An Analysis of a Bowling League Season

In this article, scores from a complete league season are analysed to try to gain insight into the trends of the participating bowlers and their ability. The league in question was, in my opinion, one of the highest quality and consistently largest leagues in the UK, featuring 16 teams of trios. The league season consisted of three rounds, where each team played every other team once per round, making for a 45-week season. The bowlers’ skill levels ranged from those who have represented their country, to those who simply love to bowl and have done so for many decades without ever reaching the elite level, to juniors and newer adult players who’ve been in leagues for less than a year, so a great variety in skill level and experience was present.

What made this season particularly interesting was the use of three different oil patterns across the three rounds. Even more interesting, those patterns were 35 feet (16 mL), 40 feet (21 mL), and 46 feet (21 mL) in length, and all had similar levels of difficulty when measured by the pattern ratio. The 35-foot pattern had the lowest ratio, and the 40-foot pattern the highest. The 40-foot pattern was used in the first round (Pattern 1), the 35-foot pattern for the second round (Pattern 2), and the 46-foot pattern for the third round (Pattern 3). Since most league bowlers rarely play on pattern lengths that vary far from the 40-foot mark, this season gave a unique chance to see how different bowlers handled changes in pattern length and to see if that might potentially reveal key differences between a good league bowler and a good tournament bowler.

Sample

Across the season, 98 different bowlers participated in at least one match. Some only played one match, and one very dedicated bowler played all 45 matches. However, for this study to offer meaningful conclusions, we must study the results of bowlers who played a reasonable number of matches ...