How a bout making "two-handed" deliveries illegal?  This makes a huge difference in "pin carry".

The same thing was said about Mike Miller when he started bowling with no thumb. Look at how many titles he has compared to WRWJ, as he was prominent during Walter's time. Same with him applied to Aulby, Duke, Criss, Learn, Voss, and many others at that time.

My point: Dale Carnegie's quote always come to the fore:

Only fools criticize, condemn, and complain - and most people do.

Instead of complaining about two-handers, how about do what the ladies have done, as they have every right to complain about men when it comes to pin carry: concentrate on shot making, and pure each shot. If you're worried about pin carry, how about worrying less about how much room you have for a shot and start working on repeating your shot each and every time, give/take 2 boards on each side of your target, and have your shot be so pure that you don't have to worry about wildly aggressive pin carry.

two-handers don't scare Liz Johnson. they didn't scare Rhino, Lavoie, or any others who have won or think that they have an advantage.

My point: stop worrying about what you can't control, and start worrying about what you CAN CONTROL: your game.

BL.

+1, all this below

Quote from: ignitebowling on December 12, 2017, 06:30:54 PM

Many still argue that bowling has lost sooooooo many league bowlers because it was too easy and scores were too high?  Look at all of these pro bowlers from years past continuing to echo this as recently as Bo Burton.

Then you look at bowlers and society up until the late 80s and what was available for your entertainment dollar vs late 80s moving forward to today and you can see why so many people would no longer wish to commit to 32-36 week leagues.

Here is the funny secret..many bowling centers are using a failing business model and not adapting to todays bowlers/consumers. I am 36, I started bowling league as a junior in 1996-97 roughly and really enjoy bowling. I do not wish to continue bowling in 36 week leagues every year.

Lots of businesses and restaurants fail, including large chains. None are immune to bad business and failing to keep up with changes in society. League bowling is failing in that market and bowling center owners and USBC can't figure  out why. Lets blame scores and equipment. By that logic USBCs open championship should be growing every year because of how difficult the conditions are....but it is not.

Everyone in league should be averaging 190 plus because bowling is easy.....yet when looking across many leagues we see plenty of lower average bowlers no different then in the 1950s to 1980s aka the golden years.

Idk who you are, but i like you.

We don't have any scratch or sport leagues in the two centers I bowl in weekly. I would like to see one of my regular THS Handicap leagues shortened to 22-24 weeks and run a 10 week scratch sport league afterwards in that same time slot to round out the season for those that want the extra challenge and time in the bowling alley.

This might not be a popular opinion but I currently love the state of bowling in my little world.  Plenty of killer balls that help out us low rev guys.  The local lanes are all corporate but seem to be doing ok (edge to living in big metro area).  I love my doubles league and the open bowling I can get fairly cheap.  I understand the competition aspect of bowling is completely FUBAR but I am old enough to be comfortable with never going pro.  I just want the game to outlast me.  Don't punish weekend Joe Stroker with the low revs because two handed monsters are blowing up shitty patterns the USBC puts out.  Lots more Joes than pros.

Well you could learn the 2 handed delivery if you think it is such an advantage then it should be worth your time to learn, but you probably will not try to learn it you will just complain. You could also take some lessons spend some time learning to become more competitive.

Well being a low rev speed dominant stroker used to everyone being left of me so perfectly fine personally with two handers.  I guess some of the cranker one handers don't like people left of them.

I was about to say it probably won't because Chad wouldn't be dumb enough to bite the hand that feeds . . but then I remembered we were talking about Chad and so probably in the next few months . .

I had no idea this USBC story was even a thing. Boy did I do some reading this morning.

Is there a target date for these changes to take place?

I haven't had access to sport shots in a decade. However, about 4 years ago I joined a normal THS league, local to me, and the manager is a gentleman who retired after 40 years in the industry in Ohio and moved south. Old-school guy to the core; I bought his AMF sidewinder drill press from him.

My average immediately dropped 30+ pins when I started bowling on his league. Why? The shot was quite flat, long and heavy. League nights were tough. But they made me a better tournament bowler.

Just this year, he's backed off on the difficulty a tad (I'm back up about 15 pins, certainly not all 30 that I was down), at the behest of some of our older bowlers who can't rev it up as much anymore. My point is I have 67 bowling balls in my drill room right now and all it took to make me look average again was an oil man.

The houses could rein in scores tomorrow if they wanted to. They just don't want to. If the USBC starts fiddling with the equipment, scores will come down and the bowlers will blame the house. That's not conducive to increased business.

I've been saying this same thing for 20 years now: Scores are higher across the board, that's life, accept it and move on. Create a new normal for judging talent, just like we have over the years in golf and baseball as fitness, weight training, equipment changes, etc., had their effect on the game. Why bowling believes it has any right to be different speaks to the rank arrogance of the people who see themselves as "gatekeepers."

Aside from the intramural leagues I bowled on as a college student, I've never bowled without certifying. If the USBC truly is about to go down this path, I won't give a da*n if I ever certify or bowl in a tournament again.

Jess

Let's just ban bowling balls. All they do is wreck the pattern and knock over pins.

Stupid bowling balls.