Several months ago, I wrote an article praising American Bowling Congress Executive Director Roger Dalkin for planning a strategy to differentiate or perhaps set apart recreational bowlers from serious bowlers who appraise the game as a sport—those who have placed time and countless hours of practice to master their craft.

I must apologize for misunderstanding the tiered system that is being tested for a future proposal that distinguishes the recreational bowler from the sport bowler. The tiered method has nothing at all to do with classification of performance.

Unfortunately, bowling is perceived as an athletic endeavor publicly lumping all participants into one category. This general acceptance is due to several factors:

· Bowling throughout the world is played on a level field.

· All lanes have the same dimensions.

· All pins look alike.

· All balls are the same size (visually).

· All scores are limited to 300.

· All lanes seemingly are equal.

However, the major distinction that exists is oil patterns that cannot be ascertained by the naked eye. The average player would be hard-pressed to fathom the amount of dressing and the manner of application that a lane has been treated.

Technical experts usually can recognize the area of heavy or light oil distribution by assuming a position on the lanes at eye level.

Highly skilled performers normally can detect lane conditions by tossing a few practice shots. Yet, due to hard urethane finishes that have replaced wood surfaces, oil patterns do not have an absorption factor and thus spread all over the lanes. This has had an adverse effect on the consistency of the serious-minded bowler, particularly among professional ranks.

None of these factors are visible to the average sports fan. They are unaware of lane blocking procedures that have aided league and amateur bowlers to post astronomical scores—scores that dwarf averages posted by the world’s greatest performers on the PBA and PWBA tours.

Members of the professional ranks are subjected to conditions that require quality shots. However, the average bowling fan, as well as casual observers of professional bowlers on television, are totally unaware of the dissimilarity of recreational bowling and the sport of bowling.

It is my personal conviction that the American Bowling Congress energize a system that will place a gap between recreation and sport for the future and overall good of the game, lest it becomes absorbed and consumed as a pastime or as an amusement rather than a highly skilled athletic endeavor.

This is not meant to dismiss, disregard, or overlook the recreational or league bowler. There is room for any and all who enjoy the game.

However, to be recognized as a sport by writers and members of the sports fraternity, bowling must alter its approach if it has any hopes of identifying itself in the athletic world.

PBA Hall of Famer John Jowdy is a past president of the Bowling Writers Association of America.