First of all, you need to pay a lot of attention. The first time you bowl on something, you're not going to do very well, because how it plays to begin with and how it breaks down is going to keep you constantly behind, so don't worry about how it goes the first time through. Just need to try a bunch of things and watch what happens.
Number 2 is to find where you want to play, and go a couple boards right of that and "burn" a bumper in, meaning take something aggressive and just basically remove all the oil you can in practice so you will have some miss room to the right. The pros are good, but if they had to start scoring on fresh conditions right away, they wouldn't average what they do. They have a half hour of practice before they start scoring to break the shot down they way they like it.
Number 3 is that no matter what the numbers on the sheet say, it will play differently everywhere. Even the pros say that the house characteristics shine through, so they keep notes about how each individual lane predominantly acts. So if I would tell you that this pattern plays here or that pattern plays here, you may find something completely different at your house.
However MOST tougher shots play inside, and if you're only bowling 4 games, I wouldn't worry too much about playing for transition, you shouldn't have to move too much to find enough head oil to get you through the set. But you don't always want to go as aggressive as you can with equipment, you want to burn in a shot, but once it's there, you want it to stay there. If you've seen any of the summer PBA shows, these guys are using shiny or pearl stuff on the Badger, which is the longest pattern they have out there. Most guys would think with oil that they need a hook monster, and yeah you might score for a few games, but when you destroy your shot, or more accurately when your head oil disappears, that's a bad place to be.
They have several assorted videos on youtube about sport bowling in general, but it's hard to describe it with words. It's just getting experience and getting used to the type of shot you need to throw to be consistent, which is hard because it's completely opposite of a house shot. And it's kind of funny, once you get used to a sport shot, you might go back to a house shot and feel completely embarassed, because you might not be able to hit it.
Rhino Page lived here for a couple years while he was going to KU. Well he lived with this family for a while and made several friends here, so he comes back to visit every once and a while. A couple years ago after the world series of bowling wrapped up, he came to visit, and subbed in one of our leagues. Well after a month of intensive bowling on PBA patterns, he shot like 540 for 3 games on our house shot, just couldn't get it going. Well, he stayed for a week, so he practiced some, and the next week when he subbed he shot 830-something.
So it's normal to be lost, and it's just going to take a lot of practice, and especially paying attention, that may be the biggest adjustment. I don't mean just paying attention to what your ball is doing. If you want to be successful on a sport pattern, you need to pay attention to every shot that every other bowler is throwing, because you may see a move you need to make before you get up and find out the hard way. You'll also learn things from them if they know what they're doing, or see how it's breaking down for people who may play straighter, or play deeper, and you can use that next time you bowl on it.
