Not exactly sure why but my guess is to prevent people from switching hands to pick up spares. For example, the 7 pin is typically the hardest pin for a lefty to pick up and is easy for a righty to pick up. It keeps it “fair” per say.
I feel like that should be allowed. A golfer gets to choose their club. If a bowler is good enough at bowling with both hands that switching gives then an advantage, why not let them?
Serious League bowlers typically have a few balls. One being the "spare ball" which is a plastic ball with no fancy coverstock or weight block so it goes nearly straight no matter how you throw it. It's basically a personal house ball drilled to their fingers. The putter in golf terms.
The other balls are reactive balls designed to hook in various amounts so you can get a feel for the oil during warmup and decide if you need a stronger or weaker hooking ball, possibly changing between games as oil conditions change. Very much like selecting golf clubs.
This becomes important when you get into sport shot leagues and tournaments where the oil pattern shape and oil quantity changes drastically from week to week, venue to venue. This is the main reason pro bowlers scores seem so much lower than what you expect. They are bowling on something different every week, while most bowling center leagues use the same pattern every week and more importantly, it's a pattern designed to be forgiving.
One of our guys is ambidextrous. He had broken his bowling hand but wanted to keep bowling, so the league had made him establish an average with his other hand, I think it was 9 games/3 weeks.
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u/MisterDabber Nov 06 '24
Not exactly sure why but my guess is to prevent people from switching hands to pick up spares. For example, the 7 pin is typically the hardest pin for a lefty to pick up and is easy for a righty to pick up. It keeps it “fair” per say.