Turkey, Brooklyn, Clean Game: Bowling Terms Explained
Terms · Milestones · Updated 2026-07-10
A turkey is three consecutive strikes. The name survives from 1800s holiday tournaments where three straight strikes won a live turkey - scoring was harder then, and the bird was real prize money.
The rest of the lane's vocabulary, decoded:
Strike strings
| Strikes in a row | Name |
|---|---|
| 2 | Double |
| 3 | Turkey |
| 4 | Four-bagger / hambone |
| 5 | Five-bagger (yahtzee to some crews) |
| 6 | Six-pack / wild turkey |
| 9 | Golden turkey |
| 12 | Perfect game - 300 |
Terms you'll hear on league night
- Brooklyn: a strike that crosses to the wrong side of the headpin (left side for righties). Counts the same, earns a smirk.
- Clean game: no open frames - every frame a strike or spare. A quietly elite habit; 28 of them looks great on a season recap.
- Dutch 200: exactly 200 by alternating strike-spare-strike-spare all game. Rarer than it sounds.
- Beer frame: the agreed frame (usually the 7th) where whoever misses buys the round.
- Big Four: the 4-6-7-10 split. Greek Church: the 4-6-7-8-10 or 4-6-7-9-10. Both are photographs, not conversions.
- Carry: whether pocket hits actually strike - the difference between a good shot and a good result, and worth tracking per ball.
- Sandbagging: deliberately deflating your average to farm handicap. Leagues police it for good reason.
Milestones that celebrate themselves
The app detects the moments as they happen - turkeys, hambones, clean games, the 225 club, new high game - and turns them into shareable milestone cards and short clips, with badges for the Big Four pickup, the 7-10, and crossing a 200 average. Big nights become brags: a monster 258 exports as a branded scorecard or a video reel for the group chat, straight from the 10-frame record.
Never let a turkey go unwitnessed. Milestone cards, badges, and Bowling Wrapped - your whole season, shareable. Free on the App Store. Download Bowling Score Keeper & Tracker on the App Store.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called a turkey in bowling?
From 19th-century American tournaments that awarded a live turkey for three straight strikes - a genuinely hard feat on the era's hand-set pins and unforgiving lanes. The prize died; the name stuck.
What are 4 strikes in a row called?
A four-bagger, popularly a 'hambone' (the term spread from PBA broadcasts). Five is a five-bagger, six is a six-pack, and nine straight earns the 'golden turkey.'
What is a Brooklyn strike?
A strike where the ball crosses to the opposite side of the headpin from your normal pocket - the 1-2 side for a right-hander. It scores 10 like any strike; the name is Brooklyn 'across the bridge' from Manhattan.
What is a clean game in bowling?
A game with no open frames - every frame filled with a strike or spare. Minimum score for a clean game is 100, and consistent clean games are the surest sign of a real spare shooter.