Bill Spigner-Gold Coach- on drifting.......

[Hammer]

The way I look at it for a righthander is that straight is great, right is wrong, and left is right. The problem with walking right, especially at the end of your approach, is that you are potentially walking in front of your swing. If you do, your swing will have to go around your body to be released. That can cause severe accuracy problems.

Early off the hand is a miss right and late is a miss left, so your shot dispersion is very wide. If your swing is outside enough on the backswing so it doesn't get trapped behind your body and is able to tuck inside out or straight on the downswing, you can create a consistent release. Either way your lane play capabilities are limited.

Playing inside is difficult because you can't stay far enough left to play 3rd arrow or deeper unless you walk straight or left. Walk right is also bad for playing on sport conditions since you don't have automatic hook outside to disguise your early-off-the-hand misses.

Without seeing you, it's difficult to know the cause of your drifting. Because your drift/right walk is consistent, I would assume you have been standing too far left relative to your target for a long time and have gotten used to walking right to hit your target. It could be that you have been bowling on wet/dry conditions for a long time and missing right is not a penalty, so standing way left and walking and throwing to the right works.

This type of approach to lane play is really bad if you want to compete on tougher conditions. The more competitive tournaments have higher level players who change the lanes drastically and a lot faster then league play. The shot always moves in on tougher, longer patterns and there is no free hook spot in the early games. Once the lanes start to break down and the shot moves to the middle of the lane, you have to be able to play inside to compete. Walking right is a killer if you need to be able to play inside angles.

One common cause of walking to the right starts at the beginning of the approach. If your pushaway is to the right and you open up your hips and shoulders early in the approach, the feet will also face right and you can walk in the direction the body is facing. Walking a couple boards right or left of where you start is no big deal as long as it's consistent. Eight right is too much and too many bad things can happen, especially with the swing. To repair this, work on your setup and start. Make sure your ball placement/pushaway is straight and keep your hips facing straight ahead. The shoulders can open, but the hips need to stay straight so the feet can walk in a straight path. See a coach to correct this problem if you desire to play at a higher level.

So if you are right handed it is okay to drift a couple boards to the right to hit your target. You have to keep in mind that the alleys are narrow and just slight adjustments are necessary. Too many boards right will find your shot rolling down the gutter instead of into the pocket.