Bowling 101 – Don’t miss easy spares

These past 3 months of league have been trying to say the least. I’ve been struggling to put games together, I’ve been struggling to find consistency with my release and I’ve been struggling to consistently shoot spares. Now, I know a good portion of the difficulties have come from the number of changes I made to my game in such a short amount of time. To name a few, in no particular order:

  • I’ve increased the height of my backswing, bringing the ball past 120° sometimes (assuming 0° is arm at your side). Most of the PBA Power Players, bring their arm to at least 110°. Some go almost 180°.
  • I’ve increased the number of revolutions I put on the ball. This is both a positive and a negative, at least at Fugate’s. The upside is, I can play deeper (further to the left) and be confident that my ball will make the turn back to the pocket. The downside is, if I get in to the friction zone too early, the ball takes off to the left, often with bad results.
  • I’ve changed the timing of my footwork. A result of the higher backswing, this is definitely a bad thing. I have discovered recently that my timing is a little late. This means my feet get to the line before the ball does. The outcome of this is often twofold: Loss of leverage (less revolutions) and loss of accuracy, with a tendency to pull the ball to the left.
  • I’ve open my shoulders and my hips through the approach. This is a product of the higher backswing and is actually partially responsible for the higher backswing. This just makes it easier to play deeper on the lanes and feed the ball to the right.

Just recently, as in the last two or three weeks, I’ve started to find some success again, though nothing spectacular. I’ve managed to get in the high 500’s, with the exception of the 460-ish series I bowled this Thursday. I’m still searching for the first 600 of the season, and its proving to be very elusive indeed.

In most cases, the difference between a low 200 game and game in the 150’s is one or two open frames, and the proximity of those open frames to each other and spares. Convert more spares, especially single pin spares, and your scores will consistently be in the 200’s. In fact, every time I’ve stayed clean this season, I’ve finished with at least 210. Think about it this way, every missed strike costs you at least 10 pins in total pin count, while every missed spare costs you at least 20. Now, if you start to leave open frames in clusters, you really start to bring your total score down.

Lets look at an example. If you throw 10 strikes in a row, before you even throw a ball in the 10th frame (and you have up to three of them to throw), you already have 270 in the bag and you still have two shots left. If you miss, as in you don’t strike, but cover the remaining pins, you will finish between 281 and 289. Thats 10+ pins short of 300. If you put the first ball in the gutter, then strike, you will finish with 280, 20 pins short. Throw both remaining shots in the gutter and you finish with 270. That’s a loss of 30 pins with just two balls thrown. Put that open frame somewhere else in the game, and you will shoot in the 260’s. I once had a game where I threw 10 strikes and left one open frame somewhere in the middle, to finish with a 267. That’s 30+ pins lost from one open frame. Now leave more than one open frame in a game and your scores come down quickly. Combine leaving open frames with a lack of strikes and you’ll be lucky to break 150, let alone 200.

In general, if its not a split, you should be able to get it. There are a couple of exceptions, such as the 3-6-9-10, of the 2-4-5-8, which are very difficult to pick up because of the sleeper. Single pin spares should be absolute gimme’s. Single pin spares are usually left after pretty decent shot. Sometimes you can throw one of the worst shots of your life and get a lucky break and only have a single pin standing, but generally speaking a single pin is the result of a shot that was pretty good, just not quite perfect. Now, if you go ahead and follow that great shot up with what can only be the result of a lapse of concentration, poor execution or both, you have literally thrown away pins.

Now, I would consider myself to be a reasonable spare shooter, but if I could boil my lack of success this season down to just one thing, it would be missing way too many single pin spares, followed very closely by poor shot execution. In the last 3 months, I’ve missed at least 4 single spares a night. That’s 80+ pins in total count lost, and thats just from single pin misses. Throw in splits, missed clusters and spares and you can start to see why I’m not scoring well.

Since I took up bowling I’ve heard it again and again. You’re not going to score well unless you have a decent spare game. I’ve known this to be true the whole and still I refuse to put time in to spares. Anyone can throw a strike ball every now and then, but not everyone can consistently shoot spares.

I once read somewhere that Walter Ray Williams, Jr., the most successful PBA bowler of all time, misses just one or two single pin spares out of 200 attempts. Thats 99% on single pin spares. I heard is simple clusters were something like 70%. It’s no wonder he’s the only man to earn over $4M in his 20+ year career and has the greatest number of titles in PBA history.

Time to start practicing those spares…


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