Technique

down the lane. In a nutshell, a wet

or “oily” condition means that your ball will slide further down the lane than it will on a dry condition before it hooks. When you are bowling on a wet con- dition, your ball seems to slide down the lane without hooking un- til it’s too late. When bowling on a dry condi- tion, your ball will hook much earlier than you want it to. The good news is that most house shots won’t fall into either of those extremes and instead fall somewhere in between. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be small degrees of “wetness” or “dry- ness” lane-to-lane or night-to-night that will still throw you off your game.

Watch the Ball Reaction When the ball hooks is as important as how much it hooks. Your job

3 Rules Conditions of Lane

There are really three things every bowler should think about when it comes to lane conditions:

1. WHAT are the lanes like when you first start to bowl on any given night? Fig- uring that out should be the goal of your practice time be- fore league officially starts.

2. WHAT adjustments need to be made as the night goes on? Read on for a few tips about how to make those adjustments.

3. HOW are the other players you’re bowl- ing with throwing their ball? Where are they placing it on the lane and how are their shots succeeding or failing? That will tell you a lot about where and how you should throw.

is to watch your shot all the way down the lane to see where the break point is. You need to remember where that point is and whether or not your shot hit the pocket the way you wanted it to. Also watch the shape of the line between the release and break point and be- tween the break point and the pocket. Being able to accurately watch your shot requires that you remain in a bal- anced finish position until the ball hits the pins.There are three phases of ball reaction — skid, hook and roll. You need to recognize and watch them all so you can file the infor- mation in your brain for your next shot.

Move Toward the Miss When you start to need to make adjustments (and you will eventu- ally on any given league night), the rule of thumb is to move in the

LIFESTYLE AND BOWLING TECHNIQUES TO MAKE YOU A BETTER BOWLER

TRANSITIONING FOR SUCCESS: Click on the play button (above left) for tips from Team USA star Chris Barnes discussing oil transition tips.

direction of the miss, while keeping the same target on the lane. The concept of that adjust- ment is based on the use of a pivot, with the pivot being the target on the lane. If the ball misses to the left of the intended pins, move left on the approach. If the ball misses to the right of the intended pins, move right on the ap- proach.

11 USBOWLER FEBRUARY 2011 Bowlers often will

need to make that same adjustment several times during a match. To do that effectively, you must be aware of your starting point on the approach and how the ball was re- leased. That’s a bit more memorization than you might be used to, but the more you keep those in mind, the more it will become second

nature and pay big divi- dends on your scores.

Master the Straight Ball As conditions on your lanes change, it can make it tricky to find the right line. Rolling a straight second ball will help you on both oily and dry lanes. Remem- ber that a lot of oil on the lanes will cause the ball to roll straighter no