204 Fun Facts About Bowling

In ten-pin bowling, what is knocking down all remaining pins with the second ball called?

A spare is scored when the second ball clears every pin the first ball left standing; it earns 10 plus the pins from the next roll.

In bowling slang, what is a 'turkey'?

Three consecutive strikes make a turkey, and the first of them then scores the maximum 30: its own ten pins plus ten for each of the next two balls.

How long is a ten-pin bowling lane from the foul line to the centre of the head pin?

60 feet is measured from the foul line to the centre of the head pin; step over that line while delivering and the ball counts as rolled but scores zero.

What is the maximum weight of a regulation ten-pin bowling ball?

16 pounds is the legal ceiling and the rules set no minimum; because every ball must be almost the same size, a lighter ball is simply a less dense one.

Roughly how much does a single regulation ten-pin weigh?

3.5 pounds is the target weight for each pin, give or take two ounces, so a full rack puts about 35 pounds in the path of a single ball.

Which civilisation left the earliest known bowling set, stone pins and a ball buried in a child's grave?

Ancient Egypt: in the child's set, the stone ball first had to roll through a little archway made of three pieces of marble before it reached the nine stone pins.

Which religious reformer is credited with fixing the number of bowling pins at nine?

Martin Luther is credited with settling on nine when games used anywhere from three to seventeen pins, and is said to have built a lane beside his home for his children.

Which English king banned bowling for the lower classes in 1511 while remaining an avid bowler himself?

Henry VIII's 1511 statute listed bowls among the unlawful games, and a tougher act of 1541 kept bowls illegal for working people, except at Christmas, until 1845.

Which English captain reportedly finished his game of bowls at Plymouth Hoe as the Armada was sighted in 1588?

Francis Drake's unhurried game is probably legend, and if it did happen he may simply have been waiting for the tide to turn before the fleet could sail.

Which 1819 Washington Irving story gave American literature its first mention of ninepin bowling?

In Rip Van Winkle, the thunder in the Catskills is the ghostly crew of Henry Hudson playing ninepins; Rip helps carry their keg, drinks from it and sleeps for twenty years.

Ten-pin bowling is said to have been invented in America to get around what?

City bans on nine-pin games, aimed at the gambling around them, were supposedly dodged by adding a tenth pin, yet ten-pin alleys were already known, and even regulated, before the best-known ban, of 1841.

The American Bowling Congress, which standardised ten-pin rules, was founded in 1895 in which city?

New York hosted the founding meeting in Beethoven Hall, called to end years of rule disputes that pitted its bowlers against everyone to the west.

Before hard-rubber balls took over in the early 1900s, bowling balls were made of which dense hardwood?

Lignum vitae, a tropical wood dense enough to sink in water, made durable balls, but they chipped and lost their shape, so hard rubber replaced them.

Which company began marketing automatic pin-setting machines to bowling alleys in 1952?

AMF bought the patent in 1941 from Gottfried Schmidt, who had built the first working machine in his garage, and put production models into alleys in 1952.

Bowling lanes installed in the West Wing as a birthday gift honoured which president?

Harry S. Truman got the two lanes from fellow Missourians for his 63rd birthday; a poker player rather than a bowler, he knocked down seven pins with the first ball and rarely came back.

The PBA was founded in 1958 in which Ohio city, long known as the Rubber Capital of the World?

Akron, Ohio, home of its founder, a local sports agent, housed PBA headquarters until 2000, when new owners moved the body to Seattle.

Which bowler, 'Mr. Bowling', was the first athlete to sign a $1,000,000 endorsement deal, in 1964?

Don Carter's 1964 Ebonite deal was reported as the first $1 million endorsement for any athlete, in a decade when top bowlers earned more than football's stars.

Which crew-cut left-hander, the first bowler to earn $1 million, has the PBA World Championship trophy named for him?

Earl Anthony tried a few tour events in 1963 without cashing a cheque and spent six more years practising before turning professional, yet he won that championship a record six times.

Which PBA great is also a six-time men's world champion at pitching horseshoes?

Walter Ray Williams Jr. was a horseshoes champion first: he won world titles as a junior, years before he turned to bowling, and added six men's world championships later.

What did Pete Weber shout on winning the 2012 U.S. Open?

'Who do you think you are? I am!' was aimed at a young fan who had heckled him, moments after Weber struck on his final ball to win a record fifth title by one pin.

Australia's Jason Belmonte is famous for delivering the ball how?

Jason Belmonte bowls with two hands, both palms behind the ball and no thumb in it, a style that brought him more PBA major titles than anyone before him.

Which bowler became the youngest PBA Tour winner, at 18, in 1983?

Norm Duke was 18 years and 345 days old and less than a year into his professional career; starting as the fifth seed, he beat all four bowlers ranked above him.

Who was the first bowler to convert the 7-10 split on television, in January 1980?

Mark Roth did it at the 1980 Alameda Open; because the two pins stand as far apart as pins can, even professionals convert the 7-10 less than once in a hundred tries.

Which split proved the least-converted leave in professional bowling in a study of 447,000 PBA frames?

The Greek church, five pins said to look like a cathedral's spires, was converted far less than once in a hundred tries, rarer even than the split most bowlers call the hardest.

A 'Brooklyn' is a ball that does what?

A Brooklyn crosses to the wrong side of the head pin, hitting the 1-2 pocket for a right-hander instead of the 1-3; New Yorkers call the same shot a Jersey.

