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>> Your local lanes are oiled in a way that helps turn misses into strikes, and when coupled with recent advances in bowling ball technology, have produced an a

>> Your local lanes are oiled in a way that helps turn misses into strikes, and when coupled with recent advances in bowling ball technology, have produced an abundance of 300 games among amateurs Sorry, is this real? I haven't gone bowling since I broke my wrist in an accident 20 years ago. I was never a great bowler before that, but it never crossed my mind that the bowling alley would somehow conspire to help me get a high score. If anything, bad shoes and too much wax would send me sliding. I know most of the good old bowling alleys died, and got replaced by these new urban work/life/bowling/sushi places that charge $50 a game, but are they really putting special grease patterns down to let the sensitive children walk away happy for instafucking more strikes? Is that a real fucking thing?

2-718-281-828 3y ago
you'll find more about it if you google "oil pattern bowling". it's obviously though a micro optimization only professional players will be able to utilize.
gnopgnip 3y ago
Yes, it’s not a uniform layer. Most of them have less grease near the edges, but there are different grease patterns
masklinn 3y ago
The wax is on the lane, only way you’d get it on your shoes is if you walk on the lane which you don’t. The pattern thing is a bit more complicated, veritasium has a video on it (and on bowling balls). Wax was introduced to protect the lanes, however players fairly quickly learned to use the wax, as it allows hooking more easily and severely, which makes hitting the right location at the right angle much easier. Bowling alleys will then use different patterns for different purposes e.g. a local alley will use a more forgiving pattern, while pro alleys will use a “sport pattern” from a variety of standard patterns (or possibly in-house) to tune the difficulty and for more interesting shots. House patterns are actually a lot simpler than pro patterns, usually it’s a simple sideways gradient (more in the center, less on the sides) going straight down to halfway to 2/3rds the lane. Aside from player satisfaction (it punishes mistakes less), a factor of them was simply saving oil. This is not new, complex patterns were first experimented with by the PBA in the 90s (spraying lanes by hand) to make shots harder, as the balls had advanced too much. Though it only became an official feature in the 2000s as machines became capable enough to print specific patterns, reliably. This means reading wax patterns has become an important skill of pro bowl. In essence it’s the opposite of what you think, sport lanes and events use patterns specifically designed to be more difficult on purpose.
- tapland 3y ago
  For the casual, this sounds like it makes the game much more even and fun. Knowing about it makes me want to try out the difference between waxing styles.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Thank you, this is a really great answer! I had no idea this was already being done in the 90s. I think it was kind of commonly acknowledged in the late 90s (among stoned kids at the bowling alley) that the new balls were making the game too easy... but I had no idea that the official lanes were trying to compensate for that! >> The wax is on the lane, only way you’d get it on your shoes is if you walk on the lane which you don’t. Growing up (shout out to Bayshore, Corbin, and Hollywood Lanes) I twisted my ankle on a lot of stray spots.. One thing I miss about the game. I miss marking on paper like my Dad taught me. I learned to bowl at the UCLA Students Union bowling alley. Adding TVs that did the scoring took away half the fun for me as a nerd.
- fouc 3y ago
  The video referenced is here: https://www.veritasium.com/videos/2021/9/25/the-fascinating-physics-of-bowling https://www.veritasium.com/videos/2021/9/25/the-fascinating-...
specialp 3y ago
This is absolutely real, and I am impressed they included that. It is called a "walled shot" I used to work as a bowling mechanic when going through college. The lanes in PBA bowling have to have a minimum amount of oil. There should be more oil in the middle and less on the boards towards the gutters. However every single house has no oil at all on the boards towards the gutter. This allows the balls when thrown with a hook to boomerang back and smash the pins. I always wanted to make it a PBA shot, but the managers said no absolutely not! Bowlers equate how good a place is with how good they bowl! They get angry and superstitious about everything. Like they would think the head mechanic oiled the lanes better than 19 year old me but it was really done entirely by the machine. So if you gave them a regulation shot, and they started bowling worse, they would go to an easier house. Edit: It is not just the high end recreational bowling centers serving sushi, it is all of them. They change the pattern if hosting a PBA event.
- noduerme 3y ago
  >> Bowlers equate how good a place is with how good they bowl! They get angry and superstitious about everything. Fuck man. This like, lifts the veil from my eyes. It almost ruins my life a little. I was never a good bowler. But there was this one day. See, I had been driving through Mobile, AL, a year earlier, and started talking to the girl at the front desk of the hotel. We were both kids, I was 19, and she was reading Emerson, and we ended up spending the whole night in the park talking about poetry. A year later I flew there and met her again. And I was just absolutely enamored and so in love with her. That first day she picked me up at the airport, we just were so crazy to see each other. The next day we didn't know what the hell to do so we went and had Waffle House for breakfast and passed by the bowling alley, so we went bowling. It was the only time in my life I ever threw over 200. I think I got close to 250. We only hung out there for that one game, but something went click in my head. Something went click that, any time since that morning that I've ever needed to just believe in something, or fix something, or make something work, or sink a pool shot, I just close my eyes and think of that feeling I had with her when every ball I threw was a strike and she kept cheering. It surprised me that something so good was even in my own body. I think that bowling moment became to me the closest to what other people get when they say they feel something when they pray. And now you're saying it was probably fake... just laid down on the wax. That's fucked up, man. That was like, a peak experience. I think I need to do some molly.

