Lane Play

Oiling Patterns

Most league bowlers are aware of a few different lane conditions. When you bowl tournaments, though, this knowledge is essential: at this level spares are assumed to be a certainty - you have to strike! You have to find the best strike line for the lane condition and, then, to adjust faster than your opponent, as that condition breaks down

We have collected charts of oiling conditions from several tournaments.

To the best of my knowledge the data is valid, though no guarantee is made of their accuracy.

As we experiment more and more with oiling patterns we continue to find it difficult to lay down a condition which will hold up under the attack of the high-flaring reactive balls. Bill Hall's series of articles in BTM summed up the problem very well. We applaud the work of the Foundation in trying to come up with a challenging but fair condition.

Revised April 9th 2000

Want to learn more?

Find out why lanes are oiled, read more about bowling lane dimensions plus lane play techniques and systems for finding the optimal strike shot or view pictures of "glow in the dark" oil patterns.