If you know about oil on bowling lanes, you understand that it is not applied evenly across the whole lane.
Instead, it is applied strategically to either facilitate scoring or make it more difficult.
The most basic is called a house pattern, and this is what you find at your local alley during open bowling as well as most regular leagues.
The house pattern is designed to help you do well. It features more oil on the middle of the lane and less oil on the outsides near the gutter.
This effect is two-fold. First, a shot missed to the inside will skid on the extra oil and not continue hooking as much so it still has a chance of hitting the pocket. (If not, it will at least hit closer the middle instead of hooking all the way over to the other side.)
On the other hand, a shot missed to the outside of your target (towards the gutters) will hook more because the lane is drier there.
Either way, you’ve got a good chance of having a good shot even if you do not hit your target accurately.
How to Bowl Better on a House Pattern
Given that we get some forgiveness no matter if we miss our target a bit, the optimal strategy for a house pattern is fairly simple. Simply aim at your target arrow and let fly.
But first, be sure play some practice balls to see how the pattern is playing at that moment in time.
Although the basic composition of oil will always be the same, the pattern can be a little irregular due to a variety of factors.
On some days you might need to shift your target more inside (the third arrow, for example) or outside (the second arrow).
Figuring out how the lane is playing that day is the key to unlocking more strikes and higher scores.
What’s Next for Oil Patterns Once I Master the House?
The house pattern, of course, is the easiest. If you want to advance to a much higher level, like that of PBA Tour professionals, you’ll need to get used to much more challenging oil patterns.
Most of these are called Sport Patterns and they usually have the name of an exotic animal. (Really!)
Instead of being more forgiving, these patterns have oil applied so that an errant shot will continue right on its path away from the pocket or even into the gutter if you aren’t careful!
You don’t need to become a bowling pro to try these out. Some alleys will have a sport pattern league to allow players to experience a more difficult atmosphere.
There are also many tournaments played on sport patterns that you can look for.
And who knows: maybe a grumpy employee somewhere will apply a sport pattern during regular open bowling just to watch everyone suffer!
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