From: cosell@world.std.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: alt.sport.bowling
Subject: Re: Finding the line.
Date: 24 Jan 93 23:22:55 GMT
Organization: Fantasy Farm, Pearisburg, VA
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Glenn Williams (glw@io.it.uswc.uswest.com) wrote:
} I normally bowl an outside line in the house our league is in.
} The lanes are medium-oily. Last weekend I participated in a city
} tourny, and bowled in two houses where the conditions were
} extremely dry. My outside line went from gutter to gutter. I adjus
} ted to an inside line, after watching serveral other bowlers, and
} found that I was at least around the head pin. So...what line does
} what? What are the guidelines? Does an inside line cut down on the
} hook? When do you change lines?

A hard setof questions...

Dry and wet are, for the most part, independent of 'line'.  Loosely
speaking, there are two aspects of lane condition which you have to
content with: the front-to-back distribution of oil, and the
left-to-right distribution of oil.  The absolute AMOUNT of oil
generally doesn't matter as much as the _pattern_, and primarily it
is the left-to-right distribution that will determine where the
'line' is.

What you're striving to do is play the lanes so that your ball has
a proper reaction pattern [this is the front-to-back aspect] and
where you can get a little margin for error by some help from the
oil [this is the left-to-right aspect].  What equipment you have
available, how proficient you are at throwing the ball in different
ways [raising and lowering your track, varying the speed, etc] will
affect your ability to take advantage of the oil patterns you are
confronted with.  This is one of the reasons why you have to
understand your own game and your own capabilities, and why the
result will be that you occasionally have to play a line different
than the 'conventional wisdom' proper line for the lanes.

My own strategy is that I think that getting some 'help' from the
lanes is more important than the reaction profile, so I'll try to
find the line which gives me some margin for error... what this
means is that an area of the lanes where if I miss my mark a little
bit to the right, the lanes will 'help' and my ball will hook a bit
extra; similarly, if I pull the ball a tiny bit the lanes will help
and my ball will 'set' a bit and hold pocket.  the problem, of
course, is that my ball may well have an AWFUL reaction in this
area of the lane, but whatever I do in that region I'll get a lot
of help from the lane doing it over and over and over, frame after
frame.

So what I do after I decide on what area of the lane to play is begin
juggling to find a combination of equipment and technique that will
work on my chosen line.  As I said, the more equipement you have and
the more skilled you are, the more ability you'll have to be able to
find [or make] a good reaction in the part of the lane where the shot
is best.


How do you know when to change your line?  I think this is a VERY
difficult and subtle question, much much harder than the original
question [of finding the line in the first place], especially if
you consider it with its dual: how do you know when to change
balls/release/speed/etc.  The first and *MOST* important principle
is *NEVER* make a correction based on a bad shot.  This implies
that you have to be a good enough bowler to (a) know what a good
shot is, and (b) be able to analyze your own throw and tell if it
was 'good' or not.  So..  before you can worry about any of this
stuff you have to practice enough so that you are a steady,
self-aware bowler and you know when you're making correct shots.

So you're not scoring, what do you do?  Well, you need to
understand WHY you're not scoring: is the ball reacting badly, but
you still seem to have good area?  Then stay where you are and
change equipment.  If the ball seems to be reacting OK, but you're
having trouble getting a *consistent* reaction [_ONLY_ looking at
the good shots, of course], then it might be time to try a
different line.  One easy thing to do is to move a few boards left
or right and see how that area 'feels'.  With some experience, you
should be able to do this fairly reliably [that is, if you're
playing the X board, you should learn how far to move your feet to
play the X+2 board].. even if the lanes vary some, because the
change is small yo ushould stay around the pocket.  Deciding to
make the 'big leap' is very very hard, and i think not worth
worrying about too much [other than spending an hour in practice to
get it figured out, of course..].  Yes, once in a while in the
middle of a league the lanes will change enough that the savvy
bowler moves 15 boards and shoots lights-out, but that's outweighed
[IMO] by the overwhelming majority of the time that a BIG change
like that just leaves you totally lost and having _noplace_ to play
on the lanes.  If you're thinking about this, don't be afraid to
give away a few pins: if you leave a 4-6, give away the extra pin
and try a strike ball on a new line instead of shooting for the
4-pin... if you're shooting a count ball inthe 10th, try a new line
with it [basically Parker Bohn did that on TV this afternoon when
he threw a strike ball at a 4-6].

  /Bernie\

ps,  Glenn: would you please put CRs in your postings?  Many systems can't
deal with text files with 500+character long lines  /b\
Newsgroups: alt.sport.bowling