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Author Topic: Elephant in the Room?  (Read 13629 times)

tloy

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Elephant in the Room?
« on: July 13, 2019, 08:33:25 AM »
With all the new rules, no weight holes, no cleaners ect….It seems to me that USBC is totally ignoring the real issue. Walled up house shots and no control over the shot put out by the proprietors. I know this has been discussed before but I am all for setting up different levels of leagues with easy to harder to sport shots.

I have been bowling for 20 + years and have seen the advancements in technology. I agree the equipment has advanced signifigantly but so has the ability of modern lane machines to put down a very precise shot. I bowled on a high $ league 3 years ago that was 50 ft and flat. I could not get a Hyper cell to wrinkle on this.

I think the USBC needs to concentrate on this area first. Opinions?

 

avabob

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #61 on: July 19, 2019, 10:40:39 PM »
I still remember back in the early 60s listening to guys on the loaded teams win the league every season and complain about all the handicap the bottom teams got.

MI 2 AZ

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #62 on: July 20, 2019, 12:43:18 AM »
I still remember back in the early 60s listening to guys on the loaded teams win the league every season and complain about all the handicap the bottom teams got.

Back when hdcp was something like 70% of 200?

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Skip H

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #63 on: July 20, 2019, 09:18:13 AM »
Sarcasm guys.  I stopped taking this stuff seriously awhile ago.  It's irrelevant.

Leagues are irrelevant for me.

Without leagues, there is no pool to get tournament bowlers. This is a huge misconception of leagues being irrelevant.


Such a large number of league bowlers don't bowl tournaments.  Local association tournaments are almost non existent here. Leagues are rarely competitive and aren't "producing" tournament bowlers in my area. If there were the same number of tournaments available locally during the league season as in the summer I could skip joining league all together.

Still I enjoy my 20 week doubles league. 



Every local tournament I have ever bowled, has about at best a 1/4 of the field you need to pay attention to. The others are the league bowlers that want to bowl a tournament for the first time, or just want an experience.

 On rare occasions, is a field full of true tourney bowlers. Those cases, there is generally a very high payout and entry fee, but still are some guys just looking for experience.




I fit into that 3/4 that donate at an occasional tournament. Enjoyed the one non-champions that I bowled in and would definitely do it again. Trade a couple early 150 games for 180 and I would have gotten out with my entry fee.  There are a lot of very high average league bowlers that need to bowl in Sport tournaments and quit being afraid that they might not average 220+.

JessN16

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #64 on: August 09, 2019, 08:26:41 PM »
Want an opinion you don't get often? I think the only restriction on ball specs should be overall weight and size. Drill 40 holes in it if you want. You want five pounds of side weight? Go for it, big boy. Let me see you control that thing when you pull it a half board.

People don't want harder conditions/shots/equipment. About 10-15 years ago all the top bowlers in the leagues I was on got together and started demanding a tougher shot. So the house put together a scratch league bowling on rotating PBA/Kegel patterns. Took about a month for the same bowlers to start griping that they weren't scoring high enough.

I've only seen one house put down tough shots in the face of bowler objection and survive for a long time: Leland Lanes in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Took us 33 weeks to get the first 600 series in the league one year on a 16-team, 5-man men's league. They just went out of business this year (a Bowlero opened down the street). Leland's shot was roughly 27 feet, 12 units from 10-board to 10-board and 10 units from 2-board to 10-board. It was blown out by the time practice ended, whether anyone was throwing resin or not.

In the end, it doesn't matter. The house will use what it uses. We've been arguing about this for a half century. Or more.

Jess


avabob

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #65 on: August 09, 2019, 10:02:38 PM »
Got 30 guys bowling a summer sport league here.  It goes up every year
  Also runs during the winter.   If want respect from other bowlers you bowl the sport league.   Rolling ip 230 averages on house shots impresses nobody unless they can back it up on a tougher pattern

bergman

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #66 on: August 09, 2019, 11:40:37 PM »
Our summer singles sport shot league continues to increase each year. It started with 22 bowlers a few years ago. This summer that number has increased to 68 bowlers.

leftybowler70

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #67 on: August 10, 2019, 04:09:42 PM »
Got 30 guys bowling a summer sport league here.  It goes up every year
  Also runs during the winter.   If want respect from other bowlers you bowl the sport league.   Rolling ip 230 averages on house shots impresses nobody unless they can back it up on a tougher pattern

Preach!!!!!

