Bowling Info 101 » Advanced

Improving Your Game…You Can Practice Bowling at Home…No Bowling Lane Needed!

Jim Newell — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:15:30 +0000

Many of the various bowling information sources suggest that practice will help you improve your bowling game and help you raise your bowling average. They are right, concentrated practice will improve your game.

The kicker is that bowling requires a lot of equipment in order to practice effectively. First you need a bowling lane and pins, a few bowling balls, bowling shoes, etc. Not things available in the typical home.

There is however a readily obtainable way to hone your swing mechanics, spare shooting angles, and strategies without leaving the comfort of your living room.

Enter the Nintendo Wii™, one of the newest electronic home game systems on the market and the sports pack of games that comes with it. Included are a few bowling games that can actually give immediate quality feedback for a variety of bowling skills.
Now before you get really excited, this would not be a substitute for learning the game of bowling, you will still need a real bowling alley to learn the basics.

The movements involved with the Wii controller are very close to the actual moves involved in the release of the actual bowling ball, wrist movement is very similar, in order to make a good delivery in the Wii game you have to “release” the ball at the bottom of your swing, this is identical to real bowling. In my opinion the more you play the Wii bowling game, the more smooth and accurate your swing mechanics will become, you will learn more about spare angles and how ball speed and hook affect how the ball hits the pins. These are skills that are transferable to actual bowling.
The scoring functions on the Wii game are accurate and exact, so you get the added benefit of learning how to keep score. Yes I know that most bowling centers offer computerized scoring, however there are times the computers are not working, there are also instances when they are not accurate, knowing how to keep score is still important. You can “bowl” by yourself or against up to 3 other players.

Featured in the Wii bowling suite of games is a “billiards” game that has you shooting at a 1 pin spare, then a 2 pin spare, followed by a 3 pin spare and so on, this game does make you think about spare angles, and how the ball hooks and hits the pins. Planning how you are going to make these spares is identical to the planning and ball movement in actual bowling. Also included are an obstacles game and another game that adds a row of pins to each additional frame, getting up to really ridiculous numbers, these 2 game while entertaining do not really depict real world ball movements and are not much use as training devices.

The Wii system, because the controller senses actual body movement is very popular with the younger crowd and is also becoming very popular with older people, now being used in many retirement or nursing homes as a way to keep seniors active.

Raising your Bowling Average…Scoring Facts and Oddities

Jim Newell — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:32:42 +0000

Recent statistics suggest a mean bowling average for all bowlers in the US at somewhere between 150 and 155 per game. Bowling at this level can be accomplished with converting about 50% of your spares; however most bowlers will also throw 1 or 2 strikes per game.

Raising that average to the 175 to 190 level only requires that you start throwing 3 to 4 strikes a game and convert about 60% of your spares. This could be accomplished by most recreational bowlers with practice and some instruction on picking up your spares.

Moving your average above 190 and up into the 200′s will require rolling 4-6 strikes per game and converting about 90% of your spares. If you want a game over 200 those strikes must include at least one double (2 strikes in a row).

From the above it is easy to see that can raise your average the quickest by learning to pick up a larger percentage of your spares. Of course it never hurts to have a good mix of strikes as well.

Below are some interesting facts and oddities about bowling scores.

How hard is it to throw a 300, or perfect game? It is estimated that there are 4 million plus avid bowlers in the US, if each of those bowlers, bowl an average of 20 games per year (which would be a very conservative estimate) that means that there are at least 80 million games bowled in the US each year. In a typical year there will be between 40,000 and 50,000 perfect games bowled, according to the USBC, the official keeper of annual sanctioned game statistics. So doing a little math shows that 0.0005 to 0.0006 percent of all of the games bowled in a typical year might be a 300 game.

Is it harder to bowl an 800 series than it is to bowl a 300 game? To bowl an 800 series you have to average over 266 for your 3 games. According to USBC statistics a typical year will yield 11,000 to 15,000 800 series. So yes it is about 4 to 5 times harder to bowl an 800 series, than it is to bowl a 300 game.

If someone offers to teach or show you how to bowl 300 every time, or to average over 260, think of the above statistics, and don’t waste your time or money.

A 279 game requires 10 or 11 strikes and can be scored by bowling 11 strikes and one 9 pin count spare anywhere from the second to the ninth frame. It can also be bowled by having a 9 pin count and converting the spare in each of the 1^st and 2^nd frames and then striking all remaining shots, or by having strikes in each of the first 9 frames, a 9 count on the first ball in the tenth, converting that spare and then a strike on the last ball.

The rarest score in bowling is a 292 game, which requires 11 strikes in a row followed by a 2 count on the last ball, and has only been accomplished about 20 times.

For more information on bowling records go to the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) site at http://www.bowl.com

Are Common Swing and Delivery Faults Keeping You from Bowling High Scores?

