice this when you go bowling, and the truth is you probably never will because there is another aspect that goes into this and that is the bowling balls them selves.  The best angle to get a strike is to hit the pocket is around 5-6 degrees.  Straight on impact causes pins to be left over as the ball does not have the moment to drive through the entire rack of pins.  Lacking the force to get through, the ball moves to the side leaving pins in the middle standing.  To achieve this angle bowlers use spin to adjust the entry angle.  While part of the spin comes from the release, a large portion of the change of motion that happens in a bowling ball is due to the weight in the ball.  Bowling balls are created to be off balanced such that based on the way you release the ball it will skid until it hits the dry part of the lane then will catch and hood towards the pocket.  Depending on the different oil conditions, different bowling balls have the best weighting to achieve maximum power going towards the pocket.  This fact is the reason that competitive players will carry multiple different bowling balls with them when they go to tournaments.


While bowling seems like a simple sport, going from a good  bowler to a great bowler requires a lot of time practicing not only your swing but also your ability to read the oil patterns and you ability to choose the right ball given the situation.  To the average person, the bowling alley just seems like a great place to drink beer, but to a select few its a training grounds.