A game of alternating strikes and spares always ends with what score, giving it a national nickname?

A Dutch 200 comes out exact because every frame scores 20: each strike counts 10 plus the spare's two balls, and each spare 10 plus the strike that follows.

'Sandbagging' in league play means doing what?

Rolling badly early to inflate your handicap pays off later, when those extra pins are added to honest scores in the games that matter.

Which part of a ten-pin lane is normally oiled, so that the ball skids before it hooks?

The first two-thirds or so is oiled, which protects the surface and lets the ball skid; the remaining boards are left dry so that it can grip and hook into the pins.

Which 2007 film ends with a killing in an oilman's private bowling alley?

There Will Be Blood closes in Daniel Plainview's basement lanes, where he beats a preacher to death with a bowling pin; the crew restored a real two-lane alley at Greystone Mansion to film it.

Why was Glenn Allison's 1982 900 series refused certification?

Illegal lane conditions were the ruling, upheld on review in 2014, so the first certified 900 went to college bowler Jeremy Sonnenfeld, in Nebraska in 1997.

In which country did a 1970s ten-pin boom make women bowlers the biggest stars on television?

Japan took to ten-pin in the early 1970s, and while men dominated American bowling telecasts, its favourites were women such as Ritsuko Nakayama, who bowled a televised perfect game in 1970.

Candlepin bowling was first played around 1880 in which Massachusetts city, the state's second-largest?

Worcester billiard-hall owner Justin White is credited with devising candlepins there; the game then spread across New England and into Canada's Maritime provinces.

Five-pin bowling was devised around 1909 in which Canadian city?

Toronto is where a bowling-club owner cut the game down around 1909, after customers complained that ten-pin was too strenuous.

In Canadian five-pin bowling, where a strike counts 15, what is a perfect score?

450 takes twelve straight strikes, just as 300 does in ten-pin, because knocking down all five pins is worth 15 rather than 10.

In which US state does organised nine-pin bowling survive, in clubs founded by German settlers?

Texas ninepin, kept alive by clubs of German descent, has a twist: leaving only the centre pin standing scores 12, more than the 9 for knocking all of them down.

The lawn-bowls green said to be the world's oldest, first played on in 1299, is in which English city?

Southampton's club holds a yearly Knighthood contest on the old green: the winner is styled 'sir', joins the knights who judge it in top hats, and may never enter again.

Which cricketer founded the English Bowling Association in 1903?

W. G. Grace pulled rival county bodies into one association, became its first president and captained England's bowlers in internationals from 1903 to 1908.

In The Big Lebowski, what does an intruder who mistakes the Dude for a millionaire do to his rug?

One thug chooses to urinate on it, and the Dude's quest to replace the rug that 'really tied the room together' sets the whole plot of the 1998 film in motion.

In The Big Lebowski, why does Walter Sobchak refuse to bowl on Saturdays?

Walter, a convert to Judaism, observes the Sabbath as 'shomer Shabbos' and will not bowl, drive or handle money from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday: 'I don't roll on Shabbos!'

In Kingpin (1996), Woody Harrelson's washed-up bowler manages a talented member of which community?

The Amish prodigy Ishmael, played by Randy Quaid, agrees to turn professional only after learning that the bank is about to seize his family's farm.

Nintendo's Wii Sports, whose bowling mini-game became a living-room staple, sold roughly how many copies?

82 million copies made Wii Sports Nintendo's best-selling game, largely because it came packed in with the Wii console in most of the world.

Which billiard-table maker, founded in 1845, began making bowling balls, pins and lanes in the 1880s?

Brunswick's founder set out in 1845 to build carriages in Cincinnati, soon switched to billiard tables, and added bowling gear as taverns began putting in lanes.

Which president, a keen bowler, had a one-lane alley built beneath the White House's North Portico?

Richard Nixon and his wife were avid bowlers who first used lanes in the office building next door, then had a single lane of their own put in under the North Portico.

America's oldest sanctioned ten-pin lanes, opened in 1908, are in the Holler House tavern in which city?

Milwaukee's Holler House still writes its scores on paper hung on the wall, and by house tradition women sign a bra and hang it up on their first visit.

Floretta McCutcheon won fame in a 1927 exhibition by doing what?

Beat the top male bowler is what she did, outscoring champion Jimmy Smith over three games; within a year she was a paid instructor, and her bowling schools drew thousands of women into the sport.

Prohibition had what lasting effect on American bowling alleys?

Split them from saloons, making it a family game: 'dry' alleys multiplied through the 1920s, and the sport began to shed its barroom reputation.

ABC's Pro Bowlers Tour grew out of a hit bowling broadcast on which show?

Wide World of Sports aired a 1961 PBA event that did so well ABC gave bowling its own Saturday slot, where it ran until 1997 as the older show's lead-in.

What is the formal rulebook name for the gutters on either side of a ten-pin lane?

Channels flank a lane just 41.5 inches wide and more than 17 times as long, which is why a small error at release so often ends in one.

What is the area behind the foul line where a bowler takes the delivery steps called?

The approach is about 15 feet long, with two rows of dots set into it so that bowlers can place their feet on the same spot every time.

How many boards make up a wooden ten-pin lane?

A wooden lane is built from 39 boards, each a little over an inch wide and laid on edge; synthetic lanes print the same 39 lines on their surface.