Jim Newell — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:35:15 +0000

By Jim Newell

The correctly executed bowling swing and delivery is a simple, smooth, in control, and accurate method of getting the bowling ball from you to your strike target. When done correctly, and on a trajectory that takes advantage of the current lane conditions, more strikes and hence higher scores will be the result.Most bowling swing and delivery faults are created by the bowler, some are unconscious and others are purposeful.The most egregious of the purposeful faults has to be trying to throw the bowling ball without using the thumbhole. Unless you have a physical handicap or injury that prevents you from using your thumb, there is no reason to attempt this delivery. You lose a lot of control, you have to work too hard to keep the ball and yourself balanced. It is almost impossible to cover most spares effectively, and the ball usually lacks power and energy at the point of impact with the pocket. One of the characteristics of this type of delivery is that the ball approaches the pocket at a huge angle. Contrary to popular opinion, the smaller the entry angle to the pocket, the more effective you will be at getting strikes. Younger, less accomplished bowlers who are showing off and think it looks cool attempt this style of delivery. Very few advanced bowlers ever use this technique, I can only think of one or two professional bowlers who used the no thumb delivery, and they were not superstars.One of the most common swing faults is not keeping your arm close to your body during the swing. Some bowlers will swing their arm away from the body on the back swing, which results in the extra step of trying to make a smooth forward delivery at the target during the forward swing. Often this extra step will result in a shot that is pulled across your body resulting in a backup ball or just seriously off line to the target. Another result could be hitting your leg or ankle with the ball on the forward swing, making it almost impossible to keep the ball online to the target.

Another bad habit that some bowlers create is twisting or turning their hand to an open position in comparison to the target line; this creates the extra step of rotating your hand back to the correct release position to deliver the ball to the correct target line. When I first started bowling I developed this swing fault, one of the coaches from the bowling center I was at came up and said that any movement I make that causes me to have to make another movement to get back to the correct delivery position, is wasted energy and another opportunity to throw a poor shot.

Releasing the ball too far back of the foul line is another issue. Probably caused by a fear of going over the foul line, many bowlers will take shorter or fewer steps and end up 1 or even two feet behind the foul line. A ball delivered form this position wastes a lot of positive energy just getting back to the lane, and in rare cases could even cause the foul light to activate. To correct this problem; practice your footwork and slide so that you end up 3-4 inches behind the foul line, with your slide foot pointed straight at the pins, your shoulders square to your target, your bowling ball should be slightly lofted over the foul line and smoothly contact the lane surface a few inches up to a foot beyond the foul line.

This is by no means a complete list of bowling swing faults, but some of the more common ones. To become really aware that you may be making some of them, have a friend or certified bowling coach watch your delivery, or even have your swing video taped. Eliminating swing and delivery faults will help you bowl higher scores on a more consistent basis.

Making Your Spares…Is This really the Secret To a Higher Scoring Average?

Jim Newell — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:08:44 +0000

By Jim Newell

Let me begin with a true story about a spare that I missed that may have cost me a lot of money. Some years ago, I was bowling in the qualifying rounds of an “over forty” tournament. This was at the time a fairly popular local tournament club that attracted a lot of older very accomplished bowlers, qualifying consisted of bowling a four game set across 8 lanes, with the high 16 bowlers moving on to a match play format, the eventual winner would collect about $1000.00, along with what ever he won from the “brackets” he had entered.

“Brackets” are a mini tournament using your game scores in whatever event you are competing in, there are typically 8 bowlers starting each bracket who are eliminated from the bracket as soon as they lose a game. The bowler has the option to buy as many of these “mini tournaments” as he would like, usually at a cost of $5 – $10 dollars each. The bowler competes, on a blind draw basis against another bowler in the event, if he wins his first game, he moves on to another winning bowler for the second game, and then again on to the third game. The payout for brackets is made form the entry fees for the brackets. It is not unusual for a bowler who is hot to make more money from brackets than from the original tournament. So this one spare miss really could have cost me more than $2000.00. But alas we will never know, however on to the story.

I was not bowling well on this particular day only averaging about 190 for the first 3 games, at the end of the third game I calculated that I could still make the cut with a final game of around 250. I switched bowling balls, changed to another line and led off with strikes for the first 6 frames, in the seventh frame I left the dreaded “ringing ten pin” the destroyer of more great bowling games than any other pin. I then proceeded to miss the spare, and score strikes in all of the remaining frames for a score of 258. If you are familiar with bowling scoring, had I picked up that ten pin and still struck out, my score would have been 279. The last qualifier made it into the match play round with a score of 268.

Now ask yourself, how important is picking up your spares?

You may have heard the adage “Pick up your spares and the strikes will take care of themselves” this is the honest truth; even professional bowlers do not succeed if they are not good spare shooters. In the preceding paragraph I made reference to the dreaded “ringing ten pin”, in my own bowling experience this is the pin I leave most often, and also the one I miss most often. Several years ago, when looking back at my league scores for the just completed season it struck me, that if I increased my conversion ratio of just the ten pin spares, my average would probably be 5-10 pins higher than the 193 I had just finished with. The next summer I bought a new plastic ball, to use for straight shots at the ten pin, and practiced a lot at hitting just the ten pin, my finishing average the following year was 204. Most of that increase can be attributed to concentrating on just one particular spare. Picking up your spares is the difference between being a good high average bowler, and a mediocre average bowler. Actually the difference between a 190 average and a 210 average is about one more spare per game.

If you want a little help with increasing you conversion ratio on all spares, I recommend the ebook and video instruction set “Bowl Them Away”, this instruction set is based on the teaching and techniques of Hall of Fame bowler Joe Wilman, coupled with the added videos, that actually show the correct targeting procedure for all your spare shots, this an unbeatable combination.