So, this will not be a popular opinion but I was thinking since USBC is going downhill just like sanctioned leagues have been and we are paying 25 dollars for this organization why not have 5 or 6 USBC shots.

I personally think since sport bowling, the old sport bowling before the PBA experience maybe should merge and create 5 or 6 different patterns.

The hard part is getting USBC officials to regulate this for the centers and doing periodic checks to make sure the pattern is USBC compliant.

I know many league bowlers will gripe and complain and this would only hurt my game but in the long run I think it's time and it's been time. USBC had or used to have the Red White Blue shots. That's a start at least.

Seems like this idea sure is much more crucial for the sport to continue then worrying about extra holes or whatever in bowling balls...

So, this will not be a popular opinion but I was thinking since USBC is going downhill just like sanctioned leagues have been and we are paying 25 dollars for this organization why not have 5 or 6 USBC shots.

I personally think since sport bowling, the old sport bowling before the PBA experience maybe should merge and create 5 or 6 different patterns.

The hard part is getting USBC officials to regulate this for the centers and doing periodic checks to make sure the pattern is USBC compliant.

I know many league bowlers will gripe and complain and this would only hurt my game but in the long run I think it's time and it's been time. USBC had or used to have the Red White Blue shots. That's a start at least.

Seems like this idea sure is much more crucial for the sport to continue then worrying about extra holes or whatever in bowling balls...

Then put your time and effort into organizing a Sport league in your local alley. Visit the lanes on league night and recruit teams, hang out on weekends and recruit open play bowlers, hell even take out an ad in the local bowling paper.

Get it all set up and ready to go...then enjoy the solitude you will experience on league meeting night when no one shows up.

Even Chad Murphy, dumb-ass that he is, knows the surest way to kill bowling(and USBC) is to enforce more challenging patterns.

Ask proprietors, maybe? The house shot is still challenging for the average bowler. Anything harder, they're just not going to have fun... and probably quit. 

Very few of the scratch house league bowlers in this area are interested in sport shot leagues.  The main reason, and they freely admit it, is they do not have any interest in seeing how good or bad they really are.  They have fun averaging 220+ on a house shot and "getting away with" some less than perfect shots.  The sport shots just remind them of the flaws in their games and they don't want to deal with it.

Exactly right.

It's kinda like playing football. A bunch of us can get together on Saturday afternoon, throw the ball around and have fun, but we are not interested in running wind sprints to get better.

Bowling has a place for everyone. Leave the average league bowler alone to enjoy a night out and he/she just might continue to help finance bowling as a whole though USBC dues.

I’m a decent bowler, I can beat the brakes off a lot of people and get beat by quite a few as well.  I’ve had a lot of success and a lot of failure in my career....that said, when my career is over I’ll be counted among those who was interested in seeing how good or bad I really was, who was not interested in getting away with errant shots and who wanted to know all of my flaws and confronted them head on.  The group I will be in will be smaller but I will be surrounded by the real deal.

I will have been honest with myself and, to me, that’s my biggest value.

I think this is the case for most of us on this site actually. But we are not the typical bowler. I'm not currently doing it, but in previous seasons, I drove 50 miles each way to participate in a PBA Shot league and passed 5 bowling alleys on the way to do it.

I like the challenge of sport patterns, even if my USBC Open Championships Average is 176. I can and do average in the two-teens and two-twenties on a house shot, which can be fun, but it's like playing a video game on easy mode.

Which of course is what most league bowlers prefer.

This past year for example, I joined a draft league that has the best bowlers in the area. When I joined, I was under the impression we would be bowling on PBA patterns. On league meeting night(and before), there was a big uproar about how these "great bowlers" didn't want to bowl on sport patterns, they wanted their cake shot.

This was a Vise sponsored league with a lot of added money. On the meeting night, John Nakashima, who some of you may know is one of the owners of Vise and also the alley where the league bowls(Pacific Ave Bowl, Stockton CA) was trying to explain to this bunch of prima-donnas  that high level, high dollar leagues shouldn't bowl in a house shot. Nope, they wouldn't have it. So we finally settled on challenge patterns instead, which if you saw the scores, weren't really a challenge. But that didn't stop many of them from bitching about how their averages should be higher.

Honestly I agree but I also thought that most Leagues were Bowling unsanctioned.

Quote from: BriGreentea on January 07, 2021, 04:54:10 PM

So, this will not be a popular opinion but I was thinking since USBC is going downhill just like sanctioned leagues have been and we are paying 25 dollars for this organization why not have 5 or 6 USBC shots.

I personally think since sport bowling, the old sport bowling before the PBA experience maybe should merge and create 5 or 6 different patterns.

The hard part is getting USBC officials to regulate this for the centers and doing periodic checks to make sure the pattern is USBC compliant.



I know many league bowlers will gripe and complain and this would only hurt my game but in the long run I think it's time and it's been time. USBC had or used to have the Red White Blue shots. That's a start at least.

Seems like this idea sure is much more crucial for the sport to continue then worrying about extra holes or whatever in bowling balls...

Then put your time and effort into organizing a Sport league in your local alley. Visit the lanes on league night and recruit teams, hang out on weekends and recruit open play bowlers, hell even take out an ad in the local bowling paper.

Get it all set up and ready to go...then enjoy the solitude you will experience on league meeting night when no one shows up.

Even Chad Murphy, dumb-ass that he is, knows the surest way to kill bowling(and USBC) is to enforce more challenging patterns.

Respect you and your post, thought it was great.
People tried organizing sport shot leagues and it does out.
I'm looking for a compromise of a house shot modified with sport shots.