I've played competitive sports my entire life, those are the only two to give points when you haven't earned them, or punish you if you do "too well". I think handicaps are shameful, in terms of the sport being a "sport". It's a tradition, but it doesn't mean it's good for the integrity of the game.

But, people like it because they get to compete when they're not earning it. I get it.

A big +1.


BTW, to all those saying caped scratch doesn't work well, you either haven't bowled in it or have suffered through some really weak league rules. The potential problems mentioned can mostly be eliminated, unlike the nonsense that spreads like cancer in handicap.


Handicap may not be the major problem related to the health of bowling, but Fagan got it right in identifying it.

Here's my thought on tourney bowling.  Why aren't there qualifiers I golf in large medal and match play. They have qualifiers then everyone is bracketed.  You'll naturally have the sandbaggers cheat into a lower bracket and the top tier will be the true scratch guys.  Instead of the winner being the bagger he'll get a smaller amount in lower bracket but the top tier guys takes the big winnings.  You could have a 3-4 game qualifier same day or even before. Then, 4-8 games for the event after guys are in brackets.

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BTW, to all those saying caped scratch doesn't work well, you either haven't bowled in it or have suffered through some really weak league rules. The potential problems mentioned can mostly be eliminated, unlike the nonsense that spreads like cancer in handicap.


Handicap may not be the major problem related to the health of bowling, but Fagan got it right in identifying it.
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No, I have bowled capped leagues and there is something you have not considered.  We bowled the trio at a house with conditions that were higher scoring than most. When the shot is so easy, compared to other houses, you have no chance of winning the league one year without breaking up and finding a new team the next. You want to come in close to the max, and then find yourself 15-20 over at the end of the year, and then what? BTW, raising the max just expands the gap between the bottom and the top of the league and eventually leads to the league shrinking, due to the lack of people wanting to get their heads handed to them every year. This league was 555 max in 1987 when I first joined. The last year I bowled it in 2009, the max was 625 and the talk was to go to 635 the next year. There were just more than half as many teams as the late 80's...Caps are better than nothing, but certainly not the cure...

You can use flights ( divisions in bowling ) for tournaments, but it doesn't work well in leagues.  Lots of issues with capped scratch leagues too.  Most people don't want to bowl scratch, and also want to bowl with their friends, not a group put together to make a cap.  Scratch bowling should be limited to the top tier of bowlers who want to compete at a high level.  Capped scratch leagues can work well in this environment as it gives newcomers who want to compete at a high level a place to play.  For the other 90% of bowlers, be happy they are willing to bowl an organized league once a week, and set it up to be the most enjoyable experience it can be for them.

+1 million on the idea that we should be happy for ALL who still want to bowl league at all...

More sanctioned bowlers in 1916 than in 2013....crazy!

Given that nearly every negative change in bowling, golf, softball, etc., has occurred because of societal changes and not issues specific to those sports themselves, it takes a societal push to fix them. Not a change in math.

Jess

Bingo! +1 Could not agree more.

I am glad for this total discussion, because, whether you agree or disagree with the opinion, the fact you commented means you care enough about bowling to comment or make your feelings known. We need a lot more like you, before the sport disappears completely!

We need to do what is best for the sport, and having discussions about ways to make it better can only help...

It's only my opinion, I could be wrong, but I doubt it...

But the math has changed. We have over 70 million who find time to participate in our sport every year, but yet we have less league bowlers (sanctioned anyway) than we did in 1916. And if the math had not changed, why would so many centers be closing around the country?

Speaking of math: You can use stats to prove a hippo makes a great race horse, too, but I don't think you load it up to go to Kentucky for the Derby...

I'm talking about his handicap math, not the math of large numbers (league membership vs. total population, etc.).

We're not the only ones in that boat. Rounds played in golf is going down. I've watched several softball leagues fold up in multiple cities the last 20 years. People aren't going to bowl or not bowl because of what you do with handicap numbers. They will choose to bowl or not bowl based on things like expense, time commitment, and whether they think they can get a social payoff.

Mike is wanting to drop handicap because he feels that if you force people to be challenged, they will work harder in order to avoid the embarrassment of looking bad on the shot and/or continually losing to someone better than them.

They won't work harder, they'll quit.

Handicap has been in this game for at least 70 years and probably longer. People didn't suddenly wake up one day and decide it was something they couldn't live with. The single biggest change bowling has had to deal with is the elimination of shift-work manufacturing jobs. I lived near a US Steel plant for a few years and when they eliminated a shift, it immediately wiped out a 32-team league populated entirely by US Steel workers. Bam, gone. Do you know how many teams' worth of people I've known to quit a league over handicap or scoring pace in 25 years? Fewer than 10 teams' worth. At this pace, by the year 2038 we *might* have those two numbers equalize.

Bowlers get all romantic about the notion that people will come running back to the sport if we somehow find one or two magic tweaks to make in the format. The truth is, you would have to ditch the internet and console video gaming, bring back U.S. manufacturing, teach parents not to be "helicopter parents," get rid of kids' soccer and a bunch of other things in order to bring people back to the game en masse.

The only people helped by the elimination of handicap are either the elite-level league bowlers, or the expert sandbaggers who would immediately float down under the nearest level cap. I credit Mike for trying to come up with an idea but he picked the wrong one.

Jess

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We're not the only ones in that boat. Rounds played in golf is going down.

Golf is hdcp. with a course rating and slope with where you play your tee shot.  Bowing is not.

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I've watched several softball leagues fold up in multiple cities the last 20 years

Softball whether slow pitch or fast pitch is a scratch sport not hdcp.

Both of those sports are bad comparisons.

No, Scott, it's a very apt comparison. We're talking about recreational sports that the average Joe can compete in through his adult and senior years. We're not talking about the PBA and/or high-roller amateur bowling vs. U.S. Amateur-level golfers. We're talking about league bowlers versus league golfers versus league softball players vs. league archery teams or what have you.

We're talking about participation numbers. No two sports are exactly alike, top to bottom, so if you're going to wait to find one of those before you'll allow a bowling discussion, you'll conveniently wait forever.

Bowling is in the exact same boat as golf, softball, or any other adult rec/comp sport. It's not the minutiae of the handicap/flighting systems that makes a difference, it's the resource-to-time-value systems that make a difference. If people invest x-amount of time into something, they want to feel like they're getting value for their dollar. And if you can't provide them with something fun to do, they will find something else.

You may not like the fact that some people don't find having to compete against scratch-level bowlers in a scratch environment on tough shots fun, but you liking it or not liking it doesn't mean it isn't true.

We've been offering bowlers scratch leagues and PBAX leagues now for a decade. You haven't seen people running to them in large numbers. And now Fagan's solution is to force them to do it? And people actually agree with this ridiculous plan? Wow.

Jess