Keeping an Open Mind

What I’m about to tell you appears that I am in favor of synthetic lanes over wood lanes. I am. Wood lanes today are becoming extinct. However, to be fair to those who bowl in a wood lane house, I’ll include some tips on what to look for and how to understand wood.

What I’d like you to take away from this article is this: Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make one adjustment work the same everywhere. As you will soon see and understand, to depend on only one standard of lane adjustment is not a wise choice.

With that said, let’s move on to how to make sure that you are reading the lane bed properly.

Want to move in?

It may surprise you to know that all of the photos that follow are of synthetic lanes here in the U.S. Don’t let this fool you into thinking that the same wear and tear doesn’t happen to lane beds all over the world; it does and I write from personal experience.

One of the most common lane adjustments that bowlers make is to move in or move deeper on the lane. Let’s take a look at the first photo, (see Photo 1) and determine if that would always be a good idea. The wear and tear mark on top is right at the second arrow on the right side of the lane, just past the arrows. Look further down and toward the third arrow. Notice how much more it is torn up in toward the middle of the lane.

If you have to move deeper, the question becomes, how much? In my opinion, if you move to the left just a few inches with your feet and target, you will be playing a part of the ...