Choose from Three Options

$19 for a bowling package for two ($39 total value)

• Two-hour rental of a bowling lane ($24 value)
• Shoe rental for each person ($4 value)
• One large pizza with one topping ($9 value)
• One pitcher of pop ($2 value)

$29 for a bowling package for four ($60 total value)

• Two-hour rental of a bowling lane ($41 value)
• Shoe rental for each person ($8 value)
• One pitcher of pop ($2 value)
• One large pizza with one topping ($9 value)

$45 for a bowling package for six ($96 total value)

• Two-hour rental of a bowling lane ($73 value)
• One large pizza with one topping ($9 value)
• Shoe rental for each person ($12 value)
• One pitcher of pop ($2 value)

Making the Spare: The Cross-Lane Principle

If your master plan to bowl a 300 game somehow fails, you’ll need to know how to roll a spare. Use this Groupon guide to improve your game.

Bowling a strike might not be easy, but the strategy behind it is. The ball must hit the head pin at an angle, greatly increasing the odds of a strike as the surrounding pins fall to the side and topple their neighbors. However, unlike strikes, spares come in all shapes and sizes, which means good bowlers must know when to choose a straight shot and when to persist in shooting at an angle.

The advantage of shooting at an angle is, well, fairly straightforward. Rolling the ball in a straight line toward the leftmost pin (number 7), for example, requires hitting a target about 17.25 inches wide, but a diagonal angle expands the target box to 20.25 inches, since the ball has a wider path in which to graze the pin. To accomplish the angled shot, follow the cross-lane principle: to hit a ball to the left of the lane’s center, move your feet to the right of their normal starting position (and vice versa). In general, you should move three boards for each pin—for example, six boards (or about one dot) to the right if you’re aiming for the second pin to the left (number 4). However, although the diagonal approach increases the likelihood of hitting a single pin, sometimes a straight shot may be needed to take care of “double wood,” or one pin hiding directly behind another.