Bowling Article

Bowling

An Introduction to Bowling

Summary: Fundamentally, bowling is a game of scoring points by knocking down pins with weighted balls.

Of all the indoor sports, perhaps bowling is the most popular. Surprisingly since the game may be one of the oldest, if not the oldest sport in history. Undeniably, too, bowling is the number one participatory sport in the US.

Bowling is a game of scoring points by knocking down pins with balls. Fundamentally, a player rolls a heavy bowling ball into a flat surface to knock down arranged pins of nine or ten, depending on the game you play. There are several forms of bowling; some are played indoors which usually uses a lane or a long flat polished wood surface with gutters along the length of the lane. Primary examples of these indoor types are the feather bowling, duckpin bowling, candlepin bowling, ninepin skittles, five pin bowling and the most popular form of bowling which is the Ten-pin.

Ten-pin bowling is very similar to the other forms, except the game obviously uses ten pins which the player should attempt to knock down as many pins possible to score points. The game has ten frames with each frame consisting two rolls for each competing player.

Another popular bowling variant is the Five-pin bowling which is often played in Canada. It is a recent modification of Ten-pin bowling but instead of two attempts, Five-pin has three attempts, and each attempt can be thrown in quick succession. The game employs smaller balls without fingerholes, making it difficult to attain a perfect score since splits are more frequent.

The outdoor type usually utilizes a lawn, or a patch of gravel. The examples of which are Lawn Bowling, Bocce, and Petanque. Petanque is widely played in especially in France.

Tracing up bowling’s history, it is widely believed that the German culture was the cradle of this sport. Though there have been substantial evidences of bowling-like games in ancient Egypt, history clearly points that bowling really did occur in Germany since its dark ages. In those days, heathens and heretics abound the land and the usual practice for the German clergy was a simple test of knocking down clubs called Kegel by rolling a stone or a wooden ball. If the individual succeeds in knocking the club down, he is considered free of sin. This practice eventually made its way from the secular world to the common people and along the way got more refined until ultimately became an interesting sport that survived till this day.