Ok here goes.

I have been complaining to the owner of the local center for
the past 5 years that he needed to start a "tougher" condition
scratch league that was a early shift.  This past week he came to me
and told me he had 8 lanes that I could have next year due to
a league dropping out.  Below is a list of what I have come up
with for this league.  Look it over and jot me a line and let me
know of anything that you feel could be added or removed to make
this league better.  The owner said he was willing to put down
any shot I want but he was not willing to pursue sport league sanctioning
and he wasn't willing to change the shot every week so I would have to pick
a condition and stick with it.

3 man teams
4 games across 4 pair of lanes  (every team would bowl on every pair)
tougher lane conditions (I am thinking the us open pattern 40 feet flat)
scratch
No avg. cap
Sanctioned abc league not sport league
Head to head point system 1 point for beating your man and one point for winning
the game.  That is 4 points per game and 1 point for team series.  17 points total per night.
600.00 added to the prize fund by the house.
50.00 per team sponser fee per team added to prize fund
cost per night?? approx $22.00-$25.00

I have to agree, no average cap will probably scare some folks away.  I don't know what the higher average guys are averaging where you are, but I would suggest a cap of something around 660 for a 3-man team.  That would allow some fairly strong teams without scaring everyone away.

Do you really want to go as tough as the US Open pattern?  Instead, one of the recent ABC National patterns or PBA patterns might be a better choice.  You still get the difficulty, without the serverness that the US Open pattern gives.

cgilyeat,

The pattern is still in debate at this time as is the
whole league setup. I have never bowled on this pattern
and I have no idea how it plays but it seems to me that a
pattern that is flat across the lane will give the advantage
to no one.  You could possibly play anywhere you want as long
as you have enough ball or game to make it work and you are
accurate enough to repeat your shots.  Maybe I am wrong.

Keep the input coming

inverted 1

The house is in northeast Ohio.

Overhand,

If the owner had not been willing to oil differently
that was going to be my next choice.

Keep the comments coming.  All good stuff

thanks
jac

The only thing I'm not crazy about is moving all of my stuff after every game.  Could get tiresome very fast.

Also, see if you can get some outside sponsorship to help boost the prize fund. Or since it's on a tougher shot, maybe you could sell local businesses on prizes or discounts for certain accomplishments?

As much as I hate to admit it, this day and age you probably should have some sort of avg. cap. Seems silly on a scratch league, but I'm afraid that to do otherwise your second season might not fill up if only 2 or 3 teams feel they have a legitimate chance to win.

Good luck with it!
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9~

"Fastest Chicken in the South!"

I agree with 9andaWiggle about having to move after each game.  For one thing, that slows the whole league to the pace of the slowest team.  If you don't want to stay on the same lanes for all four games, move once after the second game.  And I agree that a cap is a necessity, especially is there's a bunch of $$$ involved.  --  JohnP

Will the owner be willing to put out sport shots if someone else runs the tapes? Supposedly the ABC/USBC/whatever is making it easier, by not forcing the center to tape every pair every night any more, but I don't know the details.


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-- The way we see the problem is the problem.

I would not go with something as difficult as a completely flat pattern. In some houses, the shot does play a little easier (we had a tournament with the abc pattern here for juniors and the cut was at 195 top 32 of 90) at some houses, but if its a real b!tch, you will have a lot of complaining.

Pattern b seems to me the most fair of any of the shots for different style bowlers. From what I have seen, b can be scored on by a lot of different players. You could try putting that out.

Or, the other option would be a modified us open shot. Try a 2-1 oil ratio of oil in the middle to oil on the outside 8 boards. This should make the shot slightly easier, but not to the point where it resembles a wall of any sort.
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stanski