06/04/2026
My “Bill’s Tip of the Month” is all about adjusting on the lanes that I touched upon in one of the questions in this month’s February, 2003 Bowling Digest featured column.
Here is my tip this month—my 38th one. All 38 tips can be viewed here or on my "Tip of the Month" page on my website--https://www.billspigner.com/tips.php
My tip:
Bowling is a game of constant adjusting. We play on oil, which is an invisible field. A lane can play differently one day to the next even when the lanes are oiled the same. There are a number of factors that can make a lane play differently: temperature, humidity, and its topography.
Temperatures and humidity can fluctuate, but a lane’s topography is basically determined when the lane is installed. Each lane has a different shape—very minute—the maximum crosswise tilt, crown, and depression a lane can have is just .04”—but this very small difference effects the ball as it travels down the lane. It’s these things—not the oil applied—that makes the most changes lane to lane.
You have to adjust when your ball doesn’t get to the pocket and the basic rule of thumb to follow is to move your feet and target in the direction of your miss. If you miss right, move right; is you miss left, you move left. You can also, besides moving, increase or decrease your speed, apply more or less turn, more or less loft or change balls—but those are more advanced techniques—and I have always believed in moving your feet and target before changing other things.
Targeting at the arrows is the easiest way to calculate how much you are adjusting. If you move your feet one board left as an example on the approach and keep your target the same the ball will end up about 3 boards to the right at the pins. If you were to move your target 1 board to the right and keep your feet in the same place the total adjustment at the pins would be about 4 boards right at the pins. This is the basic math of adjusting when targeting at the arrows.
You should be ready to move when your ball doesn’t hit the pocket as the oil on the lane is changing with each ball rolled, regardless of the type of ball being thrown. There’s an old saying “he who finds it first wins” is very true—the better you get at adjusting, the better your chances are at scoring higher overall. Pay close attention to the direction your ball is traveling and how it goes through the pins so you can learn to understand its reaction to the lane and the effect on your pin carry.
There are basically two adjustments that anyone can do. Changing angles is the most common and this is where you move your feet more than you move your target and that will change the direction your ball travels down the lane. The first graphic shows an example of an angle change by moving your feet more than your target. “A” is your first ball, and “B” shows what happens when you just move your feet and use the same target. You can see how the angle changes.
The other lane adjustment you can do is make parallel moves to get your ball closer or further away from the head pin without changing the angle your ball is traveling down the lane. This involves moving your feet and target the same amount in the same direction. This keeps the trajectory of your ball the same going down the lane. The second graphic is an example of a parallel move where you move your feet and target the same amount. As you can see the angle of your trajectory is completely different than the first graphic.
All of this takes a long time to learn. I give lessons all the time to people who have been bowling for years and have no idea how to adjust or move on the lanes. Seek out private instruction to learn the basics on how to move—it’s something that all good bowlers know how to do. They can see and react to how the lanes are changing with calculated moves—not just guessing. It’s the path to higher scores.
