Bowling patterns...
Most times when you go bowl, you bowl on what's called a THS (typical house shot). It's oily in the middle, and dry on the outsides - it's a "friendly", easy oil pattern - meaning that when you leave a ball too far outside, it will hit the dry part of the lane and curve back, and if you miss inside it'll hold because there's more oil there for it to skid on. Unless you are in a tournament or go after a league using a different pattern, this is what you'll be bowling on almost 100% of the time.
Sport patterns (which is a lot of the different names you might be seeing around here) are harder more challenging shots. There's less room to miss on the outside because there's more oil, and some patterns are "longer" - meaning there's oil further down the lane, or "shorter" - meaning there's less distance on the oil. Basically these require adjustments and a much more exact shot to do well on. Generally, take your regular average and subtract 20 pins to get your average for these patterns.
There's also PBA experience leagues (the references to "wolf", "cheetah", etc. The animal names) that use the same patterns (or very close to) that the PBA uses. The descriptions of these are similar to the sport shot stuff I mentioned above.
Basically each of the sport/PBA patterns are different. They have graphs showing the oil, where to play, etc that I'm sure someone will post up... but this is a really quick rundown of the differences. For what you're bowling now, basically you just have to worry about doing well on THS. Even THS can have some challenges... like when you're on for open bowl after going behind a party of 6 kids throwing plastic house balls all over the lane, for instance. It spreads the oil all around and makes it feel like a completely different game.
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