To excel at any sport requires a ton of practicing the right things, coupled with good coaching, and some natural ability. Are the Williams' sisters lesser tennis athletes because they've been playing since they were knee-high to a grasshopper? What about all the other kids that play tennis since they're 2? Why aren't they winning tournaments like the Williams sisters? The same reason not every golfer makes it on the tour and not every baseball player makes it out of the minors and not every college football player makes it in the draft. Because it takes that extra special talent to be great. Are you guys trying to tell me that any kid who plays golf all their life is going to turn out to be Tiger Woods? Get real! If it's so easy, why aren't we all out on the tour? Even if it is so easy to excel at, which I completely disagree with, the level of compitition just grows to match that.

As far as golf not really being 288 strokes, while it's not physically challenging every stroke, the mental challenge more than makes up for it. Have you ever tried to make a 6-foot putt for $1-million? I've tried to bowl a strike for $500 and missed because of the "pressure" and I can throw a strike with my eyes closed for $5, literally. I don't see any of those doctors mentioned before trying to tap one in for anything more than a beer at the 19th hole.

And LW, if Tiger's accomplishment can be accomplished so easily, then why is he the first ever to do it? That's right. Not even Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, etc. have done what Tiger has done. And the fact that golf players do get so many chances at that accomplishment and fail makes it that much more amazing.

1.) New machines mean less damage to pins. I've worked on the old machines and let me tell you that they put the pins through Hell for each rotation they go through from being hit to being set. You usually have 20-22 pins in a set (10 on the lane, 10 in the rack for quicker setting, and an optional 2 to reload the rack faster) With the old machines, the mechanism that got the pin from the bottom of the machine to the top was a lot more brutal to the pin than they are today. It was nothing to lose a 10-20 pins a night in a 30 lane house (that means you lose an entire bowling alley worth of pins in a month!).

2.) The older wood that was used in pins was more suspect to becoming shattered, rendering the pin "dead" or giving you "dead wood". You can bang a "dead wood" pin on a solid concrete floor and hear a thud, when a "live pin" will bounce back and hit you in the face if you're not careful (and are kneeling too close to the floor).

3. Better and newer wood for "kickbacks". The "kickbacks" are 2 pieces of wood on either side of the pins that are setup to promote "pin action", or the movement of pins around the pit area once the ball has made contact. With poor "kickbacks", a pin will hit the side and just fall down into the gutter. With good "kickbacks", a pin will hit the side and go flying all the way across to the other side, sometimes taking out pins that the ball missed. If you're really lucky, you'll get a pin to bounce twice; once off each "kickback".

4. Better outer coating of the pin. As technology becomes better, the pin makers make the outer coating of their pins better. Pins used to be painted wood. They are now plastic coated, which will withstand abuse a lot more for a lot longer.

5. Better "pit curtains". You ever see the area behind the pins? Probably not because it's just black. Well that black part is actually a curtain of sorts between the lane and the back of the machine that sets the pins. This curtain can easily get worn down, but as with the pins, better materials are being used and the curtains are getting better constructed and they are starting to act more like a third "kickback" than just a barrier.