Which pin stands directly behind the head pin, at the centre of the triangle?

The 5 pin stands dead centre, and bowlers call it the kingpin; in American nine-pin its namesake is worth more left standing alone, 12 points against 9 for a clean sweep.

What is the main ingredient of the conditioner spread on bowling lanes?

Mineral oil makes up nearly all of a lane conditioner, with additives to slow its breakdown; it protects the surface and lets the ball skid before it hooks.

What is a THS in bowling jargon?

THS stands for 'typical house shot', the recreational pattern with oil heavy in the middle and light outside, which funnels slightly errant balls back toward the pocket.

What do bowlers call the flatter, tougher oil pattern used in elite tournaments?

A sport shot spreads the oil almost evenly across the lane, so nothing steers a stray ball back to the pocket; easier league patterns do, which is why league scores can rival the pros'.

Bowlers keep a polyester 'plastic' ball for which job?

Shooting spares is the plastic ball's job: polyester grips the lane far less than modern covers, so it runs straight at a single pin instead of hooking off line.

Which coverstock of the early 1990s made balls hook far more?

Reactive resin grips the lane harder than earlier covers, giving a much sharper hook into the pocket; perfect games in league play multiplied in the years that followed.

What is the maximum regulation diameter of a ten-pin bowling ball?

USBC rules cap the diameter at 8.595 inches and the circumference at 27.002 inches, so balls of every weight are the same size.

In an ideal strike, a right-hander's ball touches only which pins?

The 1, 3, 5 and 9 are the only pins the ball itself touches on a perfect strike; the other six fall in a chain reaction of pin hitting pin that bowlers call pin scatter.

Which pin stands in the back-right corner of the rack?

The 10 pin is the right-hand corner, the one a right-hander curses when the 6 pin flies around it instead of into it, a leave known as a ringing 10.

What is a bowler with a smooth, square-shouldered classic delivery called?

A stroker keeps the shoulders square and the backswing modest, trading revolutions and hook for accuracy and a delivery that repeats shot after shot.

The spinner release popular in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia goes by which nickname?

The helicopter, also called the UFO, sends a light ball down the lane spinning like a top, so that it deflects from pin to pin across the rack instead of hooking.

Which pro is known for a one-handed, no-thumb delivery?

Tom Daugherty bowls one-handed with no thumb in the ball; he is also remembered for a televised 100, a PBA low, against Mika Koivuniemi's 299 in a 2011 Tournament of Champions semifinal.

A fingertip grip inserts the fingers only to which knuckle?

First knuckle only: the shallow fingertip grip lets a bowler put more revolutions and hook on the ball than the second-knuckle grip drilled into house balls.

What did World Bowling's 'current frame' scoring take out of the game?

Bonus pins are gone: a strike is a flat 30 whatever follows, so every frame's score is final at once and ten strikes, not twelve, make 300.

In early German church rites, the club or Kegel that worshippers bowled at is said to have stood for what?

A heathen was what the club is said to have stood for, and toppling it with a stone supposedly cleansed the roller of sin; bowlers are nicknamed keglers.

Which English novelist wrote of New York's ten-pin alleys after an 1842 visit?

Charles Dickens saw painted lamps on Broadway pointing down cellar steps to each 'Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley', and called the game one of 'mingled chance and skill'.

A painting of about 1810 shows outdoor ten-pin bowling in which country?

England is the setting: the picture shows dandies bowling at ten oddly shaped pins outside a factory in Ipswich, well before Americans are said to have added a tenth pin.

The Women's International Bowling Congress was founded in 1916 at an alley in which Missouri city?

St. Louis alley owner Dennis Sweeney, who had organized a women's league in 1907, hosted the founders; their congress grew past a million members before merging into the USBC.

Which German-born restaurateur and alley owner became known as the 'father of bowling' in America?

Joe Thum put his first lanes, lit by kerosene lamps, in the basement of his Manhattan restaurant; when friends called his big Broadway hall a white elephant, he made that its name.

Which sporting-goods figure wrote Standard Rules for Bowling in the United States in 1887?

Albert G. Spalding, the pitcher turned sporting-goods magnate, published Standard Rules for Bowling in the United States in 1887, after the National Bowling Association of 1875 had failed to unify the game.

What did the 1933 repeal of Prohibition let breweries do for bowling?

Sponsor teams and bowlers they did: beer companies such as Stroh's and Budweiser recruited the best players for their squads, cementing the sport's working-class image.

In The Big Lebowski, what is the Dude's given name?

Jeffrey Lebowski is the Dude's real name, shared with a millionaire whose wife owes money to a porn producer, so the producer's thugs turn up at the wrong man's home.

What did the American Bowling Congress drop in 1950?

Its whites-only rule fell after pressure from civil-rights and labour groups; until then Black bowlers had their own body, founded in 1939 as the National Negro Bowling Association.

American Bowling Congress membership peaked at nearly how many male bowlers in the 1960s?

4.6 million men belonged at the peak, after automatic pinsetters and weekly television had fuelled a boom that also lifted the number of sanctioned alleys to about 12,000.

Which sports agent founded the PBA in 1958 with 33 members?

Eddie Elias pitched the idea to sixty leading bowlers at a 1958 tournament in Syracuse; thirty-three of them put in $50 each and became the charter members.

In which country were Europe's first ten-pin lanes installed in 1909?

