Bowling

Bowling is a target sport and a recreational pastime where participants roll a ball toward either pins or another designated target. Most commonly, the term refers to pin bowling, especially tenpin bowling, which is popular in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and elsewhere. Globally, about 120 million people play bowling across more than 90 countries, with roughly 70 million of them in the United States. The sport breaks into two main categories: pin bowling and target bowling. In pin bowling, players aim to knock over pins placed at the far end of a long, smooth lane. These lanes can be made of wood or synthetic materials and are coated with oil in various patterns that influence how the ball moves. A strike happens when all pins fall on the first roll; a spare occurs when the remaining pins are cleared on the second roll. The most widespread form is tenpin bowling, which sets ten pins in a triangle at the lane’s end. Other pin-bowling variants include candlepin, duckpin, nine-pin (also called kegel), and five-pin. The game of skittles is the historical predecessor of modern pin bowling. Tenpin bowling is often simply called “bowling.” Nine-pin bowling, common in Europe and known as kegeln in Germany, uses nine pins instead of ten. Candlepin bowling features the tallest pins at 40 centimeters (16 inches), with thin, matching ends, and uses the smallest and lightest handheld ball—about 1.1 kilograms (2.4 pounds)—of any bowling sport; it is also the only form where fallen pins are not removed during a frame. Duckpin bowling resembles tenpin but uses shorter pins and a smaller handheld ball. Five-pin bowling, played mainly in Canada, has pins taller than duckpins but shorter than tenpins, with a diameter between duckpins and candlepins and a rubber girdle, and uses a handheld ball. Target bowling is usually played outdoors on a specially prepared lawn or natural terrain like grass. Depending on the game, players roll or throw a ball to land it as close as possible to a mark or target ball. Lawn bowls, bocce, carpet bowls, pétanque, and boules can be played indoors or outdoors. Curling is sometimes considered target bowling on ice. The earliest known forms of bowling date back to ancient Egypt. Wall drawings of bowling appear in a royal tomb from 3200 BCE, and miniature pins and balls were found in a child’s grave from the same period. Remnants of bowling balls have been discovered among Egyptian artifacts from the protodynastic period around 3200 BCE. In 1895, what is thought to be a child’s game was found at Naqada, including porphyry stone balls, a miniature trilithon, and nine breccia-veined alabaster vase-shaped figures that resemble the modern game of skittles. Early balls were made from grain husks, covered in leather, and bound with string; porcelain balls have also been found, sized and weighted for rolling on the ground rather than throwing. Some of these balls resemble the modern jack used in target bowling. The historian Herodotus cited bowling games as an invention of the Lydians in Asia Minor. A similar game evolved among Roman legionaries, who tossed stone objects close to other stone objects, eventually developing into Italian bocce (outdoor bowling). In Germany during the third or fourth century AD, a religious ritual involved rolling a rock at a club (called a kegel) representing the heathen, as a way to cleanse oneself of sin. Later, pin bowlers were sometimes called “keglers.”

In 1299, the oldest surviving bowling green for target bowling was built: Master’s Close, now the Old Bowling Green of the Southampton Bowling Club in Southampton, England, which is still in use. In 1325, Berlin and Cologne passed laws limiting lawn-bowling bets to five shillings. King Edward III banned bowling because it distracted from archery practice. From the 15th to the 17th centuries, lawn bowling spread from Germany to Austria, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, with playing surfaces made of cinders or baked clay. In 1455, lawn-bowling lanes in London were first roofed, making the game playable in any weather. In Germany, these lanes were called kegelbahns and were often attached to taverns and guest houses. In 1463, a public feast in Frankfurt included a venison dinner followed by lawn bowling. King Henry VIII was an avid bowler. In 1511, he banned bowling for the lower classes and imposed a levy on private lanes to restrict them to the wealthy. Martin Luther set the number of bowling pins—which had varied from 3 to 17—at nine. He built a bowling lane next to his home for his children and sometimes rolled a ball himself. On July 29, 1588, Francis Drake reportedly played bowls at Plymouth Hoe when the arrival of the Spanish Armada was announced; he replied, “We have time enough to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too.” In 1609, Henry Hudson discovered Hudson Bay and brought Dutch colonization to New Amsterdam (later New York); his men reportedly brought a form of pin bowling with them. Late-17th-century Dutchmen enjoyed bowling at the Old King’s Arms Tavern, near what is now 2nd and Broadway in New York City. Bowling Green in New York City was built in 1733 on the site of a Dutch cattle market and parade ground, and it remains the city’s oldest surviving public park. A painting of Ipswich, England, from around 1810 shows a man bowling with a triangular formation of ten pins, before that variant is believed to have appeared in the United States.