Diary Of An Average Bowler Part 2

bowlingball.com, Originally Posted: 11/3/2014; Updated: 8/22/2022

This is the 2nd in a multiple part article series featuring “Billy Bowler”, a fictional bowler who is entering into his first competitive league.
In the 1st article, Billy joined his new teammates and bowled in the first night of his new, highly competitive league.
As Billy struggled, his teammates offered tips during the league and confused Billy.
As a good teammate would do, Billy took a bowling lesson before the next night of league. Here is Billy’s report from the lesson and his next night of league bowling:
“Hi, my name is Billy and I am back reporting the results from my bowling lesson and next attempt at bowling in my league.
My teammates told me I was drifting to the right on my approach and ended up sliding improperly to play the angle on the lane needed to follow the oil pattern and hit the pocket consistently. The results of the first night in league were pretty bad and we lost two of the three games.
I checked around town for a highly recommended bowling instructor. The guy I ended up taking a lesson with was a good choice on my part. I really liked him and he made things very simple for me to understand and did not clutter my mind trying to prove to me he knew what he was talking about.
The most important tip he gave me to straighten out my drift to the right as a right handed bowler was to change only one step direction in my approach rather than all five steps.
I use the five step approach so my new coach suggested I walk left the amount of boards I drift on the approach only on my 3rd step with my left foot.
He said it was easier to change one thing than five things to attain the same end. Made sense to me.
I worked for about twenty minutes on walking left on my third step and then sliding toward the center of my body to keep my balance.
At first, I was awkward and unsure how many boards I was correcting my drifting right. He said to keep doing it and try to walk about 4 or 5 boards left on the 3rd step and do everything else normally.
He was calm and encouraged me to be patient.
He then placed a piece of precut bowling tape on the center dot at the foul line and told me to align the instep of my left bowling shoe back where I stand on the same board. He said to check my finish slide position after the next series of shots and only focus on walking left five boards on my third step.
After I delivered the next ball and right after he told me to check my slide position at the foul line, I turned and walked back off of the approach. When he asked me which board I slided on, I told him I forgot to look because I was thinking too much about that 3rd step.
I felt like a real dummy. He smiled and said that it was OK and that everyone else he has coached has done similarly.
After I remembered to check my slide position, I found that my apprroach drift as either zero boards right or maybe one board right for ten consecutive shots.
I was happy.
By the way, he had me aiming at the 11 board at the arrows as a sighting target and standing and sliding on the center dot, the 20 board.
Then he made me walk to the line from extreme left side of the approach and the extreme right side of the approach aiming at the center arrow or to the right of the 1st arrow respectively.
It was amazing how I drifted right again when playing the center arrow and how I drifted left when trying to play the 2 board near the edge of the lane.
He told me this is very common for bowlers with no discipline in the walking patterns.
After more practice, I was able to walk a fairly straight line from all areas on the approach.
The coach told me that this technique would help my spare shooting and my ability to hit the pocket consistently leading to a boost in my scores.

We agreed to meet again the following week and continue working my my walking to the foul line and then on how to align myself from any position on the approach.
The bottom line is I bowled much better in my league the next week and actually shot a 555 series for three games and we won all the games.
My teammates were very pleased with my performance and encouraged me to continue working on my game. I asked them to chip in for my next lessons but they quickly laughed and walked away. Can’t blame a guy for trying.
Next time I will report how my next lesson went and where I am with my league and with my game."
Thanks.
Billy Bowler