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History of Bowling
Fact. More than 70 million people in the United States bowl during a year. Fact. More than three million compete regularly in league play certified by the United States Bowling Congress. Staff at USBC Headquarters in suburban Milwaukee works closely with about 4,000 local associations to serve the three millions members.
According to bowl.com, bowling has soared into the upper echelon of sports, setting a steady pace by blending strong organization with modern centers in which to participate. Although the sport now appeals to people from all walks of life, entering a bowling center today would give few clues to its origin.
Bowling has been traced to articles found in the tomb of an Egyptian child buried in 5200 B.C. The primitive implements included nine pieces of stone at which a stone "ball" was rolled, the ball having first to roll through an archway made of three pieces of marble.
Another ancient discovery was the Polynesian game of ula maika, also utilizing pins and balls of stone. The stones were to be rolled at targets 60 feet away, a distance which today still is one of the basic regulations of tenpins.
Bowling at pins probably originated in ancient Germany, not as a sport but as a religious ceremony. Martin Luther is credited with settling on nine as the ideal number of pins.
The game moved throughout Europe, the Scandinavian countries, and finally to the United States, with the earliest known reference to bowling at pins in America made by author Washington Irving about 1818 in "Rip Van Winkle."
The game was being played throughout the world and rules were different almost everywhere. Even basic equipment was not the same. In fact, why and when the extra pin was added from the European game of ninepins to the American game of tenpins still is a mystery.
Regardless of how the game came into being, it became so popular by mid-19th century indoor lanes were being built throughout Manhattan and the Bronx and on westward, in Syracuse, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities with large German populations.
In 1875, delegates from nine bowling clubs in New York and Brooklyn met in Germania Hall in the Bowery and organized the National Bowling Association. This was the first attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Disagreement raged between East and West, principally the alignment of New York State bowlers against everyone else to the west. On Sept. 9,1895, the American Bowling Congress was organized in Beethoven Hall in New York City.
A group of 40 women, encouraged by proprietor Dennis J. Sweeney of St. Louis, met at Sweeney's establishment in 1916 and formed what was known as the Women's International Bowling Congress.
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Bowling Lane Dimensions
From foul line to the pins is 60 feet long and your target is the "pocket". Missing by just one inch can make the difference between a perfect strike or leaving a corner pin.
| Whether you are a beginner or a regular tournament bowler an understanding of the basic dimensions of the lane can help you make find the strike line faster and make more spares. All the spare and adjustment systems are based off these simple measurements, length, width, number of boards, distance to arrows etc. The following picture illustrates these lane dimensions. |
| Links |
| Find out more about pins, lane play systems that can improve your scores and oiling patterns. |
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Bowling Pins
| Specifications for Bowling pins are controlled by the ABC (American Bowling Congress). Just like lane dimensions there are tight tolerances placed upon individual pins, as well as sets of pins in the machine. |
The diagram below shows the heavier 3lb 10oz "Gold" pin that the PBA started to use in 1998. The second diagram illustrates the relationships between the arrows (on every fifth board to the pins). The arrows are placed on the lane in such a way as to enable the use of targetting systems to improve your strike and spare-conversion rate.
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Why We Oil Bowling Lanes
| A heavy object dropped on the floor creates a force, a big force: did you know that a 16lb bowling ball hits the lane with a force of over 2000lb per square inch - ouch! So proprietors put a conditioner on the lanes to reduce the friction and to protect them. It's as simple as that. But oil can be placed on the lane in different ways ('patterns') and a skilled bowler with the knowledge to adjust the line will score more than their opponent. |
| Want to learn more? |
| We have basic lane dimensions plus lane play techniques and systems for finding the optimal strike shot on different conditions. Also "glow in the dark" pictures of two oil patterns. |
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Revised April 15th 2000
Flat Oil, A little History 
The simplest pattern is "flat oil": the oil is applied in equal measure across the width of the lane. In the very early days of bowling this oil (which was actually "shellac") would be applied for the full length of the lane. After World War II lacquer was used and, again, this was applied for the full length of the lane. In the 1960's a urethane based finish was developed, but this "migrated" - was picked up by the ball and got into the pinsetting machinery causing problems - hence a "limited dressing" procedure was adoped where the final few feet of the lane (the "back-end") were kept dry. This history is repeated in many other places, and I'm not going to repeat what others do better: if you want to learn more I'd refer you to Tom Kouros' Par Bowling .
Oil is clearly a "slippery" substance and the back-end, being free of oil, creates greater friction between the ball and the lane. This friction creates the potential for added hook and more angle of entry into the pocket to carry strikes (read more about hook bowling). On a flat condition the length of the oil governs when the ball will start to hook: so a short-oil condition will play differently than a long-oil lane. Now, because the oil is not visible to the human eye, we enter the complex domain of Lane-Play, where skilled bowlers solve the puzzle of how best to play a lane by adjusting Angle, Release, Speed and Equipment. A big hook is exciting but can be hard to control too. Many have commented that complaining about lane conditions started to escalate after the big back-end developed.
Crowns & Reverse Blocks
Flat oil is simple, but because the balls move the oil around, picking it up and depositing it further down the lane (as "carrydown") a dried out track can start to develop. In open-play many straight bowlers also roll balls right down the middle part of the lane, creating a condition known as a reverse block (dried up in the middle and oiled on the outside of the lane). The reverse block is not normally created deliberately and is very hard to play. So, to combat the open-play syndrome proprietors will put more oil in the middle part of the lane. Viewed in a side-profile this pattern resembles a "crown".
Walls, Blocks & Top Hats
Remember that friction creates the potential for hook. A dry back-end allows the ball to hook in the latter part of the lane. In leagues in many parts of the USA it was common to apply oil only to the middle part of the lane, leaving both the back-end and the outside boards dry. Usually the oil is applied 10-10.
This lack of oil on the outside created a wall of friction, what some people mockingly call "adult bumper bowling": if a hook bowler missed the target a few boards to the outside the extra friction in that part of the lane would bring the ball back - on flat oil it would probably slide on, or even off the edge of the lane! A wall is clearly a very high scoring shot and proprietors favoured this for leagues, but, ask yourself, do you prefer artificially inflated high scores on such an easy condition, with the "bumpers" up? For a casual/social league that's fine, but removing the skill of lane play and reducing it to one of equipment selection is not good for the sport. To restore the integrity of the game and bring respect back to skilled bowlers the wall is not a desirable condition.
The ABC (American Bowling Congress) ruled that no sanctioned event could have fewer than 3 "units" of oil across the width of the lane. The International governing body (the FIQ) version of this rule requires a minimum of 5 units.
You can view pictures of oiling patterns taken under ultra-violet light
Christmas Trees
At the time of writing the Christmas Tree is thought to be the fairest possible condition. Because there are different styles of players using a single condition could easily be unfair to one particular style and many bowlers have felt 'victimised' by the lanesman's choice of condition for a tournament. The Christmas Tree tries to cater to all styles, allowing the cranker to move inside and swing the ball out to the break point while, at the other extreme, the low-rev hook bowler can play up the outside lines.
A Fair Shot?
Is there such a thing. The general concensus is No. The Christmas tree is probably the single fairest condition, in that it tries to allow all styles to compete but highly aggressive bowling balls can lift oil off the lane at such a rate that the condition that is put out in the morning can change dramatically within a few games. It's often said that a good bowler can adjust to any lane condition, but with the realisation that this means certain styles don't have to adjust to certain conditions some people are now advocating that we stop pursuing the holy-grail of a single "fair" condition. Instead, they say, a tournament should be played on multiple conditions so that all styles have to adjust and at the end of the day the best bowlers are recognised.
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