I've found this conversation fascinating. I will say that it's a poor artist that blames his tools. I've never bowled with a league before but I used to enjoy playing fairly regularly. I used the crappy rented shoes and balls. Managed to get in the high 200's every game. I think people take it too seriously and that negatively effects their score.
Do you go golfing with a stick and get hole in ones much of the time too?
Golf and Bowling share a lot of similarities. Both are games you play against yourself, your opponent's performance doesn't directly affect your own score or performance. The slightest changes in condition can greatly affect your shot. No matter how long you practice, perfection is unattainable. Like any sport, there has to be some inherently natural athletic ability to excel. Finally, equipment from 50 years ago until today has changed dramatically, allowing for someone with a less than perfect swing to achieve shots that would have been impossible a few decades ago. If anything, Bowling ball technology has had an even bigger impact on performance and consistency than Golf club and ball technology. Different reactive surfaces, different cores, different materials, and even the geometry used in drilling the ball are all HUGE when it comes to how the ball will work on any given lane/condition.
After thousands of games thrown and tens of thousands of games witnessed, I can say with 100% confidence that throwing a plastic ball straight into the pocket is far less likely to result in a strike than throwing a reactive ball into the pocket at the proper angle (one that can't be reached from a straight shot).
I have bowled for about 35 years now, and at my peak I was a ~190 average. I never had much athletic ability, and I never had the commitment to bowl so often that I could keep my skill up. My best game is only a 288, and I have had several 279's (one spare mid game) but never a perfect 300. I just don't have the focus and by the 8th or 9th strike I get inside my own head and make the slightest mistake that sends the ball a half inch in the wrong direction and miss the strike. I bowl with several bowlers who have thrown dozens of 300's in their lives and average well into the 220's. Around here that isn't all that easy because lane conditions are never very good, the climate swings in Montana can mean a lane that is perfect one week can be as dry as a concrete sidewalk the next, and depending on humidity and temperature, can dry up from one game to the next so much that you have to make a 20 board adjustment to your shot to stay in the pocket.
The thing is, you can be the most consistent shot in the world, but the shot that gets a strike one frame may not the next because everything has changed. The other bowlers have shifted the oil around with their own shots, the pinsetters don't set the pins down perfectly every time, the pins each are slightly different and will react differently to being hit, oil evaporates off the lane as you bowl. Even if your ball ends up hitting the same exact spot at the same exact speed, angle, and spin as your last shot, you could end up leaving several pins. This game is as much mental as it is about the ball you throw, and your equipment is just as important as your ability to adjust each shot and predict where it will go.
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Topic: Any bowlers here? (Read 3453 times)
