Last night in our summer league, I rolled my ball in the gutter 13 times, 6 times in the 2nd game. Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed. In my defense, I was aiming for 1,2,3 boards, and most of my balls landed in the channel around 30'-32', right before the break point at 35'. Still, I was consistently missing my mark to the right.

I've really been working on a free swing, and I feel like I have it down. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe I'll post a vid sometime. For the sake of this discussion though, let's assume I have a free swing.

What are some common causes of pushing the ball, even with a free swing?

I'd have to ask where you were standing in your setup. Left foot on the ___ board? the more outside you try to go, the straighter you should be.

I'm standing with my right foot on the middle dot, not sure which board it is. I'm aiming about 2 boards left of the second arrow.

During my third game, I moved 3 boards left and aimed for the 3rd arrow. I still rolled a few gutters, but not as many. But the ones that weren't gutters mostly hit heavy or Brooklyn.

One of the other more experienced players should verify this, but I think that early timing can cause a miss to the right, as late timing causes a miss left.

Hammer's right. Sounds like a timing issue. For a 4 step: start the ball with the first step. For a 5 step: start the ball with the second step. Practice whichever one applies to your game and see if you become more accurate.

Don't think it matters where you stand. My guess is that your swing plane is all over. By this, I mean the ball swings from behind your back to outside of your body, and comes down at different angles at your release. If you are repeatedly rolling in the gutter, I would say your backswing goes behind your back and your downswing is toward the gutter. With your arm swinging around your body.

Keep your arm swinging straight down from your shoulder. It helps to push your ball out directly at your target, and let it fall. Don't use any arm muscles.

I've been having the same problem lately and someone identified the problem as me dropping my shoulder too much. I've been working on being a little more conscious of it lately.

Cloppbeast,

I read somewhere (BTM maybe?) that Chris Barnes changes the amount he has his shoulders open depending on where he playing the lanes. For example, when he is playing down the outside he will square his shoulders and stance to the lane, so is almost parallel to the fowl line. but when he is opening up the lane, likewise he opens up his shoulders.

Similarly i am sure i have read that Norm Duke pushes the ball more to the left, causing the ball to swing away from his body in the backswing rather than behind his back.

Either of these could help?

Dropping the shoulder is a good thing, not bad. whats more important when playing outside is squaring up the shoulders. Make sure at the start that your shoulders are parrellel to the fouline. and if you do open your shoulders in your swing, that you get them closed.

As for the original post. when you are working on a free armswing, many people noticed that the miss wide. this is usually because you got so use to pulling the ball in the downswing which makes you throw inside. Once you get use to the free armswing you can adjust your targeting for the now accurate path the ball travels.

There's no reason why on a typical house shot you should be swinging out to the 1,2 or 3 board. The lanes are usually dry to drier from 0 to 10, so you have 10 boards of swing area to play with and line up with. You don't have to depend on 1,2 or 3.

Now if you are trying to learn how to play the twig, that's typically "straight up 1,2 or 3", not swinging out to them. But I would never do that in league, just practice until I became proficient in playing that area.

Erin

Missing to the right.....well that is probably because you have a too opened up shoulder (have you been reading too many web sites about bowling stance?). If you do not close up your shoulder at the finish you will send it to the ditch. This is shoulder, not arm, not elbow (which usually is the first culprit in trying to fix the sending it to the right syndrome).