Whenever I tell someone that I bowl collegiately, people never fail to say, "Is bowling even a sport?"
Well, coming from someone who has also played collegiate volleyball and participated in other sports, I can vouch that bowling is probably the hardest sport I have ever played. People think that because they can go to a bowling alley, pick up a ball and score 100 with bumpers that they would be able to do it at a high level, but there is more to it than that.
One of the aspects that makes bowling so hard is that you cannot see your opponent. You might be thinking that your opponent is the actual person you are bowling against, but you would be wrong. Your biggest opponent when you are on the lanes is the oil.
When the machine goes up and down the lane, it places oil in different parts of the lane, creating different patterns. These machines can be programmed to put oil anywhere on the lane, and that's what makes bowling so hard. You cannot see where the oil is placed.
Although there might be a pattern put into the machine, something could have happened where the machine broke and put the oil down where it does not belong. This is when you need to find the right ball to work on each pattern, which leads me to my next point.
The type of equipment you need in bowling and how it works are different that other sports. Yes, other sports have different types of shoes and different colors of balls, but all the different colored bowling balls you see professionals use actually do different things. You can have one ball that would hook from one side of the lane to the other on one pattern, but have a different ball that won't even move an inch. For this reason, you really need to have an excellent understanding of your equipment so that you know what ball to use on what conditions.
With all these bowling ball options, it is sometimes hard to figure out which ones you need to have in your bag, considering all the different companies that make similar types of balls.
Finally, bowling is probably the hardest sport I have ever played when it comes to your mental game. If you are not both physically and mentally tough, you would not be able to get through one game of bowling.
Other sports require mental and physical toughness, but what makes bowling different is that you normally do not have a team behind you to pick you up when you're down. The only time that you have a team to back you up is when you bowl for high school or college.
Along with that, there is no one else to blame but yourself. In other sports, people will always say that their teammate screwed up the pass or some other excuse, but in bowling, you have no one to blame but yourself. That is why you need to be mentally tough, so that when you get in a slump or struggle for a couple frames, you are able to pick yourself up and keep going.
I never thought bowling was a sport until I tried it out myself, and now that I do it, I could not imagine a harder sport. Even though you can go and drink a beer while bowling on a Saturday night, that is the same as me saying I could be a professional football player because I played it at a picnic.
You should not underestimate bowling. I have been doing it for 10 years now along with volleyball, and I can tell you that bowling has kicked my butt way more than the other sports I have played in the past.
