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The surface on which a bowling ball is rolled, is called the bowling lane, or lane for short. The objective is for the bowler to roll a bowling ball down the lane, and knock down standing bowling pins at the end area of the lane.
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- Lanes
A bowling lane is a long straight rectangular alley with two gutters along the side for bowling balls. At the front of the lane is the approach area with a foul line that cannot be passed. Flanking the middle of the lane are gutters or channels. At the end of the lane is the bowling pit.
Jan 16, 2024 · Knowing bowling lane dimensions helps bowlers optimize their footwork, angles, and mechanics. The approach area, lane length, pin deck layout, and lane oil patterns all influence bowling scores and strategy. But the regulation sizes mean that no bowler has an unfair advantage based on non-standardized lanes.
Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term bowling usually refers to pin bowling, most commonly ten-pin bowling, though in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, bowling may also refer to target bowling, such as lawn bowls.
- Overview
- Origin and early period
- Bowls and pins in North America
- Tenpins in other countries
- International competition
bowling, game in which a heavy ball is rolled down a long, narrow lane toward a group of objects known as pins, the aim being to knock down more pins than an opponent. The game is quite different from the sport of bowls, or lawn bowls, in which the aim is to bring the ball to rest near a stationary ball called a jack.
There are many forms of bowling, but tenpins, the most widely played variation, is the principal form in the United States, Canada, western Europe, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America. Its many variations include duckpins, candlepins, fivepins, skittles, and ninepins, with differences within the framework of each of the games.
Articles found in the tomb of an Egyptian child buried in about 3200 bc included nine pieces of stone, to be set up as pins, at which a stone “ball” was rolled, the ball having first to roll through an archway made of three pieces of marble. The modern sport of bowling at pins probably originated in ancient Germany, not as a sport but as a religious ceremony. As early as the 3rd or 4th century ad, in rites held in the cloisters of churches, parishioners may have placed their ever-present club, or Kegel (the implement most Germans carried for sport and, certainly, self-protection), at one end of a runway resembling a modern bowling lane. The Kegel was said to represent the Heide (“heathen”). A stone was rolled at the Heide, and those successfully toppling it were believed to have cleansed themselves of sin. Although the peasants’ club evolved into pins, the association remained, and even today bowlers are often called keglers.
The passage of time brought an increase in the size of the stone rolled at pins, and eventually the ball came to be made of wood. Many variations of the game developed, some played with three pins, others with as many as 17. A biographer of the 16th-century cleric Martin Luther has written that Luther built a bowling lane for his children which he occasionally visited, sometimes throwing the first ball.
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Among other significant historical references to bowling are an account of a great feast given the citizenry of Frankfurt in 1463, at which the venison dinner was followed by bowling; notations from 1325 in which “gambling on bowling” in Berlin and Cologne was limited to five shillings; and the award of an ox to the winner of a bowling competition in 1518, given by the city of Breslau (now Wrocław, Pol.).
In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, the game spread into the Low Countries and also into Austria and Switzerland. The playing surfaces were usually cinders or clay, specially treated and sun-baked to a hardness resembling concrete. The roofing over of lanes, first done in London for lawn bowls around 1455, was the beginning of bowling as an all-weather, around-the-clock game. When the lanes were covered or put into sheds (called Kegelbahns in Germany and Austria and usually attached to village taverns or guest houses), the playing surfaces ranged from wood or hardened clay to, in later years, asphalt.
There is confusion about how and when bowling at pins came to North America, arising from the inconsistent use of the terms bowl, bowler, and bowling. The early British settlers brought lawn bowls with them to America because that was the game they knew best. Dutch explorers under Henry Hudson were said to have brought some form of pin bowling.
Many of the early European pin games involved rolling the ball along a wooden plank, 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 centimetres) wide and 60 to 90 feet (18 to 27 metres) long, toward a diamond-shaped formation of nine pins. The plank still can be found in parts of Europe, notably in eastern European countries, where bowling games called bohle, asphalt, and schere are popular. In these, the nine pins are smaller than tenpins, and the duckpin-type ball, without finger holes, is held in the palm of the hand. The Netherlands has a “plank” game in which a large ball, with only a thumbhole, is rolled on the plank toward the nine pins. The earliest known reference to bowling in the United States was made by Washington Irving in his short story “Rip Van Winkle” (1819–1820).
The first tenpin lanes in Europe were installed in Sweden in 1909. Attempts to popularize tenpin bowling elsewhere in Europe were unsuccessful over the next several decades, but the game became popular in Great Britain during World War II, when hundreds of lanes were installed on U.S. military bases.
As league bowling in the United States peaked in the mid-1960s, equipment manufacturers began looking elsewhere for new markets. With assistance from the ABC, the British Tenpin Bowling Association was formed in 1961 and was ready for the boom. With the same ABC assistance, Australia followed suit. Mexico, where Emperor Maximilian had installed a skittles alley in Chapultepec Castle a century earlier, joined the tenpin trend, as did other Latin American countries.
Documents indicate that an international competition was held in Hannover, Ger., as early as 1891. An early bowling proprietor and promoter in New York City was so taken with the idea of international play that he sponsored an event in Union Hill, N.J., in 1900, but the use of the word international was only thinly justified by the appearance of some teams from Canada. Competitions apparently limited to ninepins and other “small ball” games were held in the German cities of Solingen (1904), Dresden (1908), and Berlin (1914). Few other than German bowlers were entered.
In 1923 a group of American bowlers toured Sweden and were roundly defeated by their hosts. The outcome was the same in 1926, at which time teams from Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany joined the Swedes and Americans in forming the International Bowling Association. In 1929 they held what came to be called the Third International tournament, again in Sweden, followed by a Fourth International held in New York City in 1934. Germany hosted the Fifth International in 1936, as a prelude to, but having no connection with, the Olympic Games in Berlin. It was the last international meet of any consequence until the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) was formed in 1952 to coordinate international amateur competition. Its headquarters is in Helsinki, and it has grown to more than 70 member nations.
Jan 16, 2024 · This beginner’s guide will teach you about common bowling lane types, oil patterns, and how to read lane conditions. With this knowledge, you can better adjust your throw to match the lane surface. We’ll also cover professional lane maintenance that ensures a consistent bowling experience.
3 days ago · A bowling lane is 60 feet long. It is made up of either a wood or synthetic surface. Lane oil is applied in a pattern onto the lane to vary when and where the bowling ball hooks. There are different pattern lengths and oil volumes that give bowling a different invisible playing field every time you bowl.
