I have been bowling only on synthetics for the past few years and just started in a league that has very old wood lanes. The lanes have holes and pits and you can hear it as ball rolls down the lane. They oil the lanes with a THS (sometimes), but man, to me it's messed up. I think the lanes are at least 20 years old, but the center is only about 5 minutes from my house, so very convenient. My scores have plummetted and I scored at whopping 117 last week in league. Then I go to another house with synthetics and all 5 of my practice games are over 200.
It is probably me, but I'd like to believe that the messed up, ancient, pitted, dented, wood lanes have something to do with it.