Our local association is trying a couple of new ideas this year to spike interest of the top bowlers.

The first was an All-Star tournament. They invited the top 64 bowlers (by average) in the association to bowl in a match play tournament.

They were late getting it organized and only started notifying bowlers about 3 weeks in advance of the tournament (it was bowled in May). They had problems with a number of the bowlers already having commitments on the weekend scheduled.

Here they had two problems in my opinion.

One was they organized to late and hopefully next year they can set the date at least 5 months in advance so that the bowlers can work around their tournament schedules.

The second problem was that they tried to fill the field by going down the average list. They cheapened getting into the tournament and invitations should only be given to the top 64 and if they don’t get a full field then so be it.

The second effort has been setting up a tournament of All-star teams from each house. This tournament is to be bowled the first weekend in August. I’m unsure of the exact format of this tournament.

A bowler qualifies for their house by being in the top averages of the house. If a bowler qualifies at more than one house the house where they carry their highest average is the house they have to represent if they bowl in the tournament. If a bowler declines to bowl then they go to the next average in the house.

The only problem I’ve seen so far in this process is that bowlers who only substituted in leagues are being considered for the team and apparently they don’t even have to have bowled 2/3 of a season, I’ve send cases of bowlers with 50 games getting on the team.

My feelings are that a bowler should have to bowl regularly in a league at the house and bowled in at least 2/3 of the games for the season.

At least the local association is trying to raise interest at the top level. I wonder if any unintended results will come out of this. Like will bowlers migrate to the higher scoring houses in order to make the All-Star individual tournament or might the go to a lower scoring house in hopes of making the house All-star team.