Sweden got the lanes in 1909, but ten-pin failed to spread across Europe for decades, until American military bases brought hundreds of lanes to wartime Britain.

Britain's first ten-pin bowling centre opened in January 1960 in which city?

London's Stamford Hill had the first centre, fitted out by American manufacturers; the British Tenpin Bowling Association followed in 1961 as a nationwide boom took hold.

What was the prize fund of the PBA Tournament of Champions when Firestone first sponsored it in 1965?

$100,000 was the purse, with a then-record $25,000 for winner Billy Hardwick; the tyre maker's money revived an event that had not been held since 1962.

At which Summer Olympics was ten-pin bowling an exhibition sport?

Ten-pin bowling was a demonstration sport at Seoul 1988 and never returned to the programme; it has been a Pan American Games medal sport since Havana 1991.

Which political scientist's book Bowling Alone used league decline as a symbol of lost community?

Robert D. Putnam noticed that more Americans were bowling than ever while league bowling kept shrinking, and made the lone bowler his emblem of fading civic life.

Which company bought AMF Bowling, Brunswick's centers, Lucky Strike Lanes and the PBA itself?

Bowlero began as Bowlmor, which took over AMF in 2013, then added Brunswick's centers, the PBA in 2019 and Lucky Strike in 2023, whose name the whole company adopted a year later.

What was the first computer-driven oiling machine, released by DBA Products in 1991?

DBA Products' Lane Walker of 1991 was the first computer-controlled lane conditioning machine, letting operators lay oil patterns by program rather than by hand-set wicks.

In lawn bowls, what do players call the built-in property that makes a bowl curve?

The bias once came from weights set into one side of the bowl; the rules now ban them, so the curve comes purely from the bowl's lopsided shape.

On a bowling score sheet, which symbol records a strike?

An X stands for a strike, and the frame stays unscored until the next two balls are rolled, since their pins are added to its ten.

Fallen pins left on a candlepin lane during a frame are known as what?

Fallen pins are 'wood' and are left where they lie for the rest of the frame; a skilled candlepin bowler uses them to knock down the standing pins.

Which Boston TV show, launched in 1973, paid contestants a growing prize for one strike?

Candlepins for Cash, Boston's edition of Bowling for Dollars, ran on WNAC-TV from 1973 and paid its jackpot for one strike, not the usual two, because strikes are so rare in candlepin.

Which pins form the split nicknamed the 'bedposts' or 'goal posts'?

The 7-10 leaves the two back corner pins standing like bedposts; the rare televised conversions have come from one pin bouncing back onto the deck and across into the other.

What do duckpin and candlepin bowlers get in every frame that ten-pin bowlers do not?

A third ball makes up for how hard strikes are with the small balls; clearing all ten pins with it scores a plain ten, with no bonus.

What is wrapped around the widest part of a Canadian five-pin?

A rubber band about an inch wide circles each five-pin at its widest point, so the pins fly farther and knock one another down when the small ball hits.

In which 1999 superhero comedy does Janeane Garofalo play the Bowler, whose ball holds her father's skull?

Mystery Men arms Garofalo's Bowler with a clear ball that holds the skull of her father, Carmine the Bowler; she kept the prop and said in 2018 that she puts it out every Halloween.

Which South Australian wine region, settled by Germans in the 1840s, kept their nine-pin bowling game alive?

The Barossa Valley's German settlers brought nine-pin bowling with them from the 1840s, so the game was played in Australia before ten-pin ever arrived; the town of Tanunda keeps a club for it.

In skittles, the nine pins are usually arranged in what shape?

A diamond of nine pins is the usual skittles layout in Britain and Ireland, and in some local versions one pin, the kingpin, must fall before a throw scores anything.

What is the small target ball in lawn bowls called?

The jack, sometimes called the kitty, is rolled first to set the target; players then try to finish their bowls nearest to it.

As of 2026, lawn bowls has missed only the 1966 edition of which multi-sport event?

Lawn bowls has featured at every Commonwealth Games since the first in 1930 except Kingston 1966, where Jamaica had no suitable greens.

Which medieval English king banned bowling as a distraction from archery?

Edward III banned bowls so that men would keep up their archery; later monarchs renewed the ban, and it stayed on the books even after firearms had replaced the bow.

Pétanque was invented in the early 1900s in which region of France?

Provence gave the game its name: in La Ciotat a player too rheumatic to run up was allowed to throw standing still, and 'pétanque' comes from the Provençal for feet planted.

What is the small target ball in pétanque commonly called?

The cochonnet, French for 'piglet', is a small wooden ball thrown out first as the target; players then throw steel boules at it with both feet planted inside a circle.

Bocce, bowls and pétanque share a common ancestry in games played across which empire?

The Roman Empire's soldiers and sailors carried a game of throwing balls at a target into Gaul and beyond, the root of bocce, bowls and pétanque.

New York's oldest public park, Bowling Green, was leased in 1733 for what yearly rent?

One peppercorn a year was the rent three neighbours paid in return for laying out a park with a bowling green; rebels pulled down its statue of George III in 1776.

In The Simpsons, what is the name of Springfield's bowling alley?

Barney's Bowlarama belongs to Barney Gumble's uncle Al; in 'And Maggie Makes Three' Homer quits the power plant for his dream job there, then has to go back when a third child is on the way.

What does a bowler earn by rolling a strike in the tenth and final frame?

Two more balls follow a tenth-frame strike so that its bonus can be counted, which is why a perfect 300 takes twelve strikes in a row, not ten.

