Pocket Your Bowling Spares

If you are averaging in the 150’s through 170’s, in order to improve your average you must pocket your bowling spares.

Open frames hurt your average. Attaining a higher bowling average is a simple matter of cutting down the number of mistakes you make in competition.

If you place increased emphasis on hitting the pocket frequently on your strike ball delivery, your strike percentage ratio will increase.

Knock down more pins by striking more frequently than now leads to higher scores.

Closing frames with spares and avoiding open frames is the other trick to improving your average.

Hitting the pocket consistently requires two tasks. First you must learn to play the oil pattern and use a ball which will react consistently for you so you can hit the pocket repeatedly.

Next, once lane conditions change, you must change along with them.

Making the best alignment change decisions usually begins with adjustments to your feet positioning on the approach and an adjustment at your sighting target area.

Using the oil pattern to help you control your skid distance and allow you to get a good ball reaction in the mid-lane and on the back end requires good alignment.

It would be great if the oil conditions never changed and you never had to adjust from your initial alignment to hit the pocket.

That is, of course, not a reality. Adjustments options can vary. The better you adjust to keep the pocket in your “radar sites”, the better you will score.

Hitting the pocket is a main priority for all bowlers. Picking up as many spares as possible is also of major importance helping to eliminate, or greatly reduce, open frames.

Filling frames is key to establishing a sound basis for a good average.

Adding the ability to align to the pocket and then adjust to the pocket as needed coupled with filling frames with spares and strikes is the entire challenge every bowler faces.

Establish a good spare shooting system you can rely upon for lane conditions where you bowl most frequently and practice the system until your spare shooting is consistent.

Learn to align initially to the pocket at the onset of your competitive sessions so you leave easy spares when not striking.



Learning sensible adjustments as the lanes change will help you keep the pocket in your sites the entire competitive session, leagues or tournaments.

No tricks, just learn to pocket your bowling spares and line up properly and you will be on your way to raising your average.