Good drill for practicing spares?

[UBowling]

My opinion on the matter of spares is to learn to throw at them straight. Take the lane pattern out of the equation.

With that being said there is a starting point for spare shooting that I find useful. For every pin to the side of the head pin, move 3 boards in the opposite direction. So for example leaving a 3 pin would cause you to make a 3 board move to the left. Leaving a 4 pin would cause you to move 6 boards to the right. And from that you can adjust. If you miss right, move your feet more right.

When I practice I am usually 5 boards to the opposite direction for each pin. For the 7 pin I am 15 boards right with my feet. For the 10 pin I am 15 boards to the left with my feet. I look at the 10 pin and trace an invisible line back down the lane to where I am going to slide so I know what to look at for my target. Then I try to take the 10 pin and 7 pin off the rack on the first shot and second shot. If I have a pin setter that will set up specific spares, I will set those up time after time. But taking each one off the rack is good practice.

[UBowling]

And as far as the missing your target and being way off down lane, that is because of a few different factors. Main one is launch angle, you could be dead on your target, but if your launch angle is off you will miss what you are shooting for. Also when you are hooking the ball, if your launch angle is correct and you hit your target, you can still miss because your speed may be slower or faster, and your revs could be higher or lower, or you could have lofted the ball more or less. All of those things factor into the complete picture.

There is an article on our site called "Bowling's Big Miss" here: http://www.ubowling.com/coaching.aspx and it explains it all in detail.

[billf]

Great article Levi. Thank you for sharing it.