Bowling

B

Bonafide

100+ Posts
How good do you think someone could realistically get at bowling without using spin at all?

I am not very good at it, but I could probably average a 150 if you give me three weeks to practice a bit. I just think it would be funny to see someone on TV rolling it straight down the lane like a hacker at the local bowling night.
 
You won't be able to consistently throw high scores for 180+ and I would believe it would be hard to break 200 very often if ever. One major problem with throwing a straight ball is that you will see the pins kinda peel away away from the pocket, any many times you will be left with a 5-8 spare pickup. I can almost guarantee you will have a game where you will hit the pocket consistently and you will end up with this spare combo many times and it will drive you crazy. (unless you throw something very heavy and very hard)

With a hook, the ball dives through the center and you will never be left with this and the angle you hit the head pin for example is sharper and leads to a lot more pin action.

Is there a reason you don't want to throw a hook? It doesn't have to be a high revving spin like some of the pros. Walter Ray Williams does not throw a high revving ball and does quite well.

I have been bowling since I was 5 years old (39 now) and I started throwing a hook 20 years ago, the technology has come a long way so it's a lot easier, I am with longtex though now, the nearest bowling alley is over an hour away so I don't bowl much, but in league I could push 195 average with out a high spin rate, and with a relatively light ball compared to a lot of people. Scores of 200 were very common and I have missed 300 twice....by 1 pin.

Also if you are going to bowl in a HDCP league don't worry about sucking early...it will benefit the team to have some who will improve a lot through the season. Plus it's bowling! Drink beer and have a lot of fun!
 
I was in a league for about 3 years before I moved back here to Austin, and I threw a straight ball only. I got my average up to a 178, from about a 128 when I started. It WAS very difficult to get up into the 200s throwing the straight ball, and I would only get over about once every few weeks (3 games a week). My high score was like a 225. I just never learned to hook the ball, but I know that I'm going to have to try if I ever want my score to get any higher consistently. You have too many single pins stay up throwing straight, and although I could pick up the spares with regularity, I would have knocked them down on the first throw with any spin at all. I saw a few 300 games in my league and all those guys had crazy spin.
 
You could hit the 180s if you got damn good at a straight ball, and could pick up spares with consistency. At that point, it would not be a "rare" thing to break 200. The $200 price point is high, unless it includes shoes and a bag.

As to the OP's other question, Walter Ray Williams damn near won the PBA tournament on TV a few weeks ago throwing the ball about a straight as you can throw it. I've been bowling (and watching it on TV) since I was 6, and it still amazes me that he can do that. But for every one like him, there are a million guys who don't learn how to throw a hook properly and will never average better than 185.

So if you do decide to join a league, get fitted, buy a ball, and take a few lessons. You'll be glad you did.
 
Straight ball thrower here. I used to bowl almost every week in high school with friends and my average was around 180 or so. Broke 200 a few times, but the margin for error is razor thin. When you're on a roll its not too hard to throw 4-5 strikes in a row, but when you're off a little bit you'll end up with lots of 8-9 pin first rolls.
 
I was referring to the entry level. If you're just learning how to throw a hook, you don't need a $200 ball. You can get a Tropical Storm or Hammer Vibe, shoes, and a bag for around $200.

As for Williams, he's one of the straighter bowlers on tour, but can still play whatever part of the lane he needs to in order to score. On that particular TV show, he was playing second arrow and pointing the ball straight at the pocket. It was a straight ball, even by his standards.

Coder, do you bowl at Highland Lanes? I bowl early shift Monday.

Stat, I never really thought about it that way. The goal in bowling is to throw strikes - lots of them. The more you can throw in a row, the better you're score. I guess a by-product of that then is that you also want your non-strikes to be grouped together as well.
 
The thing is that if (obviously this is an extreme example) one guy alternates strikes with frames where he knocks down 5 pins and then 0, ending up with an equal amount of each, and the other guy has only three strikes and seven frames of 5, that second guy wins if his strikes come in three consecutive frames.
 
Most of my life I have bowled rarely and badly. Then a few years ago I decided that I was going to break 200. I bought a cheap ball, and I went down to Dart Bowl in the afternoons when it was pretty empty, got a lane by myself, and just went crazy. I would throw until my arm got tired. Never took a lesson or learned to throw a hook (would have helped, I'm sure).

After coming very close to 200 numerous times in the next few weeks, I finally did it. 206, I think. Got my ball from the ball return, paid for my games, and left. I've probably bowled once a year since that game.

My obsessive self-competitiveness is why I never took up golf. I would end up out there on the links every day, I'm sure.
 
That would then defeat the purpose of bowling, which is to throw 12 strikes in a row. The closer you get to doing that, the higher your score will be. That's the nature of the beast. I've had "bad" 220 games where I got a couple lucky breaks that shouldn't have been strikes, but were. I've also had "good" 180 games where I threw the ball great, but just couldn't strike.
 
I actually took bowling in college. I never learned to throw a hook though. I just bowl it straight.

As some guys here have mentioned, they bowled a lot, got their averages up to 180. The guys on tv that play professionally, the very best ones, average a 225.

I am just curious if someone bowled from age 4 to age 25, 5 hours a week, nothing but straight balls. Just how good could that person become.

I realize that there is a reason that people put the hook on the ball, and the physics and all that. I understand why they do it.
I just like to think about stuff like this.

I mean I bowled a couple of 150's and that was my first time bowling in 4 or 5 years. Every single frame was a strike, spare or I hit 9 on the first bowl. The only open frames I had were where I was just too rusty to bowl it straight down there and hit one measly pin. Assuming I could have been even half *** at doing that, I could have rolled a 200, because that was about 4 or 5 frames there of 9 and then 0.

Again, I don't plan to join a league or go professional with it. Just hypothetical thinking about random stuff.
 
I would guess someone could average pretty close to 200 in that situation. Their margin for error in getting strikes would pretty small, and a backward bent wrist throwing a straight ball would make it even harder to hit that spot. On the other hand, you would probably get damn good at hitting a target the size of a pin in order to make spares.

Allow me to make an analogy about the pros though. The best ones do average in the 220s on tour. There are guys in my league that average in the 220s - I even did one year. The conditions aren't even remotely similar though. This is akin to a good local golfer shooting 67 from the white tees at Muni and thinking he could hang with Phil when he shoots 67 at Augusta.
 
Thanks for the response Pogo.
I think I might even try to take bowling a little more seriously, just to see for myself.

That's a good point about the pros bowling under different conditions. Do you think it's just the pressure that creates the different conditions?
 
The PBA uses specific oil patterns that in a way can limit scoring, with some pretty heavy oil patterns and big differences in oil within a few boards. So if you get outside your line a few boards you can really throw a bad ball down the lane. You will not find this at your local bowling alley. They also sometimes use heavier pins on the PBA, I know the gold ones are heavier but I am not sure about the white ones.

One other thing people may not realize is that left handers have an advantage in bowling (throwing a hook) because every time you throw a ball down the lane it "carries" a bit of oil with it down the lane. Well since there are a lot less left handers throwing hooks their line stays more consistent, while right handers will have to make more adjustments as the games are played.
 
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