Bowling Ball Equipment - a Guide for Bowling Newbies

By: Anne Clarke
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:23
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Compared to other sports, there is very little bowling equipment needed for the sport of bowling. Really, all you need are some bowling pins and a bowling ball. Of course, it is much more fun to play the sport if you also have a regulation bowling lane and bowling shoes!

And while you are considering these types of bowling equipment, you might as well bring in the gutters and the pinsetters and the ball returns. And what about bowling ball drill equipment and other bowling equipment?

Here is a list of important bowling equipment:

· Bowling pins – In ten pin bowling (what most Americans refer to simply as “bowling”), you need to have ten bowling pins. These pins are going to be about 15 inches tall, between 3 pounds 4 ounces and 3 pounds 10 ounces, and 4.7 inches round at the widest part – this wide part, the “belly” is where a rolling ball would make contact. The bowling pins are positioned in a perfect triangular shape with a point of the triangle facing directly up the lane.

· Bowling ball – Your bowling ball is a very important piece of bowling equipment. When starting out, most people simply use a house bowling ball, provided by the bowling alley. These house balls are generally made of polyester. Of course, there are other types of bowling balls, as well – urethane, reactive resin, and particle bowling balls. The bowling ball is made up of the core and the coverstock. The majority of bowling balls have three holes drilled in them – one hole each for the middle finger, pointer finger, and thumb – but more holes (up to five) can be in the ball.

· Bowling lane – This “piece of bowling equipment” is 60 feet long, from the front bowling pin to the foul line. It is 3.5 feet wide. Bowling lanes range from oily to slightly more dry – how oily or how dry the lane is changes which bowling ball you want to use and how you use it.

· Bowling shoes – Any avid bowler should own his or her own bowling shoes. As far as bowling equipment goes, bowling shoes are very important – many people will suggest that you buy a good pair of bowling shoes before you even buy a bowling ball! There are right-handed bowling shoes and left-handed ones. Left-handed performance bowling shoes are going to have a braking left foot sole and sliding right foot sole (the opposite is true for right-handed bowling shoes.

· Gutters – The gutter is exactly where you do not want your ball to go – they are not generally a bowler’s favorite piece of bowling equipment. The gutters generally line each side of the lane. They allow the ball to roll into it down alongside the lane and straight to the ball return (without ever coming close enough to the pins to knock them down.) Many bowling alleys have “bumpers” for the lanes, available for beginners and children. The bumpers make it so that the ball has no choice but to roll down and knock the pins over.

· Pinsetters – When bowling alleys were first started, pinsetters were not a piece of bowling equipment, at all – they were humans who would stay at the end of the lanes, setting up the pins as they fell. Today, we have mechanical pinsetters that can set up the pins perfectly.

· Ball returns – Ball returns safely and effectively return bowlers’ balls to them. Because of ball returns, bowlers do not have wait very long at all between rolls.

· Ball drilling equipment – When you go buy your first custom bowling ball, they are going to have bowling ball drill equipment at the shop. This sort of bowling equipment allows the experts to drill holes in a ball, making custom-made for you. There is nothing quite like a ball that fits like a glo

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