Sport leagues

[santos314]

So I am curious about sport leagues. I have seen talk on here and i have a friend who tried one. Is the oil just unbelievable? Most people say the shot is really tough. How does it compare to a pro tour. Not trying to be an ***, but most pretty good bowlers with good equipment seem to shoot way lower than normal. Does the ball just do crazy things, or is it way too hard to be consistent? Is there no ability to adjust? Just curious.

[C J]

Harder patterns. A lot of house shot leagues use 10:1 or even 12:1 oil rations which means there is 10 times the amount of oil in the middle of the lane that is used on the outside. This gives you miss room inside and especially outside once the pattern breaks down alittle, its dryer on the outside so if you throw it out there it helps it back... The oily center lane helps the ball hold if you tug one inside.

The house I used to practice at uses a 10:1 ratio and if you tug one inside and throw it straight up 15 by accident that's a strike almost everytime... The house I bowl at now uses a custom pattern which is similar to a typical house shot but a much lower ratio meaning misses inside aren't quite as forgiving.

Basically, they use sport patterns instead of Typical House Shots. PBA Experience Leagues are even harder as they use the oil patterns the pros play on... I'll get there one day lol.

[bowl1820]

So I am curious about sport leagues. I have seen talk on here and i have a friend who tried one. Is the oil just unbelievable? Most people say the shot is really tough. How does it compare to a pro tour. Not trying to be an ***, but most pretty good bowlers with good equipment seem to shoot way lower than normal.

Everyone likes to say house shots (THS) are easy, it's not that they are easy. It's just they don't penalize you for making bad shots and being inconsistent.

Plus the THS is familiar, you bowl on the same pattern week after week. If they put the hardest pattern you could find out and never changed it week after week, it would become easier as everyone got use to it.

The thing about sport leagues (Pba Experience leagues are sport leagues also) is not that the oil is "unbelievable". It's just different and it penalizes you for making bad shots. You find out just how good you actually are at, making good shots, being consistent and playing the lanes properly.

Does the ball just do crazy things,

No, the ball doesn't do crazy things.

is it way too hard to be consistent?

The pattern has nothing to do with you being consistent, Consistency is all on "YOU". If you can't throw the ball the same way twice in a row, that's not the patterns fault or the lanemans, that 's you.

Is there no ability to adjust?

Of course there's a ability to adjust, but it's up to you to determine the right adjustment to make.

[santos314]

Ok, that makes sense. Not that I'm looking to join one yet, lol. I had heard a lot about them and the difficulty, sounds pretty wild.

[got_a_300]

As bowl1820 said it brings out the best in the elite bowlers
and the worst in the rest of us it will make you think harder
on what adjustments to make and try harder to become more
consistent with your shots.

I've seen 230+ house shot bowlers go and try their luck on a
sport shot league / PBA experience league and average any
where from 60 - 100 pins less than they do on the THS it does
make them realize they aren't as good as they thought they
were because they get a healthy dose of reality.

[JasonNJ]

Not that the oil is unbelievable, it is that your mistakes are exposed and accuracy needs to be at a premium. The way the house shot is designed, drier on the outside and a flood of oil in the middle. This almost creates a funnel effect to the pocket. You miss right, the dry boards create enough friction so your ball can head back to the pocket, you miss left, your ball skids and holds its line to the pocket. I can't tell you how many times during league I say to myself that my opponent made a bad shot because he missed 4 boards left or right but they still strike anyway.

[Eddy]

Are most scratch leagues the same way now? Things have changed so much since 1997, my head is spinning. Back in the day, proprietors would set up a nice shot for the scratch bowlers and I would see crazy scores.

[foreverincamo]

One way to look at Sport Shot Leagues, is that the oil pattern narrows the lane. Instead of the gutter being out-of-bounds, the boards 1 through 10 could act the same way. Get a shot outside of board 10, and it never has a chance to get to the headpin.
Other oil patterns make you throw the ball right next to the gutter. Others make you play deep inside. It's challenging, interesting, and can be quite frustrating.