Two things I knew this post would have in it ...
1) A call to force everyone to sport shots,
2) Holding up golf as if it is the sport of all that is true and holy.
Let's handle the second part first: Golf is in a bigger freefall at the participatory level right now than is bowling. We just got our freefall out of the way earlier. Every participatory sport, in regards to organized competition, is dying. That has nothing to do with scoring systems or rulebooks. It has to do with the change in human beings relative to social interaction.
The square-grooves rule in golf started at the PGA level in response to a specific issue: pros hitting shots into the green from the rough, with spin. The proposed changes eventually filtered down to the USGA level. It's worth noting that the groove rule doesn't even fully take effect until 2024. So if you're trying to say the groove rule has saved golf, it hasn't, because it doesn't exist yet unless you have a PGA tour card. You can still use non-conforming clubs in USGA-sanctioned play. You are theoretically prohibited from refurbishing iron heads, but a clubfitter who knows what he's doing can refurb heads and most officials will never be able to tell it was done. Old equipment doesn't cycle out for handicap-setting purposes until 2024, and that's assuming the rule doesn't change again. It's also worth noting that there is a significant movement out there among amateur golfers to start a competing sanctioning organization and disempower the USGA (sound familiar, USBC haters?). To put it plainly, golf has nothing to do with bowling and we have nothing to do with golf, and neither of us is "better."
Now back to the first point -- and this time, I'll be the one to bring up golf. Rounds used for handicap purposes at golf's amateur level can be held on courses with cheater pin locations, no rough, local rules for drops out of sand traps, whatever you choose. And the round can be played alone, a fake name submitted as score attester, or at some golf clubs (like my local one), there's a computer terminal in the office and you submit your own scores. You can cheat like hell if you want.
So why not cheat? Because your bad deeds will be found out the minute you enter a tournament where you're not in control of your own score reporting. There's no incentive to cheat because it doesn't get you anywhere.
In bowling, we don't cheat in league (unless you bowl in the hundreds of leagues that opt to not run tapes, don't run foul lights, don't inspect pins, etc.). We may have an easier shot in league, but so does your local muni golf course. Once you go to a tournament, though, the game changes.
I've bowled a lot of years on a lot of different shots, and the following is true nearly everywhere:
1) You still have to hit a specific something in order to score (whether it's a board or an area),
2) The most accurate/best rollers of the ball still rise to the top of the heap eventually,
3) If you can't score on THS and they can, you need to develop a THS game, because they have, and that means it's a "you" thing and not an "everybody" thing.
Specific to two-handed bowling, I'll add this: For all the talk about how "easy" it makes the game, I know very few people who have successfully made the transition from one- to two-handed bowling. In fact, without exception, I don't know of anyone personally to have done it and improve their average. Two-handed bowling is its own skill that must be perfected just like traditional styles. But you'd think from reading some of these complaints that any old joe can just pick it up and immediately start booking 240. Sort of related to that, you would think THS makes it possible for everyone to average 220, yet everyone doesn't.
It's just not worth turning the sport upside-down to experiment with it. And if you think the majority of people will stick with the sport if it went to difficult conditions, you don't know what you're talking about.
Jess
