Bluey, I’ve been sitting here staring at your post. We’re both a bit off topic, but really that’s amazing. Wouldn’t mean much to bowlers of the last 20 years, but it really blows my mind. Have a look at the Wood / Synthetic Thread, and what I’ve asked there, and what I said about early 60s techniques. I didn’t explain it well enough though. When I said accuracy of approach, etc., etc., what I meant was, that my aim for the ball was ALWAYS the join between 2 boards. I considered I’d missed my spot if I missed that. Practicing, I’d put a little ( say 2mm ) roll of plasticine along the join, and if I didn’t flatten it with the ball, I’d missed. I used to check the finish position of my sliding foot, every delivery, to see it was in the same position. I had four marks on my right shoe, dividing a board into 4, to line up my start position on the approach, so I could adjust ¼ board at a time.
When I was bowling again recently, before I was forced by injury to stop, I bowled at Ballina, ( wooden lanes ) where really the playing conditions haven’t changed much for years. Cameron Walsh, who has been an Australian Rep, has been head tech. there since the early to mid nineties, and now owns the Centre. He knows what he’s doing, and there are no ‘gimme’ conditions, nor ridiculously hard ones. Witness that his brother, Jason, last time I looked, had a league average of 214.
When I last bowled in a few tourneys away from Ballina, in the late 90s, to about 2002, no centre I bowled in had Synthetic lanes, and few had any of the modern crop of oiling machines..
I can’t wait to get back, bowl on some of these magic conditions, with a modern ball. ( If I can manage to understand anything about how I’m supposed to use it ! ) and see if I can get back close to that old accuracy