So what does this all add up to? Well, you have to understand the unbelievable amount of science that is now going into making bowling balls before you know the impact of "live" pins. The history of the balls is almost as exciting as the game. Basically, the "old school" balls are the Rubber and Plastic variety. Let me tell you from first-hand experience that you want nothing to do with a Rubber ball. Ech! Anyhow, bowling companies started (around the 80's or so) trying to find a way to make a ball hook more violently across the lane. Why? Well, the optimum angle of entry into the "pocket" (between the 1 and 3 pins for a right-hander; 1 and 2 for a lefthander) is not obtainable from a straight shot. Even if you, as a right-hander, were to stand on the far right of your lane and roll the ball from the far right corner into the pocket, you wouldn't get the optimum angle. You would literally have to stand on the lane next to you and toss the ball about 1/2 way down your lane, have the ball land on the far right side, and you might get the optimum angle with a straight shot. So I think you get the idea that you can't do it with a straight shot. Well, welcome the advent of the hooking shot. The "hooking shot", or "hook" as I'll call it from now on, requires putting spin on a ball that tries to move the ball in a direction towards the center of the lane (thus, the pocket) even though the ball is traveling "down" the lane. The reason the ball is able to travel "down" the lane while the ball is spinning a different direction is because of lane oil. Think of lane oil like ice on the lane. But the catch is that the oil ends about 2/3 of the way "down" the lane. So you can imagine what happens; the ball hooks like crazy when it gets beyond that 2/3 mark. But there's a catch! A ball "picks up" oil as it's spinning down the lane just like you would pick up water if you slid on ice. Well, that means it doesn't exactly hook once it hits the 2/3 mark. It starts to hook and as the dry wood (the back 1/3) picks up the oil from the ball, the ball hooks more, hopefully right into the pocket. So what? Well, Rubber and Plastic balls were notorious for not loosing their oil on that back 1/3 so ball manufacturers started looking to different materials. Introducing: Urethane! Urethane marked the start of the increase in bowling scores because the ball could hook across the oil and would lose oil pretty well on the back 1/3. Add in the fact that a Urethane ball could be thrown sanded (rough, more friction, more hook) or polished (smooth, less friction, less hook) and suddenly there was a ball that could be used on any lane oil condition (which changes from lane to lane, subtly, and establishment to establishment, dramatically). But that wasn't enough for the enthusiasts, nor the ball manufacturers. A war started over who could get their ball to hook the most. Introducing: "Reactive Resin". Developed by BASF ("We don't make a lot of the things you buy. We make a lot of the things you buy better."), Reactive Resin has revolutionized the game. This is a material that literally "eats" lane oil. You could drown a ball in oil and about a minute later it would all be gone. And I mean gone! So think of this in terms of the game. Here's a ball that will not only hook on oil, it would also loose oil just about as fast as it would gain it. Come time to hit the back 1/3, there was barely a trace of oil on these balls. So of course they hooked right off the lane. So the guys who were ripping the ball (Picture a ball traveling in a straight line, faster than anything you've seen from a drunken Frat guy, that all of a sudden turns on a dime and smashes into the pins) had to use Reactive Resin highly, highly, highly polished. Sounds stupid, right? Wrong. Even though they polished the balls to travl the first 2/3 of the lane just like a Rubber, Plastic, or Urethane ball, it's what happened on that last 2/3 that made the Reactive Resin ball so revolutionary. While those other balls went down and hooked (in various degrees), the Reactive Resin ball had barely a trace of oil preventing it from hooking on the back 1/3 and it would take off like a demon possessed. Suddenly, guys who could barely get a spin on the ball were watching their ball hook into the gutter on the opposite side! So now the ball hooks more. So what, again? Well, the harder a ball hooks, the more speed, and power, it's generating in the direction of the pocket. I knew people who would make the ball go faster in the direction of the pocket, than the ball went down the lane. I was one of them. The other balls (in decreasing amounts from Urethane to Rubber to Plastic) would get a little more speed in the direction of the pocket, but nothing close to Reactive Resin. This coupled with the new weight block designs (the weight block is the inner core of the ball that actually makes up most of the weight) that became more elongated instead of spherical and now qualify as just plain unusual (Think barbell with attachments), but they work and science is making them better all the time.

So anyhow, back to "live pins". Think of a 100 year old guy rolling a ball between his legs at 10 lead weights standing up that are surrounded by 3 pillows on the sides and back. That's the way things used to be. Now, however, you have a ball hooking faster into the pocket, generating more power into the pins, which then translates to the pins bouncing off the "kickbacks" and the "pin curtain", which then bounce into more pins, which then, because of their better coating and better wood, bounce more and more and more and it becomes a huge chain reaction that usually doesn't end until all 10 pins are knocked down. Consider that most strikes aren't considered "good" anymore unless all 10 pins are "in the pit" In other words: no pins on the lane, in the gutter, or visible at all. They all went to the back and out of view. And let's not forget that the pins are now lasting longer which means less likelihood that you're bowling a series (3 games) and you've suddenly got a lane with a dead pin (something you can't tell unless you just know) or two or three.

So in summation: Before, a strike was more like a firecracker with a wet fuse: You could get it to go off, but it took a lot of work and didn't produce much bang. Now, a strike is like a nuke with a mecury switch: It doesn't take much to set it off and when it blows up, boy does it blow up!

Alan Webb of South Lakes High in Virginia running 3:53 in the mile as a high school senior last weekend, breaking Jim Ryun's 38-year old high school record could be one of the biggest accomplishments in running in a long time.

58,59,61,55 = 3:53.43

A good article on the race:

http://dyestat.com/us/1out/prefontaine/index.htm