What Are These Sport Patterns I Keep Reading About

[Rdmonster]

My guess is they are a more difficult layout than your THS but I dont know why. If some one could clear this up I would appreciate it. Is it more oil...less...put down in a different way..?

[75lockwood]

sports shots are typically more difficult than a THS for various reasons, it was explained rather well in the following thread: http://www.bowlingboards.com/threads/11142-Exactly-what-is-Sport-Bowling?highlight=patterns

Cheers

[billf]

In one word...YES

More usually but at times can be less. Width, length and volume are all different depending on the pattern. You won't find many, if any, reverse christmas tree patterns there.

[bowl1820]

My guess is they are a more difficult layout than your THS but I dont know why. If some one could clear this up I would appreciate it. Is it more oil...less...put down in a different way..?

The basic's

The main difference between a THS (Typical House Shot) and a Sport pattern are the ratios of oil used.

Ratios are how much more oil is in the center of the lane than outside.

A House shot might have a ratio like 8 to 1, where a sport shot would have a 3 to 1 ratio.

There could also be more or less oil volume depending on the pattern used.

[Kudu22]

I got to play on Dead Man's Curve yesterday for a hour and half after we bowled THS for a good half hour. It was all smiles and high fives till the machine came and laid down the sport pattern for us. I wasn't "getting" high fives any more so I don't need to tell you how my day ended.

[Zothen]

You have to play on a sport pattern to understand how difficult it is to play. While some patterns are easy to figure out for example the PBA Cheetah is I believe 34' or 35' oil pattern and for me this is like my THS at 9pm on Wednesday nights while the PBA Shark pattern is 44' oil pattern which is like my current Monday night Sport league. Every pattern weather it's Keigel or PBA has their own challenges for bowlers. Some bowlers fair well on longer oil patterns,while bowlers like me fair better on shorter oil patterns. Also you have to have the right equipment for these patterns because they will break down. Most Sport bowlers will have a minimum of 4 balls up to 6 or 8. I and several league mates have even used a spare ball because nothing we had worked. I've seen 200+ avg THS bowlers quit or wont bowl Sport leagues because they don't want to have to keep adjusting to the ever changing lane conditions and ruining thier book avg.

Zothen

[UBowling]

The basic answer to your questions is, sport patterns are more difficult. The reason they are is because there is less room for error.

This is mostly due to the ratio of oil used. When a sport pattern says 3:1 ratio that means there is 3 times as much oil on the densest part of the pattern than there is on the thinnest part. A typical house pattern is usually around 10:1, at least 6:1. So it is kind of like on a house shot if you miss to the inside, there is enough oil to hold your ball to the pocket, if you miss outside there is little oil so your ball will recover, kind of a thing. On a sport shot there is a definite out of bounds usually where if you miss outside, the ball will go in the gutter or take out three pins.

For example, on my Wednesday night scratch league we bowl on the Brunswick Phantom pattern. This is a brutal sport shot similar to the US Open. It is long, 43 feet in length, and pretty flat, 1.4:1 ratio. We have several bowlers who normally average 230 or higher on a house shot, and they average under 190 on this shot. It is THAT much harder. Not all sport shots are as difficult, but they are usually harder, at least 10 pins or so. Check out the average conversion chart (http://beta.bowl.com/Sport_Bowling/Sport_Bowling_Tools/Average_Adjustment_Chart/)

[75lockwood]

FAQ`d!