Becoming a professional bowler is many of your dreams. Moreover, if you’re scoring great in league bowling, it’s natural to have high hope of becoming a pro player. Indeed, professional bowlers face a lot of challenges than normal bowlers do, yet it’s a great option to be acknowledged by others and get paid for your talent and skills. But how does one become a pro bowler? Let’s find out.
6 Effective Tips to Become a Professional Bowler
To be a professional bowler, you have to follow some steps one by one as you cannot just jump to a higher rank. And to do that, you need to have patience and perseverance.
1. Improve your bowling scores:
Let’s assume your average bowling score is now between 150-180. So what you have to do is improve your bowling score. After you have your best bowling shoes and best bowling balls in your arsenal, you should learn all the correct techniques to throw a bowling ball correctly. And, to throw a ball flawlessly, you will have to learn everything about the appropriate stance, approach, arm-swing, aim, and release. You’re also going to need a lot of practice to maintain your game consistency. Once you can do these, you’ll eventually see your score go up.
2. Play in all types of lane conditions and oil patterns:
As you’re performing better than before and more on your way to be a professional bowler you have to play and expertise in all types of lane conditions and oil patterns. Whether it’s dry or heavy lane adapt to all of them, so that nothing can stop you.
3. Join league and small tournaments:
If your regular average is now 200 or more, you can join a league and start playing with your group against other groups over the course of a season. You and your team can also arrange informal and friendly game nights where you can meet and play. Meanwhile, you can start participating in small tournaments and slowly making your way up based on your position. You may win one or more tournaments and also get your average high, but don’t quit your job yet! You still have a long way to go.
4. Join the Professional Bowlers Association:
Once you start seeing consistency and success in your gameplay and have an average score of 200+ you might wanna join the PBA. The basic requirement of joining the PBA is to get your average of at least 200 for a minimum of 36 games for one season. After that, you can send your application to the PBA, located in Seattle and they will accept the application after proper verification. Once they accept your application you’ll officially be a member of the PBA.
There are some other ways to be a part of the PBA. For that, what you can do is join in one of their regional tournaments as a non-member. Yes, you don’t necessarily have to be a member of PBA to join those tournaments, but you will have your options limited. In case you fail to qualify for the PBA membership because your average is 190 or more with at least 36 bowling games, we have good news for you. You can join the sanctioned USBC sports bowling league or the PBA experience league.
5. Join in National Tour:
Being a PBA member is already enough prestigious. If you can make your way up to PBA tournaments and show excellent performance, then at some point you can go on the national tour, and that’s what you see on TV on Sunday afternoons on sports channels. If your keep on winning in tournaments like these, soon you’ll make your way to the World Bowling Tour. Who knows? You’re probably the next World Champion.
6. Find Alternatives of Big Tournaments:
If you don’t want to join the PBA and just be a pro to earn money, you can. You don’t even have to be an International tournament circuit member. You can randomly participate in scratch tournaments and win good cash prizes. Another alternative is that you can be a full-time bowling coach and earn money from that as well.
7. Follow Professional Bowlers
Only score does not tell you everything. You have to learn many things from professional bowlers. You have to understand their attitude, mentality and so other positive things.
Conclusion
There’s nothing wrong to dream big. Behind every pro bowler, there are hours of hard-works, unlimited practices, and proper guidelines. It may take years, oftentimes a decade or two. Therefore, you will have to be very patient and have strong determination to reach your goal. For now, we suggest you enjoy the game and slowly work your way up to a higher average. And most importantly, good luck!
