We all know that spare shooting is important. If you don't think it is, let me explain what's important about it. How do we go about making spares? Is there a wrong or right way to make certain spares? Here I'm going to break down spare shooting, and also throw in some helpful tips that will improve your game.

A bowling ball covers about 7 boards when going down the lane. So what is our excuse for missing a single pin? The pin is roughly 4 boards at it's widest point. That means we get almost 11 boards of miss room to hit a single pin. Now, the hardest part is to find what feels the most comfortable and easiest to repeat in order to make a single pin. Lets take the 10 pin, for example. Is it easier to go straight up 2 board or 10 or even 20 board? Again, it depends on the bowler. I recommend having a decent amount of angle heading towards the 10 pin. I would suggest using 15 board at the arrows or even deeper to allow myself enough angle towards the head pin. If you try and go straight up the outside(5 boardish), you are limiting yourself your margin of error on making the 10 pin. If you miss right, since your so close to the gutter, it is more than likely going to end up in there.

Now, you may take this same principle and apply it to other spares as well. Lets take the 3-6-10 as a reference to a tougher spare that is very easily chopped. Lefties will find this spare easy compared to Righties. Why is that? When looking at the 3-6-10, the angle of the pins heads to the right as you go down the line. With that being said, you are going to want your ball to take that same path the pins are angled. Lefties have a natural release that makes the ball curve from left to right. Since the ball is curving to the right for lefties, it will go down the line of the 3-6-10 and will make the same 98% of the time when hitting the 3 pin. Righties naturally curve the ball from right to left. This decreases our angle heading into the pins which causes the effect of chopping. Chopping is referring to when a bowler will take just the 3 pin or even the 3-6 only off the 3-6-10 spare. Norm Duke will take his hand position and apply different releases for different spares. So when Norm shoots at a 3-6-10, he will actually back the ball up to resemble a lefty release. By doing this the ball will be heading the same direction and angle as the pins are going. Thus decreasing the chance of chopping the spare.

Spares are important, but why? Lets say you just shot 279! Great Game! You had all Strikes except for a 9/ in the 6th frame. Lets say you didn't spare and ended up missing that single pin. You just shot 267 instead of 279 because of that. So that one spare alone would cost 12 pins. We tend to average it out to about 10 pins for every spare missed is what it ends up costing you score-wise. An all 9/ game would be 190 to where as an all 9- game would result in a 90 game. Pretty big difference all thanks to spare shooting. I know, I know, if you could just strike all the time you wouldn't have to worry about spares. Well, if you are striking all the time, you're probably also winning titles in the PBA all the time. Face it, we can't all go out and shoot 900 every time, but it sure would be nice!

Next time you head out to bowl, make sure you are using the correct angles when shooting at your spares. Better spare shooting alone will increase your average 10 pins. Remember to enjoy the game of bowling and as always Practice, Practice, Practice!

Steve Lemke Bowling.com SFA NCAA Coach