My home house shut down this summer for a variety of reasons. Most of the leagues moved to a near by house.

My old house had old wood lanes that had beat up heads and tame backends but the shot was easy.

The new house has Brunswick Anvilane synthetics put in about 5 years ago. They have very strong backends and strangely an out of bounds outside about 7 (on the right side). The two styles that seem to excel are players with high speed who can play down 10 and keep the ball from overreacting and ones who can get inside and swing the ball being careful not to swing it into the OB but you must swing it. Cut a shot off and it will hook early. It acts a little like nationals other than the shot apparently is short enough to have some outside recovery.  I’ve seen some bowlers who have improved their averages significantly (+15 pins) but more who are down significantly.

This week one of the teams that moved down to this house quit. The whole team and they are going to another house in town that is known for easier scoring conditions. They are going to pay the 2 weeks notice. The main reason (I believe) is that the whole team is down 20 to 30 pins per bowler on average. Lack of lane conditioner is not a problem. In fact the last week they bowled there was an abundance.

Should they have quit the league, they are about 7 weeks into the season of 32 weeks (and will pay for 9 weeks) or are they right in quitting?

I personally have enjoyed the challenge and hopefully it will help me handle this condition better in the future. I think they should have stuck out the season and then moved next year if they wanted to. They have bowled together in this same league for at least 5 years (won it a year or two) and enjoy the company of the other bowlers but their ego’s are bruised by the average drop.

Sawbones. I don’t bowl in this particular league so I have no real vested interest on whether they continue to bowl or not. I personally know about half the guys in the league and personality clashes is not a problem.

One of the bowlers is leaving because the other 4 are moving else he would be left with no team, he is a great guy and you wouldn’t know if he was shooting 150 or 250, always laughing. He is also continuing to bowl in another league in the same house. A couple of the bowlers fall into the category of what I would call house hoppers. They will only bowl where they feel they have a chance to shoot an honor score.

This was a solid 12 team league but now they will have to bowl against a blind team and the league will have to adjust the league payout, schedule and etc.