Steven

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #68 on: August 10, 2019, 08:58:06 PM »
Got 30 guys bowling a summer sport league here.  It goes up every year
  Also runs during the winter.   If want respect from other bowlers you bowl the sport league.   Rolling ip 230 averages on house shots impresses nobody unless they can back it up on a tougher pattern

 
Every year I bowl a THS league and Sport Shot league. I do the Sport Shot league to work on skills. I could care less who it impresses.

bowling_rebel

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #69 on: August 11, 2019, 12:37:01 AM »
I remember over 20 years ago, one of the first things I did with Internet was I think a usenet group on bowling.

There was a massive thread on the topic if reactive resin was ruining the sport.

Seems that as long as we have had reactive balls, people who care enough about bowling are complaining online that things being to easy is bad for the sport.

From what I can tell, people like to bowl on easy conditions. Those of us who bother to go online to talk bowling are the minority.

During the summer there are some sport shot leagues across long island, but that's it. Actually, one house put on their fall league flyer a sport shot league. I actually signed up for it, but would guess is almost certainly is not going to actually happen.

I don't think bowling being too easy is reason for the sports decline. I really don't think it has much to do with bowling itself. It's changes in a culture where people work longer hours, for less money and bowling is a sort of luxery, greater social isolation, probably more adrenal fatigue and less energy to want to go out and do something at night as well. 

avabob

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #70 on: August 11, 2019, 09:16:06 AM »
Prior to reactive resin lane conditions had to be very easy for scoring to be even decent.  ABC allowed 24 to 28 foot walls and scoring was really good.   Unfortunately this addicted a generation of bowlers to unlimited swing area. Resin balls actually reduced the need for wet dry walls of the urethane era, but instead of blending out the patterns lane men simply started going longer with higher volumes of oil to combat the effects of resin.

As a real old timer I didnt feel I needed the walls in the lacquer era prior to the mid 70's.  However the harder urethane finishes and subsequent synthetic lanes  made me want the easy lanes.  Flat patterns were brutal.  When resin came out us old strokers loved it because we once again could utilize the hold area and not worry about the carry down that was always a killer for urethane on short oil.

If the modern lane conditioning technology had existed in the 80s it would have been possible to develop challenging yet playable patterns of varying lengths for high level scratch bowlers,  and resin could have been banned before it was introduced. 
Short oil and hard lane finishes spawned the modern power  game, which in turn paved the way for reactive resin and for a short time leveled the playing field between power players and straighter players.  As power players learned to harness the friction of resin, it once again made the straight player a niche competitor. 

Bottom line, the worst thing about resin balls is the way they can destroy oil patterns so quickly,  not how high scoring they can be.  Lane conditioning technology has advanced tremendously since pre resi, but cannot keep up with the powerful shells of the resin balls in the hands of the modern power player.

In a game where the cream always came to the top over time, longer formats are a joke without constant re oiling between squads. 

Just as an aside, people were complaining about walled up lanes ruining the game in the 1970s when soft polyester came out.  Decline of league membership never had anything to do with scoring.   It wsd just an excuse  for people who were tired of the long term committment of leagues
« Last Edit: August 11, 2019, 09:23:36 AM by avabob »

BowlingForDonuts

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #71 on: August 11, 2019, 10:44:11 AM »
>From what I can tell, people like to bowl on easy conditions. Those of us who bother to go online to talk bowling are the minority.

