There's a PBA telecast on youtube from the 80's?? that had a clip of Earl Anthony talking about the measurements/inspections and taping I believe.... I wish I remembered which tournament that was...

I think it was called, "behind the pins" or something like that...

I see depressions in the lanes at almost every house that are way more than 0.040".  I know there are houses that haven't passed for years, but somehow they end up getting certified.

Trying to get people to associate paying more money with a house doing more to ensure playing conditions are correct is unfortunately not easy.

Issue: In one house in our association, from 12-18 on the right side of the lane starting at the foul line to almost the arrows, boards came out of the lane. So what did the house do? At first, they put PUDDY in the lane and tried to put the boards that were warped and already came out of the lane back in....didn't last the night...so the house cleaned the filler/puddy out and put new boards in the lane....and NAILED THEM INTO THE LANE. You can clearly see nail heads sticking out. Small, but they are there. By the way, the "new boards" are not flush with the rest of the lane...so if you are right handed and happen to catch this pair, you either need to play outside of 10 to ensure you do not migrate into the problem area or you need to loft the ball to the arrows to miss that spot.

SO of course the bowlers complain....I would as well. But these are the same bowlers that do not want to pay a sanction, let alone more sanction money every year.

Truly, if the house does put in a new head (they have several sitting in the back), if USBC forced the house to do this, would the league bowler ever know? Probably not, because the USBC would go to the proprietor, tell him/her the lanes were not correct and the USBC would pull the house certification, so the house changes the head. To the league bowler, all they know is the house fixed the problem and would never know about the USBC intervention.

It is a perception issue.

Well at least when people ask, "just what am I paying for?" at least there would be answers.  People right now aren't too sure what to answer, even though what they're doing right now is more than can be expected for $10 a year in my opinion.  Bonding prize funds, maintaining rules, keeping averages, and issuing membership cards is worth $10 to me . .