What is a leave with a gap between pins called when the head pin is still standing?

A washout looks like a split, but a leave only counts as a split when the head pin has fallen, so a washout goes unflagged on the score sheet.

Which actor plays bowling hustler Ernie McCracken in Kingpin?

Bill Murray plays Ernie 'Big Ern' McCracken, who talks young Roy Munson into a hustle and then abandons him to the victims who wreck his bowling hand.

Which company's former executives bought the PBA in March 2000 and moved it to Seattle?

Three former Microsoft executives, Chris Peters, Rob Glaser and Mike Slade, bought the PBA in March 2000, rescuing it from near bankruptcy, and moved its headquarters to Seattle.

What happened to the PWBA, the women's pro bowling tour, between 2003 and 2015?

It shut down completely in 2003 as sponsors lost interest, and stayed dark for twelve years until the USBC and the bowling-centre owners' association paid to bring it back.

The USBC was formed in 2005 by merging how many organizations?

Four bodies merged into the USBC on 1 January 2005: the ABC, the WIBC, the Young American Bowling Alliance and USA Bowling.

To which city did the USBC move its headquarters from Wisconsin in 2008?

Arlington, Texas, let the USBC share a campus with the bowling-centre owners' association, and the sport's museum and hall of fame followed from St. Louis in 2010.

Which sportswear giant's former executive, Steve Miller, was hired in 2000 to turn pro bowlers into sports stars?

Nike veteran Steve Miller took charge of the PBA after its 2000 sale and set out to sell bowlers as personalities, saying the sport had been left in the 'Father Knows Best' days.

Which woman was the first to compete in the PBA Tournament of Champions, in 2010?

Kelly Kulick earned her place by winning the 2009 PBA Women's World Championship, then beat Chris Barnes 265-195 in the final to become the first woman to win a PBA Tour title.

The Weber Cup pits the United States against which side?

Team Europe meets the USA in the Weber Cup, named for Dick Weber and bowled on a single lane built for the event, with the crowd banked on both sides of it to turn up the pressure.

Which nation's bowler won the men's gold in ten-pin bowling's only Olympic demonstration?

South Korea's bowler edged Singapore's for the men's gold, but bowling was only an exhibition sport that year, so the win never entered the official medal table.

Which British form of bowls lets players bowl in any direction across the green?

Crown green bowls is played on a green that rises to a hump, or crown, in the middle; with no fixed strips to keep to, several games can cross the same turf at once.

Which bowler matched Walter Ray Williams Jr.'s seven PBA Player of the Year awards in 2022?

Jason Belmonte earned his seventh award with a comeback: after going through 2021 without a title, he won five in 2022, starting with a major, the Players Championship.

For how many consecutive seasons did Walter Ray Williams Jr. win at least one PBA title?

Walter Ray Williams Jr. won at least one title in 17 consecutive seasons, from 1993 through 2009-10, a PBA record streak.

What cocktail does the Dude drink throughout The Big Lebowski?

The Dude drinks White Russians, vodka with coffee liqueur and cream, which he calls 'Caucasians', and mixes several over the course of the film.

At which real Los Angeles alley were The Big Lebowski's bowling scenes filmed?

The bowling scenes were shot at Hollywood Star Lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard, a real alley that closed in 2002 and was replaced by an elementary school.

What do bowlers call a frame that ends in either a strike or a spare?

A mark is any strike or spare, and it matters because only marks earn bonus pins from the next ball or two; every other frame is simply added up.

Which childhood job first taught Don Carter to bowl?

Don Carter learned the game setting pins by hand as a boy in St. Louis, then came home to star for the city's Budweisers team alongside Dick Weber.

Which Grand Rapids bowler was voted Woman Bowler of the Year nine times between 1950 and 1963?

Marion Ladewig was playing softball in 1937 when a local alley owner noticed her and suggested she try bowling; he then had her practising every day.

What did the USBC ban from competition bowling balls in August 2020?

Holes not used for gripping, known as balance or weight holes, began as a way to even out a ball's weight, but they also changed how it rolled, so the USBC outlawed them.

What is the 2-4-5-8 leave called in bowling slang?

The bucket is the 2-4-5-8 for a right-hander and its mirror image, the 3-5-6-9, for a left-hander: four pins packed so closely that the back one stands hidden behind the front.

Which digits go into the three holes of a conventional bowling ball?

Thumb, middle and ring fingers go into a conventional ball; Billy Hardwick, who could not bend an injured finger, won majors gripping with his thumb and first two fingers instead.

Which left-hander, Player of the Year in 1999, won 35 PBA Tour titles?

Parker Bohn III, a left-hander, won five of his 35 PBA Tour titles in 1999 alone, and took the last at 52, after he had already joined the senior tour.

Which leave is known as the 'baby split'?

The 3-10, like its mirror image the 2-7, is a baby split: the two pins stand close enough for one ball to hit both, which most splits never allow.

Who was the first bowler to complete the career Super Slam of all five PBA majors?

Mike Aulby finished the set by winning the 1996 Touring Players Championship; nobody equalled his Super Slam for nearly a quarter of a century, until Jason Belmonte in 2020.

In 2023 the USBC certified a cheaper kind of pinsetter that lifts each fallen pin back how?

On a string: each pin hangs from a cord that hauls it back upright, which is cheaper to buy and maintain, though the USBC found averages run slightly lower.

