Conditioning yourself for sport: despite differences between your house condition and the lanes on tour, there's plenty to learn from the trials and tribulations of PWBA bowlers - Lane Logic

Bowling Digest, Feb, 2003 by Kim Adler

THERE HAS BEEN A GOOD amount written over the past year or so regarding sport patterns and how to compete successfully on them. From my perspective, there is a growing set of trends--as well as divisions--between the sport patterns on the PWBA tour ("tour sport") and in your league play ("league sport").

Addressing the similarities and differences between tour sport and league sport may help you better understand the lane conditions thrown at you. To better prepare you for your league conditions, I'm going to help you use what the ladies of the PWBA have been able to figure out about sport patterns through our tournament competition.

SIMILARITIES

Spares. Most bowlers shoot spares with a plastic ball, going straight at them to eliminate the lane/condition. The good part of using plastic for spares is that a plastic ball does the same thing wherever you bowl. The downside is that carrydown can sometimes lead to missed back pins in clusters.

To combat this, try an alternative spare system using your strike ball for the left spares, or just for those clusters. Traditionally, the 3-6-9 spare system is used in such situations, in which you move your feet that number of boards on the approach away from the spare, but keep your eyes the same as the strike line, creating more angle. When the sport pattern changed the amount of oil to the left (for a righthander) to use in attacking these spares, some players cut the numbers down from 3-6-9 to a lesser angle.

I have created a version of the 3-6-9 system that falls right along those lines and has worked--at least most of the time. Using my strike ball, I keep my feet in the same location and move my eyes with a 2-4-7 system to the left for the left spares. This creates angle from a different part of the lane. The problem is that I am using a slightly different part of the lane than my strike ball, so occasionally my ball will do some unexpected things. I am aware of this, and to combat such spare "surprises" I intend to fine-tune my 2-4-7 left spare system in the offseason.

Right spares (again, for righthanders) on the sport condition are very similar to what you'll see in a regular league condition. Depending on the amount of oil in the center of the lane on a "standard" house pattern, you may also find a plastic ball actually skids too much. Plastic balls and right spares on sport are a perfect match, due to this lack of buildup of oil.

General Laneplay. Generally, there is no hold to the left--meaning you cannot miss left--on both tour sport and league sport conditions. I have managed to make the adjustment from a regular house pattern to a sport condition, as have most pros who have enjoyed at least a couple successful years on the PWBA tour. Those who have trouble include newcomers to the tour, like rookie JoAnna Judy, who says she finds playing the sport condition on tour much more difficult than at home because she has to work her ball so much more. She encountered little success in 2002 because she was used to getting a free hook at home; with sport patterns, there are no free hooks.

Drillings. With drillings, what goes for tour sport goes for league sport: Keep it simple.

Yes, the very same strategy we try to apply to the sport condition game play on tour also pertains to ball drillings. Keeping ball layouts simple and not drilling anything too exotic is the main topic of discussion on a regular basis out on tour, especially when we're preparing for qualifying rounds after practice sessions.

Talk to Carolyn Dorin-Ballard and Liz Johnson and you will find their favorite drillings for sport are very similar, even though they work with different ball companies. Their pins are just under the ring fingers, CGs just slightly left or right, and a mix of some extra holes (or no hole at all). Michelle Feldman also has found her favorite balls and drillings, and usually a group of three to four balls work consistently for her.

Ask most of the ladies that make the top-five TV finals each week, and they will say they used fewer than six balls the entire week. Johnson tells me that she uses a regular one to two balls on a league sport pattern, and they are "stacked" drillings (in which the pin is directly above the CG). She also had a successful two-week period in Fall 2002 in which she used a total of only two or three balls!

If you are hitting the pocket, but not striking, you can attack tour sport and league sport the same way: Adjust your hand or your speed slightly to account for the difference in oil. Gone are the old house adjustments of a 2-1 right with your feet and eyes after leaving a 10-pin.

After reviewing Judy's equipment with her, I noticed most of her ball surfaces were similar (very polished) and the pins were very high above the fingers, with CGs farther right than most. As a result, she was getting too much skid, then flip, in most of her equipment. This is why she felt she had to "work" the ball so hard. But with the correct matchups with surfaces and drillings, Judy will expend less effort to try and hook the ball.