all of this discussion is very interesting, and to a degree points out how much the aspect of "luck" comes into play.

in essence, each shot that is thrown on a freshly stripped and oiled lane creates a ribbon of dry in the oil, and a ribbon of oil in the dry.  throw in the variable of track flare, and who knows what's going on down there!  the result has to be micro changes in the "grab" of the bowling ball.  the bowling ball's momentum mostly negates the grabbing, until several "ribbons" are produced.

you'd have to be pretty darn smart, and probably a super-computer, to try to remember/detect these changes to a lane.  and even if you had a map of the lane for every shot, how do you decide exactly where the ball should be thrown?

when you really think about it, bowling is almost a crap shoot!  it makes me believe there's more of a margin of error to get a strike than most people think.

with all of this in mind, i'd rather be playing golf.  i agree with bob's analogy, but at least when you hit a ball 30 feet from the pin instead of 2 feet, you can still make a birdie!!  once you miss your first shot in bowling, you're looking at 10-20 less pins of scoring.
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That which does not kill me makes me stronger . . .

Edited on 12/15/2003 5:50 PM