Great guide for lefties on picking up spares!

[bowl1820]

Both of you are basically right.

Mike is right in how he's looking at it, using a area going from ball center to ball center. (Nice graphic Mike!)

But German shepherd & Tampabaybob are basically right also, though the measurement is too small. It should be a area 21.797" wide (Using Max. Pin And Ball Dia.'s) and the entire ball has to be within that area.

The old saying was that you had almost a two foot hole to throw the ball though.



Now that's for pins in the center of the pin deck, that area will shrink as the pin gets closer to either side of the lane.

[Tampabaybob]

Jay, thanks for coming to my defense....when you're teaching kids and showing them a bowling pin with a ball on both sides it's easier to explain it by stating it's a 17 or 18 inch target rather than going into 1/2 of the ball dimensions as Mike so eloquently showed us. So Mike kudos to you for figuring it out exactly, but for the sake of instruction I'll stick to my guns and keep explaining it as 17 - 18 inches. I think they'll understand it a little better.

Bob