Starting Monday I will be starting my first Sport Shot League after over a decade away from the game. My previous league average was 200, and I've been averaging about 205 the past two months in Open Play.

My goal is to finish the season with a +180 average, and I have no idea what the patterns will be. I'm just looking for general tips you may have picked up in your experiences.

I already throw pretty straight up second or first arrow so I'm hoping I wont have the trouble the higher rev players experience. I know a lot of guys on tour use a lot of surface on flatter patterns, and was just wondering if that would be something to explore.

Current Arsenal (all OOB finish) -

Black Widow Dark Legend / pin up
Smokin' Inferno / pin up
Heat / pin down
Spare Ball

Any surface recommendations would be appreciated, as well as ball recommendations. I bowl with medium-low speed, 250-300 revs, low-medium tilt.

Thanks for any advice.

Maybe this is sort of obvious, but if someone is totally new to sport shot, then take your house shot adjustments and forget them.

If you're ball is going high, do not move deeper inside for more oil (because there is no additional oil there). Instead make a parallel move outside.

Likewise if you're coming in light, move inside. The outside isn't super dry like on houseshot.

The rule of taking length of pattern and minus 31 to know you're breakpoint is a good way to have idea where to play. So for 40 foot pattern, you want a break point about 9. 36 foot patter, about 5th board. And so forth. This isn't a perfect rule, but will tell you about where you need to be.

Spares are harder b/c people really use house shot to get huge margin of error for 10 pins. Unless you through it dead straight plastic helps a lot.

Houseshots really train people to make backwards adjustment. And I've seen in my sport shot league sometimes new people join and no matter how much things don't work, they keep on trying house shot strategy.

Most sport patterns are low ratio so it will be more about front to back motion than left to right. Test out different areas of the lane because topography will be an even bigger variable than normal. Rule of -31 to the length of the pattern is a good starting point but not definite.

Just don't be that guy that kills transition by carving a hole in the middle of the pattern when it makes sense to break it down right to left.

The OP said that he is a “straight up 2nd or 1st arrow guy”...he’s not gonna be the guy that carves a hole in the middle of the pattern.

I basically agree with rebel on the adjustments.  One other point I don't think gets discussed enough is transitions.  To me the hardest part of playing any flatter pattern is dealing with transitions.  I don't know how many times over the years that I had free hook anywhere in practice, but as soon as the carry down started to set up I got lost.  For straighter players moving right can work up to a point.  Move left too far and you get inside the carrydown, making it playblike a reverse block.

Straight at spares and don't be afraid to surface prep your equipment to be a little duller than you may typically use on a house pattern.
Watch the players who are scoring around you and see what you can do to emulate their ball reaction

Wanted to say thanks to everyone. I will keep in mind the lateral movements rather than angular adjustments. I struggle with throwing at an angle anyways and prefer to lay the ball down as straight as possible no matter what I'm facing.

I got two of my pieces sanded down yesterday, so I'm hoping to have a little more forgiveness with a lot of soft pocket hits and a lot of 9 spares.

Now my main concerns is left sided spares. I ALWAYS hook at anything left of the 6/9 pins. I slow my speed way down and put a more sideways roll on the ball, which usually gives me 95% accuracy on a house shot (as long as it's not a bucket). Hopefully I can find enough controllable backend to get me through.

I think focusing on left side spares is important.   Generally slow hooking the lane at 4 and 7 pins is a recipe for disaster.  Cant count how many times a tem mate has thrown at a 4 pin early in team at nationals and had the ball hook in the gutter.  8 frames later they skid by the same spare on the right.  Such is thr nature of carrydown on flat patterns.  I dont subscribe to the pro theory of airmailing it down the lane at 25 mph, but I believe trying to throw as straight as possible and using a plastic or urethane ball is the best way to attack most spares

I agree, spares are too important in tournament situations so just take the guess work out and make the spare. I also throw plastic at the half bucket (2-4-5) and 3-6-9-10 now unless there's hook off the gutter.