I have seen short clips on youtube but I don't understand why they would do this instead of normal bowling and where does this take place? Also what's the deal with duckpin bowling?

O yea what's lawn bowling?

Candlestick bowling is like extreme ski-ball. You get three times to bowl a frame to knock down all of the extremely narrow "candlestick" shaped pins. Also the sweep doesn't come down after each ball thrown, so you can use pins still on the deck to knock down any remaining pins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlepin_bowling

Yawn bowling is bowling on the lawn. Plain and simple. But it resembles Bacchi ball in a way.

http://www.uslba.org/game.html

Duckpin bowling is pretty much like what putt-putt golf and mini golf are to golf. It's regular bowling that is scaled down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckpin_bowling

As to where to find this different events and alleys, you'd probably have to look in your area via internet for them. Keep in mind that most of my responses are gross over generalizations. You'd be better off doing a little research on them yourself.

And pertaining to your question as to why do people do them? For fun, why else? Well maybe because one of the above mentioned variations of the sport they find more entertaining, challenging or it simply suites them better.

Being someone living in a part of the world where the candlepin form of the game is offered, I feel qualified to answer this.

It is thought that the candlepin form of the game originated in Worcester, MA, which also gives name to one of the game's most familiar terms, the "Half Worcester" leave (picking only the 2-8 out of the rack is known as the Half Worcester left, while taking out only the 3-9 leaves the Half Worcester right). It is a very provincial game, found only in Massachusetts, the northern tier New England states (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont), and the Canadian Maritime provinces (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia).

I must add that these version of bowling is all about being accurate and more challenging then 10 pins bowling.

as someone who's done both RIPz, they both have their challenges...in candlepin, it's all about making your spares, strikes are pretty hard to come by..but the lanes don't change or breakdown due to them being waxed rather than oiled..also, the balls are all basically the same weight and design..no different coverstocks, etc...as for me, after 20+ years of candlepin & just about 9 months of 10 pin, I have officially retired my little balls for big ones!

Also with candlestick and duckpin for that matter, you want to throw straight, its just too hard to control the smaller balls if you try to hook them. I mean stand and the approach next to you try to hook the ball and literally hook the lane, from 39 out to 1 and back to 39 is actually possible without touching a pin.

Thanks for the info guys.

I used to watch candlepin bowling on NESN when we had a big K-band satellite dish in NY. It was interesting to watch, especially when you're used to tenpin. It was odd to hear that the "high scores" were "only" in the 150's, if that, but I thought it was cool and, yes, I realized that accuracy was the most important part about candlepin.

When I was in college in Vermont there was a bowling center that had 24 tenpin lanes and 6 candlepin lanes. I got to bowl candlepin about a dozen times before they shut that center down. I've never had the opportunity to bowl duckpin. I'd love to give that a try.

My grandfather used to be a pretty good Duck Pin bowler averaging 118 which from which I understand is respectable in Duck Pin bowling. He took me bowling awhile back and out of 4 games I broke 100 once...I had a 112 or something like that. My first game was in the 60's and it really made me angry. Lol...I'll be sticking with Ten Pin bowling.

Last I hear there was never a 300 thrown in duckpin, I think the high is actually a 298. Like candlepin a 150 is considered high scoring.