Who became the youngest winner of any PBA major by taking the 2016 USBC Masters at 19?

Anthony Simonsen had left school at 15 and was soon working nights at a 24-hour bowling centre, entering tournaments on fees put up by older bowlers for a share of his winnings.

Which bowler broke the PBA's single-season earnings record in 2021, finishing on $496,900?

Kyle Troup passed Walter Ray Williams Jr.'s 2002-03 record of $419,700 by winning the PBA Playoffs, having already taken a record-tying $250,000 at the Players Championship.

What is a frame in which the bowler fails to knock down all ten pins called?

An open frame is one with neither a strike nor a spare, so it earns no bonus pins; a game without any open frames is called a clean game.

Which PBA feat was Billy Hardwick the first to complete, in 1969?

The Triple Crown means winning the World Championship, the Tournament of Champions and the U.S. Open; Hardwick finished the set in 1969, which neither of the tour's two all-time title leaders ever did.

What is Wes Malott's nickname?

Wes Malott, 'Big Nasty', a towering Texan with a booming power game, was PBA Player of the Year for the 2008-09 season.

Which documentary followed Pete Weber and three other pros through the PBA's 2002-03 season?

A League of Ordinary Gentlemen trails Pete Weber, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes and Wayne Webb as the PBA's new owners try to remake their tour for television.

Which sibling directors made Kingpin?

The Farrelly brothers directed Kingpin between Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary, but did not write it: the script came from two writers of The Golden Girls.

Which city's neighbourhoods stood in for Scranton when Kingpin was filmed?

Pittsburgh and its surroundings played almost every setting in Kingpin, from Roy Munson's Scranton to the farm country and even parts of its Nevada finale.

Which crime writer's work loosely inspired The Big Lebowski?

Raymond Chandler was the model: the Coens wanted a story that drifts like one of his novels through different parts of Los Angeles, with a hopelessly tangled plot that ends up hardly mattering.

Who plays the flamboyant rival bowler Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski?

John Turturro plays Jesus Quintana, the purple-clad, ball-licking rival; he revived the character in his own 2019 spin-off, The Jesus Rolls.

Which institution chose The Big Lebowski for preservation in 2014, sixteen years after its release?

The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry, noting that a film only middling at the box office had become a much-quoted cult classic through television, home video and word of mouth.

Which five sports are in the original Wii Sports?

Tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing came packed with the Wii outside Japan and Korea, after Nintendo's American chief argued the free game would sell the console.

Which Flintstones character takes ballet lessons to get his bowling form back before a big tournament?

Fred signs up for ballet school in the 1962 episode 'Bowling Ballet' after losing his rhythm, and the dancer's tiptoe approach became his trademark delivery.

What is the real difference between a bowling 'pinsetter' and a 'pinspotter'?

Brunswick vs. AMF branding is the whole difference: AMF sold its machines as pinspotters, Brunswick called its own pinsetters, and both do the same job.

In lawn bowls, what is each round of play, after which the shots are counted, called?

A lawn bowls match is divided into ends; in each end every player delivers their bowls before the shots are scored, and play then turns back up the green.

Which wood are bowling pins usually made of?

Pins are turned from hard rock maple, often laminated from glued blocks, then coated in plastic and painted white with red neck stripes.

In lawn bowls, what is each marked strip of the green on which one game is played called?

A rink is one of the parallel strips a green is divided into, so several matches can run side by side; a bowl may swing outside its rink but must stop inside it to count.

What is distinctive about how a candlepin can be set?

On either end, because a candlepin tapers equally towards top and bottom and so has no fixed base, unlike a ten-pin.

Which city opened the 78-lane National Bowling Stadium in 1995 to lure the sport's biggest tournaments?

Reno built the stadium, fronted by a giant dome shaped like a bowling ball, in return for a promise that the sport's national championships would come back every third year.

What nickname does the National Bowling Stadium carry?

The 'Taj Mahal of tenpins' was paid for with a hotel-room tax and built to win back tourists who were heading to Las Vegas; a giant dome shaped like a bowling ball marks its front.

After each round of pétanque, which team scores points?

Only the closest team scores, one point for each boule nearer the target than the opponents' best, so a round is worth between one and six points and 13 wins the game.

What is the area behind the pin deck, where the ball and fallen pins end up, called?

The pit collects the ball and the fallen pins behind the deck; from there the machine lifts the pins back up for re-setting and sends the ball home along its return track.

What do bowlers call the dry stretch of lane where the ball finally grips and hooks?

The backend is the far end of the lane, left without oil so the ball can grip and hook after skidding through the oiled front part, known as the heads.

Which ESPN announcer popularised 'hambone' as the term for four consecutive strikes?

Rob Stone asked on air why four strikes in a row had no name of their own, then began shouting 'hambone!' on ESPN's PBA telecasts; in some leagues the word had meant just two.

In The Simpsons episode 'Team Homer', what name does Homer's bowling team adopt?

Homer's team calls itself the Pin Pals, with Moe, Apu and Otto; when Mr. Burns learns he funded them he forces his way onto the roster in Otto's place.

In the NBC series Ed, the lawyer hero buys a bowling alley in which fictional Ohio town?

Ed Stevens returns to his hometown of Stuckeyville, Ohio, buys the bowling alley and practises law from it, earning the nickname 'The Bowling Alley Lawyer'.

