Late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century prizes given out
during bowling
tournaments were often food items, such as a basket filled
with various grocery items, a large ham, etc. Around
Thanksgiving in the United States, turkeys became common
prizes. At some point, one tournament decided to give away a
turkey to people who managed to bowl three strikes in a row. This practice spread and eventually
embedded itself in common bowling vernacular,
long after giving away actual turkeys stopped.
Back then, bowling three
strikes in a row was extremely difficult to do, because they
did not
have the beautiful
lanes we have now.
Also, bowling
pins were setup by hand and not always uniform, bowling
balls were
not well balanced,
and people running the tournaments would often use tricks to
make the pins more
difficult to knock down.
Because it is more common to hit three
strikes or more in a row today, new names have been
developed.
Six consecutive strikes is a Wild Turkey and nine
consecutive strikes is a Golden Turkey.