BowlersMart.com Hardest shot in bowling is not the 7 or 7 split.
What is the toughest part of bowling?It must be the notorious 7-10 split, right?The 7-10 split is an impossible task.It is not possible for two pins to be on the same lane.A deliberate modification of the well-known phrase "shit happens", the 7-10's image adorns many a bowling shirt and mug.
The non-bowler needs to back up a bit.In bowling, the bowler aims his ball at a set of ten pins.The pins are set in a triangle formation with the leading edge facing the bowler, like a rack of billiards balls.The #1 pin is closest to the bowler.The next row of pins are from left to right.
The bowler has two tries to knock down all ten pins.A strike is when a person knocks all ten pins down with the first ball.A spare is the amount of balls it takes to knock down all ten pins.Most of the time, if there are pins remaining after the first ball, they sit next to each other and can easily be picked up with the second ball.
The bowler needs to aim the ball at a slight angle between the 3-6 pins or the 3 pin to pick up the spare.
The pins are too far apart for the ball to hit them at the same time.To convert a split to a spare, the bowler has to hit the forward pin on the side and slide it into the remaining pin.The bowler would aim to hit the 4-7 pins so far over on the left that the 4 pin would slide to the right and knock out the 9 pin.
It is possible to convert the split if the 4 pin is slightly forward of the 7 and 9 pins.There is wood remaining on the lane to the left of the 4 pin so that the ball doesn't fall into the gutter.As the bowler hits the 4 pin on the left side, it has room to slide to the right and hit the 9 pin.
What do you do with the split?The pins are not close to each other on a bowling lane.The ball is likely to fall in the gutter first if the bowler tries to hit one pin so far over on the side that it even has the potential to slide over to the other side.The technique will be revealed later.Let's find out what is harder than a split of 7.
In the last thirty years or so, anyone who has walked into a bowling center has seen that manual paper-and-pencil scorekeeping is a thing of the past.Automatic mechanical scoring systems are used at most tenpin bowling houses.The computer records can be kept of what pins are left after the first ball and how often they are picked up.
A writer examined 447,000 frames from the Professional Bowlers Association.He had 180,000 frames to analyze after eliminating the strikes.spare combinations that occurred less than 50 times were eliminated.The 7-10 split was difficult, but not the most difficult shot in bowling.
An amateur bowler will likely never convert the 7-10 split in his/her lifetime, but a pro bowler manages to do so roughly once out of every 145 tries, or 0.7% of the time.How?One left-handed pro bowler said he would aim for the 7 pin on the left side so that it would hit the back wall and bounce back to the 10 pin.
There is a back wall in the back of the pins that can allow a pin to bounce off and hit any pins still standing.Most amateur bowlers have never seen it.
The two splits were not converted as often as the 7-10 split.The first split was 3-6-7.There are two pins in the back of the mirror images.It is difficult to slide a pin straight across the lane.Pro bowlers only convert the two mirror images into one statistic when they combine them.
The Greek Church is the toughest split in bowling because it looks like an old-fashioned cathedral with spires.
This split is only picked up by pro bowlers once in 389 attempts.The success rate is only 0.4% when combined with the mirror image.The 3-7-9 had a 0.8% conversion rate.The 2-8-10 had a slightly better success rate.It is common for the mirror image combinations to have different success rates.The 1.0% success rate for the Big Four is the author's least favorite.
Rounding out the Top Ten of bowling's toughest strikes are the 3-6 split and the 7-9 split.