Which pins make up the split known as the 'big four'?

The big four, 4-6-7-10, leaves two pins on each side of the deck and nothing between, so no ball can reach both pairs directly; it is also called the Golden Gate or big ears.

What was Dick Weber's day job when he first made bowling headlines in early-1950s Indianapolis?

Dick Weber was working as a mailman in Indianapolis when the St. Louis Budweisers recruited him in 1955; the team's 3,858 five-man series of 1958 stood as a record for decades.

Which baseball MVP rolled a perfect game at the PBA's World Series of Bowling in 2017?

Mookie Betts was Tennessee's boys bowler of the year in 2010 before baseball took over, and he has entered PBA events as a professional.

What garment is presented to the champion of the U.S. Open, a major on the PBA Tour?

A green jacket goes to the champion, echoing golf's Masters. Bowlers regard the event as the tour's toughest test because of its long, demanding format.

In ten-pin bowling, what score follows eleven straight strikes and then nine pins on the final ball?

299 is the sport's famous near miss: every frame but the last is worth the maximum, and one stubborn pin costs exactly one point.

Which NBA point guard has owned a PBA League bowling franchise called L.A.X.?

Chris Paul is a keen bowler as well as a team owner, and his CP3 charity has staged celebrity bowling events to raise money for good causes.

In social ten-pin bowling, which turn has the lowest scorer buy the team's drinks?

Beer frame stakes are simple: the lowest scorer in that turn pays, or in a stricter version the only bowler who fails to strike.

Which unusual feature did the Utah maker Storm patent for its bowling balls in 2000?

Added fragrances became a calling card for Storm, a company that began life making bowling ball cleaners before it built balls of its own.

In ten-pin bowling slang, what is a run of six consecutive strikes in one game called?

A six-pack is six strikes in a row in one game. Bowlers number most other strike streaks with 'bagger', as in a four-bagger or a five-bagger.

In ten-pin bowling, a strike scores ten pins plus a bonus equal to the pinfall of what?

The next two rolls are added to a strike's ten pins, so the frame cannot be totalled until the bowler has thrown twice more. Those rolls need not come in the same frame.

What do ten-pin bowlers call the gap between the 1 and 3 pins that right-handers aim for?

The pocket is the surest route to a strike, and a hooking ball enters it at a better angle. Left-handers aim for its mirror image, between the 1 and 2 pins.

Which single letter records a strike on a traditional ten-pin bowling scoresheet?

X is the strike symbol, written in the frame's box when all ten pins fall on the first ball. The frame's total stays blank until the bonus rolls are known.

In ten-pin bowling, a player rolls 7, converts the spare, then rolls 4; what is frame one worth?

14 is right: a spare counts ten plus the very next roll, here the 4. Whatever follows in frame two never touches frame one.

A ten-pin bowling game opens with a strike, then 3 and 6; what is the total after two frames?

28 is the total: the strike frame is worth ten plus both of the following rolls, and frame two then adds its own nine. The 3 and the 6 are each counted twice.

A ten-pin bowling game opens strike, strike, then 4 and 2; what is the first frame alone worth?

24 is frame one's value: ten for the strike, ten more for the strike that follows, and the 4 after that. The 2 counts only toward the second and third frames.

In ten-pin bowling, what is the most a single frame can be worth when it ends in a spare?

20 is the ceiling for a spare frame: its own ten pins plus a strike on the very next ball. Only that one roll is ever added as the bonus.

In ten-pin bowling, a player knocks down exactly five pins with every ball; what is the final score?

150 is the score: every frame is a five-five spare worth ten plus the next ball's five, and the extra ball in the last frame completes the set.

How many pins actually fall during a perfect 300 game of traditional ten-pin bowling?

120 pins is all it takes: a dozen strikes of ten pins each. The other 180 points are bonuses, because every strike is counted again in the frames before it.

What is the greatest number of balls one player can roll in a single game of ten-pin bowling?

21 is the ceiling: 18 balls across the first nine frames, plus a final frame stretched by bonus throws when it brings a strike or a spare.

On a ten-pin bowling scoreboard, what does a dash in a roll's box show happened?

No pins were hit is what the dash records, whether the ball left the lane early or slid past the pins still standing. It still uses up one of the frame's rolls.

In league ten-pin bowling, what does a delivery score if the bowler's foot crosses the foul line?

No pins at all are credited, even when all ten fall. Sensors at the line catch the offence, and the bowler simply loses that delivery.

What do ten-pin bowlers call the extra roll that settles the bonus after a tenth-frame spare?

Fill ball is the name because the roll fills out the last frame's score. Its pins are added as a bonus and nothing more, so a strike on it earns no further throws.

What do ten-pin bowlers call a scoresheet showing a strike or a spare in all ten frames?

A clean game sounds grand but can be modest: ten spares that each follow a complete miss can add up to as little as 100.

In ten-pin bowling scorekeeping, which single word covers both a strike and a spare?

Mark covers any frame that clears all ten pins. Bowlers use the same word for the spot on the lane they aim at.

What do ten-pin bowlers call a score that counts only the pins felled, with no handicap added?

Scratch is the score exactly as bowled. Leagues often add handicap pins to it so that lower-average bowlers can compete on level terms.

Which ten-pin bowling team style has five players share a single game, each rolling two frames?

Baker format is named for Frank K. Baker, a bowling official of the 1950s. One player takes frames one and six, the next two and seven, and so on down the line-up.

