Hello all,

Very astute observation Bones...  Quality practice as opposed to quantity practice or quality practice vs: scoring practice shows the bowler vs: the wannabe bowler.

The ability to read the lanes is something that takes time on the condition your bowling on and being able to make spares regardless of the conditions your bowling on is the key to being a competitive bowler.

As far as using discarded equipment to practice with...  If your working on your mechanics and making adjustments within giving parameters, it's quality practice.

DP3, you sound like you have the feel for your tournament shots, it's just your not willing to give up your tournament equipment to wear and tear in practice.  Not a bad policy in my book.

After thinking about this for a bit, I think that if your getting quality practice time in, regardless of what your using, your going to know if you made a good or bad shot.  If this saves wear and tear on your "good stuff" then I think it's a good deal.  Nothing wrong with being practical.

Myself, I don't have trouble with the lanes I practice at regarding ball mauling.  I save all my older equipment for experiments in drills, (or I donate them to the youth league.)  I can't tell you how many times that I've bought new equipment and after a couple of weeks have asked myself, "What would this have done if..."  Just another facet of the practice game I guess...  So I'll plug and try a new drill and see where it goes.  Just as important to me as shooting spares in that it furthers your understanding of the equipment.

Whatever it takes to further your knowledge of the game...