Conducting A Year-End Review | Bowling This Month

Article Contents

• 1. Analyzing your scores
  • 1.1. Mid-year and final average
  • 1.2. Game-by-game average
  • 1.3. Average and consistency
• 2. Looking deeper into the stats
  • 2.1. Performance benchmarks
  • 2.2. Looking deeper at spare shooting
  • 2.3. What about the spare ball?
• 3. The value of journaling
  • 3.1. Were there consistent themes?
  • 3.2. Identifying mental game lapses or strengths
  • 3.3. Tracking your adjustments
• 4. Conclusion

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As the bowling season ends, many bowlers look forward to some time away from the lanes, some participate in another activity or sport, and some continue to bowl all year long. Whatever the case, bowlers should take some time to reflect on their league bowling season. This is a much different process compared to reviewing a single tournament, simply due to the number of games and the length of the season. Does anyone remember what happened in week four of the year? Probably not.

This is where bowlers need to use the resources at their disposal to look beyond the year-end average and whether or not it was above or below whatever goal was set. Many leagues provide printouts with all of the individual weekly totals and games, providing a detailed view of the results throughout the year.

On an even more detailed level, bowlers who track their games in an app can examine the minutiae of their weekly performances that resulted in those scores. Beyond that, bowlers who have taken notes throughout the season will have access to even more information to review. Put together, all this information can help bowlers evaluate their year objectively and set their sights on what to work on before the next season begins.

For the purpose of this article, I’ll be using my own season to provide examples of the kinds of insights to be gleaned from all of this information, thanks to the statistics and weekly blog posts that serve as journal entries to review my year.

Analyzing your scores

The most basic way to review your yearly performance is to look at your average to see if you met your goal. It would be easy to say that it was a successful year if you did, but could it have been …