2-718-281-828 3y ago

you'll find more about it if you google "oil pattern bowling". it's obviously though a micro optimization only professional players will be able to utilize.

gnopgnip 3y ago

Yes, it’s not a uniform layer. Most of them have less grease near the edges, but there are different grease patterns

masklinn 3y ago

The wax is on the lane, only way you’d get it on your shoes is if you walk on the lane which you don’t. The pattern thing is a bit more complicated, veritasium has a video on it (and on bowling balls). Wax was introduced to protect the lanes, however players fairly quickly learned to use the wax, as it allows hooking more easily and severely, which makes hitting the right location at the right angle much easier. Bowling alleys will then use different patterns for different purposes e.g. a local alley will use a more forgiving pattern, while pro alleys will use a “sport pattern” from a variety of standard patterns (or possibly in-house) to tune the difficulty and for more interesting shots. House patterns are actually a lot simpler than pro patterns, usually it’s a simple sideways gradient (more in the center, less on the sides) going straight down to halfway to 2/3rds the lane. Aside from player satisfaction (it punishes mistakes less), a factor of them was simply saving oil. This is not new, complex patterns were first experimented with by the PBA in the 90s (spraying lanes by hand) to make shots harder, as the balls had advanced too much. Though it only became an official feature in the 2000s as machines became capable enough to print specific patterns, reliably. This means reading wax patterns has become an important skill of pro bowl. In essence it’s the opposite of what you think, sport lanes and events use patterns specifically designed to be more difficult on purpose.

tapland 3y ago
For the casual, this sounds like it makes the game much more even and fun. Knowing about it makes me want to try out the difference between waxing styles.
noduerme 3y ago
Thank you, this is a really great answer! I had no idea this was already being done in the 90s. I think it was kind of commonly acknowledged in the late 90s (among stoned kids at the bowling alley) that the new balls were making the game too easy... but I had no idea that the official lanes were trying to compensate for that! >> The wax is on the lane, only way you’d get it on your shoes is if you walk on the lane which you don’t. Growing up (shout out to Bayshore, Corbin, and Hollywood Lanes) I twisted my ankle on a lot of stray spots.. One thing I miss about the game. I miss marking on paper like my Dad taught me. I learned to bowl at the UCLA Students Union bowling alley. Adding TVs that did the scoring took away half the fun for me as a nerd.
fouc 3y ago
The video referenced is here: https://www.veritasium.com/videos/2021/9/25/the-fascinating-physics-of-bowling https://www.veritasium.com/videos/2021/9/25/the-fascinating-...

specialp 3y ago

This is absolutely real, and I am impressed they included that. It is called a "walled shot" I used to work as a bowling mechanic when going through college. The lanes in PBA bowling have to have a minimum amount of oil. There should be more oil in the middle and less on the boards towards the gutters. However every single house has no oil at all on the boards towards the gutter. This allows the balls when thrown with a hook to boomerang back and smash the pins. I always wanted to make it a PBA shot, but the managers said no absolutely not! Bowlers equate how good a place is with how good they bowl! They get angry and superstitious about everything. Like they would think the head mechanic oiled the lanes better than 19 year old me but it was really done entirely by the machine. So if you gave them a regulation shot, and they started bowling worse, they would go to an easier house. Edit: It is not just the high end recreational bowling centers serving sushi, it is all of them. They change the pattern if hosting a PBA event.

noduerme 3y ago
>> Bowlers equate how good a place is with how good they bowl! They get angry and superstitious about everything. Fuck man. This like, lifts the veil from my eyes. It almost ruins my life a little. I was never a good bowler. But there was this one day. See, I had been driving through Mobile, AL, a year earlier, and started talking to the girl at the front desk of the hotel. We were both kids, I was 19, and she was reading Emerson, and we ended up spending the whole night in the park talking about poetry. A year later I flew there and met her again. And I was just absolutely enamored and so in love with her. That first day she picked me up at the airport, we just were so crazy to see each other. The next day we didn't know what the hell to do so we went and had Waffle House for breakfast and passed by the bowling alley, so we went bowling. It was the only time in my life I ever threw over 200. I think I got close to 250. We only hung out there for that one game, but something went click in my head. Something went click that, any time since that morning that I've ever needed to just believe in something, or fix something, or make something work, or sink a pool shot, I just close my eyes and think of that feeling I had with her when every ball I threw was a strike and she kept cheering. It surprised me that something so good was even in my own body. I think that bowling moment became to me the closest to what other people get when they say they feel something when they pray. And now you're saying it was probably fake... just laid down on the wax. That's fucked up, man. That was like, a peak experience. I think I need to do some molly.