Five Simple Steps to Mastering Lane Play – Part 1

Every bowler wants to improve their decision-making on the lanes, from the beginning bowler just learning about oil patterns to the professional who is looking for those extra hits that make the difference between a check and a missed cut. Oil and bowling ball technology are complicated topics that can be very daunting to bowlers, and they can even steer some bowlers down a path of paralysis by analysis. For this reason, I’m going to introduce a few simple things you can do to improve your lane play skills right away.

Keep in mind that “simple” doesn’t necessarily mean “easy.” It might take a new approach to your practice to incorporate some of these ideas, but the point is that you don’t need to understand the physics behind a bowling ball’s core dynamics, or the viscosity and additives of a certain oil, to improve your decision-making on the lanes.

With that in mind, let me introduce the five simple steps to mastering lane play that I’ll cover in this series:

1. Know your game
2. Know your equipment
3. Improve your vision
4. Trust your gut
5. Commit to the shot

Over the course of this series, we’ll examine each one in detail, but let’s start by taking a quick look at the steps so you can start identifying which areas might be weak spots for you. Armed with this knowledge, you can adopt a new approach to improving your lane play decision-making.

Know your game

Everyone’s bowling game has strengths and limitations. This is true even for professional bowlers. They have a bigger bag of tricks than most amateurs, but it’s still not an unlimited skill set. One of the big differences between top-level competitors is their understanding of how ...