Additional Scorekeeping Terms - Additional Terminology

Average

Your average is the sum of all your games divided by the number of games played. You can use your average as a way of recording your improvement - set a goal of raising your average game, say 10 pins a season, until you reach the level of par bowlers.

Clean Sheet

If you make ALL your spares in the game it is called a clean sheet. Making your spares is the simplest way to raise your average on the way to becoming a scratch/par bowler.

Dutch 200

Scoring spare-strike-spare strike for the entire game results in a score of 200 exactly.

Foul

The foul line is drawn across the lane to separate the approach from the start of the lane. Putting your foot over the foul-line means you don't get the score for that delivery: on the first delivery you must re-rack the pins. It is marked on the scoresheet with an "F".

Open Frame

If you fail to make your spare, i.e. knock all pins down in two shots it is called an open frame

Par

Consistently making all your spares will give you an average in the 180 to 190 range. When you develop your game so that you can start to string strikes together your score will go up and you will start to approach the 200 or 210 mark, which many have likened to being a "scratch" golfer.

Perfect Game

If a bowler manages to score twelve strikes in a row, in the same game, the score is 300 (the highest possible) and it is called a perfect game.

Series

Adding up the scores from all the games you have played will give you the total series. Most leagues will play three-game series. It is common to use the series as a measure of success, did you score a 500, 600, 700 or even an 800 series? Big tournaments will play many more games and, instead of recording total pinfall, bowlers compare their positions by talking of how many pins over/under par they are, with par usually being 200 (e.g. +20, -10, just like in golf).

Split

This is a spare left when two or more pins remain standing, but with a gap between them. Spares are naturally a little harder to make (since you need to put the ball between two pins, or slide one pin over into another - see picture) and bowlers don't like to leave a split. While most of them are makeable (if you are accurate and know a good spare system) the dreaded back row splits (e.g. 7-10, 8-10) are pretty much impossible. A special kind of split is the washout, where the headpin remains standing as the ball hooks by it. It is common to draw a circle round the pin-count on the score sheet to indicate that it was a split.

Turkey

Getting three strikes in a row is called a "turkey". After that most people start referring to the string of strikes as if they are collecting them in a bag, e.g. four-bagger, five-bagger etc. Each string of three strikes is worth thirty pins a frame!

Sleeper

If you leave a spare where one pin is standing directly behind another, the rearmost pin is called the "sleeper".