Your Dominant Bowling Eye
bowlingball.com, Originally Posted: 11/2/2013; Updated: 9/10/2021
Sighting at a bowling target requires sharp focus and awareness of your intended bowling ball delivery-path.
The bowling arrows are the most commonly used target. There are other distances from the foul line which can be effectively used for sighting as an intermediate target between the foul line and the pins. Experimentation will help you determine precisely where to sight on the lane best suiting your game.
Sighting at your chosen target may be a larger issue than you might expect. If you are a right handed bowler and right eye-dominant, you may have to sight slightly to the right of your chosen target in order to actually deliver your ball over your intended spot on the lane.
Right eye dominant, right-handed players typically miss left of the target where their bowling ball must pass over to hit the pocket effectively. In this case, aiming one or two boards right of the sighting target might be what is needed to hit the intended target.
If you are right handed and left eye dominant, you may have to sight slightly left of your intended target to actually hit your spot.
Players who do not have dominant eyes can aim directly at a chosen sighting target and trust that their bowling ball passes over the exact board they see.
Some experimentation is needed to develop your own system for playing various locations on the lane. For example, your dominant eye may not require sighting away as far from your intended spot on the lane if you are playing an angle near the edge of the lane in comparison to a spot well inside. In this case you would be delivering the ball on a fairly straight angle down the lane to the breakpoint.
If you are playing a deep, wide inside angle to the breakpoint, you may need to sight more than one board away from your intended spot on the lane.
For most bowlers who sight at the arrows, a dominant eye will require no more than two boards in sighting away from the intended spot on the lane.
You may need to recruit a friend to help you check which board the bottom of your ball crosses in real time as opposed to what you see and think the bottom of the ball is hitting. It may surprise you that you are missing more than you think.
A friend can help you evaluate a series of deliveries so you can make an assessment after perhaps ten shots at the same target. Using this method should be done playing various delivery angles across the lane so you can pinpoint where to aim in different a zone of the lane.
If you are trying to play the 12 board at the arrows and your friend says you hit the 14 board when you swear you hit the 12 board, then you know to sight at what you see as the 10 board so when you hit the 10 board, you know you actually hit the 12 board.
These little details in targeting will also help you with your initial alignment to the pocket and when adjustments are needed after the lane condition changes.
So how about it - are you right eye or left eye dominant? Your success lining up to the pocket counts on knowing.
So many advantages are contained in sighting at the arrows so it is typically recommended.
