Our Glossary: Bowling Alley Terms

If you’re planning on spending time on the lanes, you’re soon going to hear some of the weird and wonderful phrases that are used, and it’ll go in your favour to understand all the lingo! Explore some of the most common bowling terms below and what they mean:

Bananas

Whoops: this term refers to a pinsetter malfunction, where the pinsetter has an incomplete load and is stuck at full lift. Not ideal, but the delay will give you time to grab some hot snacks and find out more about how pinsetters work here.

Brooklyn strike

If you really want to impress your mates, you might want to have a go at mastering the Brooklyn strike. A Brooklyn strike in bowling is when you get a strike after the ball hits the headpin from the opposite side to your throwing hand. So, for right-handers, the ball will strike the headpin from the left side, and vice versa.

Clover

Four strikes in a row? You just got lucky, much like a four-leaf clover! And by ‘luck’ we mean ‘practice’ – the more time you spend playing tenpin bowling at your nearest Zone Bowling, the better you’ll get at it. Now that’s a good reason to host a bowling party for your birthday or office team-building event!

Double

The term ‘double’ is used when a player scores two strikes in a row. Bowling a double is the equivalent of 30 points, which is the maximum score for a single frame.

Dutch 200

A Dutch 200 in bowling has nothing to do with the European country. Instead, it refers to when a bowler consistently alternates between scoring a spare (knocking down all 10 pins with two rolls in a frame) and a strike (knocking down all ten pins on the first ball roll of a frame) for the entire match. Done right, this will result in an exact score of 200.

Foul line

The foul line in bowling is the line situated at the top of each lane, stretching from gutter to gutter. It’s purpose is to determine where the player must not cross when bowling the ball. If this line is stepped over it is classed as foul ball and penalties apply (usually a score of zero for that roll). 

Fry frame (or Beer frame)

If you’re the only bowler on your team not to bowl a strike in the frame, or the bowler with the lowest score in a predetermined frame, you might be called on to buy fries for your entire team. Or, well, beer. Luckily, Zone Bowling has a great range of snacks and drinks perfect for birthday parties or tenpin bowling challenges, just in case you need it!

Grandma’s teeth

This throw leaves your pins, well, a bit gappy: it refers to a 4-6-7-10 split or any ‘big five’ split combination, resembling a mouth with missing teeth. It can be tricky to knock down all 10 pins in this kind of split, so best to avoid during a game of bowling!

Greek church

A Greek church in tenpin bowling is anything but holy. It’s just a very specific type of split, where you end up with two pins on one side and three on the other.

Ice and rug

A cool-sounding reference to a bowling lane’s oil pattern, including oil (‘ice’) for skidding on the first two-thirds of a lane, and a non-oiled, higher friction back end (‘rug’) for hooking. Good to keep in mind once you start getting better at your bowling throws.

Sandbagger

Sandbaggers are some of the sneakiest tenpin bowlers around and you may encounter one at your local bowling league. Basically, they are bowlers who play poorly on purpose to lower their average score and achieve an easier handicap!

Spare

A spare is scored when there is still pins standing after the first bowl, but they are all knocked down after the second bowl. So it takes two balls (in one frame) to knock down all the pins to score a spare. This equals ten points in bowling, plus the number of pins you knock down in the first bowl of your next frame.

Strike

So, what is a strike? One of the most commonly used and well-known bowling terms, a strike is when all ten pins are knocked down within the first bowl of a frame. This gains the player ten points plus the points they score in the next two bowls.

Turkey

In addition to being a delicious sandwich filler, a turkey in bowling is where you score three strikes in a row. There are different variants as well, such as the Wild Turkey (six strikes in a row) and the Golden Turkey (nine in a row).

We hope our bowling glossary has inspired you to use some pro bowling terminology on the lanes to impress your competition! If you’re a beginner, we have advice on how to hold a bowling ball and how scoring works to help get you off to a strong start.

Happy bowling!