Bowling Tips: Spares

I average around 195 right now. After a couple years away from bowling I am surprised that I am back up to that number after only throwing around 30 games. I throw the ball fairly straight and have never really liked throwing a big hook. I see a lot of guys out there who throw a huge hook, throw it hard and throw a lot of strikes, I beat them every game. Why? Well, its a lot easier to find the pocket every night when the ball is only hooking 10 boards or so, but most importantly this style of bowling leaves a lot splits. Even when the power player is leaving 7 or 10 pins they forget to tone that big hook down and usually will miss the easy single pin spares.

For these players and everyone out there who is having problems picking up spares I suggest picking up a plastic spare ball. These balls will go straight on all surfaces for the straight thrower and not hook much at all for the power player. The weight in these balls is very neutral as they are a solid core with no weight block in them other than a small top weight, that when drilled properly will not play into the balls ability to hook. Pick same weight ball as you are using for your first ball and keep the same layout as far as finger size and span go, the ball driller will know where to place the holes.

Find a ball that will do this for you and practice throwing ALL of your spares by going straight at them. This is a great way to work on your throw along with taking the guess work out of how much the ball is going to hook at a certain part of the lanes. Learn to hit your marks on the lane and focus on picking up the spares every time! Too many times people just rush up there and throw the ball down the lane because they want to go up again to throw a strike in the next frame! This kills your scores! The only way to score well in bowing is to fill the frames with a strike or a spare each and ever time. The way to score big is to string a lot of strikes in a row!

I've beat guys who have thrown 7 strikes to my 3 because they leave a ton of open frames with poor pin count. If you get into a bad split, go for the most pins you can instead of trying to pick it up. If you pick up 2 or 3 pins it makes a difference at the end of the game! I would not worry about picking up hard splits unless you need it to stay in the match!

So get out there and start working on those pins that dare stay standing after your first ball!