Pro Tip Friday with MDM Coaching: Pin Strings

String Pins

https://www.facebook.com/MDMcoaching/videos/2668008320186729/

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to bowl in a very unique tournament down in Naples Florida: The Qubica AMF “Some Strings Attached” tournament. Both Saturday and Sunday, we alternated bowling on string pins and free falling pins. String pins have a rope/cable attached to the pins that gets them set every time. The strings place them up and down inside the pinsetter machine. Qubica needed to run a high-level competitive tournament to see how bowlers did with these pins to make a case for them to be USBC sanctioned for tournaments and league bowling. String pin bowling is very cost effective compared to old school pinsetters that require more expert maintenance. If you’re curious, you can find many videos explaining the difference.

When I bowled this weekend, there was a noticeable difference in pin carry, spare shooting, and split conversion. In my personal opinion, the string pin bowling machines need to be tweaked a little bit to allow the pins to fall more “freely” than they did this weekend. Saturday’s invitational paid first place $5000. This brought out the cream of the crop in a 48-spot limited field of competitors. The string pin bowling vs free falling bowling, didn’t affect the level of competitiveness of bowling because we all had equal time in each scenario. It added an extra variable that us as competitors are not accustomed to, but we are used to managing different variables in competition. I was happy to have placed 12th in such a strong field.

While the overall scores were slightly higher on the string pins on Saturday and minimally higher on Sunday, my personal experience is that I did not average as high on string pin bowling vs free fall. For me, when the ball hit the pins, the strings decreased the impact. However, if this becomes a regular tournament, I will be the first to sign up because it’s a unique environment and a new challenge. If this becomes part of bowling in the future, we’ll all need to learn to adapt. #mdmcoaching #protipfriday #iambowlersmart

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