Small Details To Help Your Bowling Accuracy

I like to take my students on a tour of the bowling lane sometime during the first lesson - preferably before we start throwing balls down the lane.

If they don't actually see something, they might not gain a true perspective of the point being made to them - "Seeing is believing," if you will.

While I can't physically show the reader the details I'm relating in this article, I hope they'll ask their bowling center to let them take a walk alongside one of the end lanes to get a "first-hand" look what at I'm talking about.

These are small details that not everyone discusses; but, they are important to a bowler's knowledge of the sport of bowling.

NOTE: For ease of description, I am rounding off numbers to the lower side because some of the specifications are very fractional to the thousandths of an inch.

The difficulty of this game of bowling is exemplified by the details I'm listing.

My "Choc-List" of fine points is as follows:

1) The distance from the foul line to center of the headpin is 60 feet, to the end of the lane itself, 62 feet 10 inches.

2) In a typical bowling center, the lane is only oiled for a certain number of feet from the foul line.

This is about 38 - 41 feet and beyond that point, no oil is laid down.

(After bowlers begin rolling balls down the lanes, whatever oil gets deposited on the previously "un-oiled" portion of the lane is there because the bowling ball "carries" it down there.)

Note: Typically, the lanes are oiled prior to a league session. If you can, ask your bowling center manager to allow you to take a walk down the side of the lane before anyone bowls and then, after the league is over.

You'll be able to see "dry streaks" in the first 38 - 41 feet and "oily streaks" from the end of the oil pattern to the end of the lane.

3) Your ball is 8-1/2 inches wide and each pin is 4-3/4 inches at its widest point. That means for a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 pin, you have nearly 21-3/4 inches of area to hit them to make a spare.

The 7 pin and the 10 pin have about 14 inches of playing area.

4) Looking at the triangle of pins from our vantage point on the approach, the number assigned to each pin in the "V-shape" is as follows:

(a) From the headpin moving to the left, the 1, 2, 4, and 7 pins.

(b) From the headpin moving to the right, the 1, 3, 6, and 10 pins.

(c) The three pins in the middle of that "V-shape" are the 5, 8, and 9.

5) The center-to-center measurement is a fraction less than 6 inches between each. That is, 1 pin to 2 pin, 2 pin to 4 pin, and 4 pin to 7 pin, etcetera.

6) There are 39 boards from gutter-to-gutter on a regulation lane so every "board" is 1.06 inches in width.

7) Using the inside of your sliding shoe as the reference for where you stand on the approach every board you move, left or right, is affected by 2 - 3 inches at the pins.

Drawing a straight line from the inside of a person's sliding shoe to the top of a person's head is the vertical center of the human body.

What is the significance of these minutiae?

You should be able to use them as rough "guess-timates" to adjust for different lane conditions and for spare shooting.

Thinking about them carefully, all bowlers may be able to use them to sharpen their accuracy on the lanes.