TL;DR version.  Most people prefer open bowling to committing to league and most of those who do bowl league don't want to pay money to struggle.  And rural areas bleeding especially younger people to sun belt cities is a huge factor to make leagues seem dying in some areas.  They aren't dying at least in this fast growing metro area.  Sport shot leagues to be found as well as whatever kind of league you want here.  Plenty of tournaments as well.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2019, 11:40:49 AM by BowlingForDonuts »
Here today.  Gone tomorrow.

avabob

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #72 on: August 11, 2019, 11:35:00 AM »
I too often make the mistake of posting from the perspective of the high level scratch community.   I think bowlers who want to compete for large prize funds at the scratch level should should embrace and strive to learn to play a variety of tournament patterns.  Alternatively I think bowlers who want to have fun and throw strikes should not be pushed to play on tough patterns.   There should be room for both worlds with the sophistication of modern lane conditioning.

bergman

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #73 on: August 11, 2019, 02:26:34 PM »
My experience (pre-resin, pre- synthetics) was similar to Avabob's recollection (we are in the same age bracket). One exception though. During the lacquer era (1960s), and prior to walls and lane blocking, conditions were usually very tough, with few exceptions. Stringing strikes was hard to come by.  In a few instances, the lane track could produce high scores, but in my neck of the woods, this was a rarity. Nobody, and I mean nobody, averaged north of 205 and the few that did, they were the absolute best in the entire region. I am talking about some really good players too. With the advent of polyurethane coatings (circa 1973), proprietors could no longer oil the lanes the way they did on lacquer. Oil got pushed down the lane, causing an epidemic of out-of-ranges. Balls "rooster-tailed".  In 1977, that changed. The ABC basically threw its hands up, and that started the "wall" epidemic. Scores and averages began to dramatically rise--- overnight too. From that point on, the typical "house shot" has resulted in a flood of oil in the middle, with lots of friction out to the edges. Back in the 1960's, we oiled the lanes from gutter to gutter (with a spray can). There was no help to the right and no "hold" in the middle.

I remember a quote from a PBA Hall of Famer. He said that anybody who shoots an 800 series had "help".  I maintain the same logic could easily apply to anybody who claims to have averaged 220 in the 1960s. If they did average 220, they had "help" too. Some proprietor was walling up the lanes (illegally). Otherwise, that type of average would have been next to impossible to achieve back then.

avabob

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #74 on: August 11, 2019, 03:02:16 PM »
It really depended on the area during the lacquer era.  Lots of corner shot houses, and houses with a great track inside 10 board in our area..  Pocket was easy, but if you  pulled a board or 2 into the oil carry was poor with the hard rubber balls.  Only about 5 guys in town over 200 until after 1970.  1975 was th e breakout season for scoring here.  Soft plastic balls and guys getting better at walling them up raised my average from 200 to 214 that season.  Not just me, we recorded 8 800s that year after only having 2 in the orior history of the association.  Bowled a swiss tournament in Portland Ore that year and ot took a 230 average to cash in the sweeper singles

JessN16

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Re: Elephant in the Room?
« Reply #75 on: August 11, 2019, 03:04:35 PM »


I don't think bowling being too easy is reason for the sports decline. I really don't think it has much to do with bowling itself. It's changes in a culture where people work longer hours, for less money and bowling is a sort of luxery, greater social isolation, probably more adrenal fatigue and less energy to want to go out and do something at night as well. 

Thanks for this, because it's what I've been saying now for 10+ years and people are just now starting to come around en masse.

This site got pretty toxic about 10 years ago when the real hardcore "It's all about the scoring pace" guys would take over every thread about what was causing a decline in bowling. If you looked closely at the time, you could see the same thing happening in local golf, softball and tennis leagues. It's all about the changes in society, from the loss of the shift worker to the rise of social media and what it is doing to people's desire (or lack thereof) to interact with other humans in person.

The only difference for bowling is it has taken bowlers longer to admit the truth to themselves. The scoring pace issue is one of jealousy from those who were high achievers in a more low-scoring time and can't bring themselves to embrace the notion that scoring pace is not tied to skill on a 1:1 basis. We never should have gotten concerned with that issue. It cost us a decade or more of yelling at each other rather than getting out and recruiting new bowlers.

Jess