There has always been a saying that bowling is the easiest game to learn, but one of the most difficult to master. A big problem is that bowling is one of the few games where the entire environment is on a man made artificial surface. For this reason the lane man has always been the scape goat for any bad performances, but in truth the lane man does possess the power to make almost any of us look bad, or good. There are so many variables in the environment that nobody is versatile enough to excel on all of them, unless they have had experience. As an example it wasn't many years ago the lanes in some countries were so dry that the helicopter spinner players could compete throwing 12 lb balls against our best bowlers.
I think bowlers who have had a chance to hone their games and gain experience on a variety of sport patterns are better than all but the top 10 or 20 pros from 30 years ago.
Another thing I see is how much guys improve on sport patterns over the course of a couple of years. I have averaged as high in a couple of sport leagues as I did on house shots at least 3 times over the past 7 or 8 years. The reason is that I have tried to adjust my tweener style roll to obtain a balance between power and accuracy. The THS is an extreme pattern in the sense of the wet dry across the lane. It rewards extreme styles, either power players who can take advantage of the dry to cover a lot of boards, or straight fluffers who can throw the ball down the dirt with just enough flop to carry. Both styles will often out carry me on house shots.
However the fluffers cant carry with me on the heavier flatter patterns, and the power guys miss the pocket too much if they try to hook the lane too much. The guys I cant beat are the high rev guys with low axis rotation who are comfortable playing direct angles through the heads.
I win a lot more than I should at my age because most of the young guys don't have the experience on tougher patterns.