In which ten-pin bowling scoring variant does felling nine pins on the first ball count as a strike?

No-tap takes its name from the tap, bowlers' word for a solid hit that still leaves one pin standing. Under this scoring such a frame counts as if all ten fell.

Which bowler's three straight perfect games in 1982 were refused certification over lane conditions?

Glenn Allison was a 52-year-old liquor store manager when he rolled the 900 in a California league. Officials ruled the lane conditions non-compliant, and the score was never approved.

On the PBA Tour, what are Cheetah, Viper, Scorpion, Shark and Chameleon the names of?

Lane oil patterns are invisible to the eye, and the PBA gave its first named ones animal names. Each differs in length and volume, forcing pros to change angle and speed.

Which broadcaster took over the PBA Tour's television coverage from ESPN at the start of 2019?

Fox Sports gave the tour 26 shows on FS1 in that first season, plus four on the main Fox network.

Which ABC sportscaster voiced PBA telecasts for 36 years and has its top player award named for him?

Chris Schenkel was away on other assignments for the PBA's first three televised perfect games, and fans joked that he was a jinx. He finally called one in 1987.

Which PBA finals format has the lowest seed face the next one up, the winner advancing each time?

Stepladder finals were the PBA's television staple from the late 1960s. The top qualifier waits at the summit and needs to win only one match for the title.

Amleto Monacelli, the first PBA Player of the Year from outside the U.S., represents which country?

Venezuela produced the PBA's first overseas star: Monacelli won the award in 1989 and 1990, then became the first international player in its Hall of Fame.

Which PBA Player of the Year of 1963 and 1969 fathered the comedian who hosted Talking Dead?

Billy Hardwick was only 22 when he first took the award in 1963. He was also the first bowler to win all three of the PBA's original majors.

Which bowler lay face down on the floor after one pin denied him a televised 300 in 1970?

Don Johnson still won that Tournament of Champions, but the standing 10-pin cost him a $10,000 bonus and a new Mercury Cougar.

In ten-pin bowling, what is a delivery called when it drops into the channel beside the lane?

Gutter ball is the everyday name, though rule books call the trough a channel. Beginners and children often play with bumper rails raised to cover it.

In league ten-pin bowling, what is the team member who rolls last in the line-up called?

The anchor is usually the team's highest-average bowler or its coolest head under pressure, because close matches are settled in that final turn.

What are the aiming targets set into a ten-pin bowling lane about a quarter of the way down called?

Arrows sit about 15 feet past the foul line, giving bowlers a target far closer than the pins 60 feet away. Many players sight on one of them instead of on the pins.

What is a ten-pin bowler who generates a very high rev rate, favouring power over control, called?

Cranker deliveries use a cupped wrist and often a high backswing to pile revolutions on the ball. The style looks spectacular but is harder to repeat.

In ten-pin bowling, what is a pin called when it skids across the deck to topple a distant one?

A messenger usually ricochets off a side wall before taking out a corner pin, often turning a doomed leave into a late strike.

What do ten-pin bowlers call the ninth turn of a game, the last before the bonus-rich final one?

Foundation frame earns its name because a strike there sets up the tenth, the only frame that can hold extra bonus throws.

What is the ten-pin bowling term for a ball's flight through the air before it touches the lane?

Loft comes in two kinds: hand loft, from releasing the ball later in the swing, and projection loft, set by how high the ball is when it leaves the hand.

What do ten-pin bowlers call the plastic spheres a centre lends to customers without their own?

House ball shells are generally plain polyester, a cover that rolls fairly straight, and their holes are drilled to suit many hands rather than one.

What is the smooth sole on one of a ten-pin bowler's shoes designed to let the player do?

Slide is the point: one sole is smooth so the bowler can glide into the release, while the other shoe has a rubber sole for traction.

What is the dense shaped structure inside a modern bowling ball, used to tune its motion, called?

Weight block is the bowler's name for the core. Makers shape, place and tilt it to change the way a ball travels down the lane.

Which bowling ball cover material arrived in the early 1980s, gripping lanes harder than polyester?

Urethane balls bit into the new polyurethane lane finishes of the day and set off a race among ball makers for ever-stronger hooks.

Which ungripped extra drilling in a bowling ball did the USBC ban from competition in 2020?

Balance hole drilling began as a way to correct a lopsided ball, but players were using it to change how the ball moved, so the loophole was closed.

What is the distance between the thumb and finger drillings of a bowling ball called?

Span is fitted to each hand when a ball is drilled. It differs from the bridge, the smaller gap that separates the two fingers.

Bowlers in the short-lived 'soaker' era altered their bowling ball shells to make them what?

Softer shells gripped the lane and hooked more, and the trick lasted only until officials brought in minimum hardness rules.

Why do many ten-pin bowlers switch to a plain plastic bowling ball when shooting certain spares?

It hooks far less than a reactive ball, so the bowler can throw straight at a lone pin instead of trusting a big curve to arrive on time.

What do many ten-pin bowlers stick inside a bowling ball's thumb hole to fine-tune the fit?

Adhesive tape is added or peeled away to adjust the fit, helping the thumb leave the ball smoothly and consistently on every release.

What do ten-pin bowlers call felling the front pin of a spare leave but missing the one beside it?

A chop example is knocking down the 2 and 4 pins while the 5 stays up. Modern usage also covers picking the middle pin out of a row of three.