PICKING UP SPARES
Too many beginners are hypnotized by the idea of making as many strikes as possible. When they miss a strike on the first ball, they throw their second ball carelessly at the remaining pins – as if the contest were over!
A few minutes calculation, however, will show that those few pins remaining can make the difference between a 120 average and a 190 average! 190 specifically, because if you consistently knock over nine pins and then make the spare, you would score 190 – without a single strike.
In Tenpin Bowling, the idea is to knock over as many pins as possible with your first ball – if not exactly right you are going to leave pins standing. No spare is easy to convert, but there are very few that cannot be picked up with a well-placed ball.
More spares are missed every day through lack of knowledge, than by inaccurate bowling!
There are many good systems used for spare-shooting, and we recommend the following and suggest you try it first.
- Bowl the same type of ball for every spare that you bowl for a strike – build up your consistency of delivery.
- Aim to hit the pin nearest you first.
- Aim into a group – not across it.
- Only attempt difficult splits if you are very confident – or in a desperate need of a conversion – one pin over is better than two missed!
- Learn to identify pin positions by their number.
- As a general rule, shoot left-hand leaves from the right side of the lane, and right-hand leaves from the left side of the lane.
- Never aim along an edgeboard.