Bowling Through Time – Part 1

During a recent visit to the university library, I was somewhat surprised to find some instructional books on tenpin bowling hidden amongst the 600,000 other books on the shelves. I am the proud owner of several books on tenpin bowling, but the ones I found that day were not in my collection. Perhaps the reason I have not been able to get my hands on them is that these books are from the 1960s and 1970s:

• Tenpin Bowling by John Sawyer (1962)
• Bowling by Carol Schunk (1970)

They offer a true glimpse into the past of our sport during a time long before synthetic lanes, reactive bowling balls, and high-flaring weight blocks.

After reading these two books, I started to think about the evolution we have seen in bowling and the factors that have driven it. From my time working at the Sports Technology Institute at Loughborough University, I have seen how change occurs within a variety of sports. The story behind the change is often quite interesting, and so it is with bowling.

With that, this article series is my attempt at mapping out the progression in tenpin bowling from the 1960s to the present day. We will occasionally sidestep into the world of other sports to provide more examples and insight into the evolution of technique, equipment, and environment from elsewhere in the sporting landscape.

Some key questions to keep in mind during this are the following:

• Do advances in technology cause evolution in technique?
• Does an individual who does something unique drive an evolution in technique?
• Does the playing environment cause evolution in technique?
• What role do governing bodies play in the evolution of technique?

Note that all of the above are open questions that I don’t have concrete answers to, but they will crop up from time to time during this series and will offer us the chance to reflect and think. They are also general questions that can ...