This is somewhat of an anomaly to me and a topic I find a mystery.

First a quick bit about me (and this is not FIGJAM worthy), I'm currently having a career best 234 avg in one league and struggling in the other at 222 (to be fair, this house is naturally tougher)......my sport pattern average is in the 195ish range.  FOR ME, I think my PBAX summer league is REAL bowling, and I relish the challenge.  I would, in a perfect world, bowl on these patterns all winter long and set goals accordingly, if I were able.

What I'm asking about is this stereotypical ego that cannot handle NOT scoring, bowlers who NEED the inflated average a THS provides.  This is a mystery to me.  What happens to these people / ego's IN THE MOMENT when they're bowling on exceptionally difficult conditions?  What are they thinking IN THE MOMENT of (for example after game 1 when they shoot 132) failure?  Is there some cognitive dissonance or some Dunning–Kruger effect going on?

(Enter poker player me) I'm struggling to grasp the psychology of the stereotypical fragile ego (lets be honest, we ALL know them).  Can someone help me w/this?  I'm trying to reverse engineer the concept and understand the WHY the 195 PBAX average would crush my ego.....I mean, it's quite objectively obv that the THS is a softer condition and flat patterns are more difficult thus the universal scoring pace differential.

Think of this as analysis of the person YOU / WE ALL know......It's such a relevant topic in bowling today so a little exploration should be nice and everyone can contribute.  Another way of stating it:  If there were a truth serum in their blood and we could interrogate HONEST answers, what would we get?

I think there is a big misperception that egos are what get damaged when THS bowlers hit flatter conditions.  It is really more about having fun.  Most bowlers do it for fun.  They like to hook the ball, and like to throw strikes.  Bowlers shouldn't look for sport leagues unless they want the challenge.  Neither should those who do bowl in sport leagues put down guys who do just want to have fun.  Most "stand left, throw right"  guys are under no illusion that they can compete against top players on tournament patterns.
[size=78%]  [/size]

A big +1 ……..


I've been bowling some of the better scratch leagues in SoCal for about 15 years. In all that time, interacting with literally hundreds of different bowlers, I'm hard pressed to identify these fictitious players who are driven by the ego of higher scoring.


In the journey to a 220+ THS average, most of these bowlers have tried their hand at the USBC Nationals, summer sport leagues, and occational local sport tourneys. They completely understand the difference between the two bowling worlds. They've made their respective decisions to either put in the significant time and effort to be a real tournament players, or make peace to be content with their weekly league bowling, have fun, and maybe make few bucks competing in brackets and side pots.


I think most of these discussions ultimately get down to some sport league players looking down on others who choose not to take the leap. This is the behavior I sometimes witness and it doesn't produce anything positive.

I think the discussion is more on the psychology of bowlers and what I know of So Cal, which a limited amount of legitimate scratch leagues, scratch events struggle and scratch as it was in 80's and mid 90's is nonexistent.

I didn't say SoCal scratch leagues exist on every corner. There are only a limited number, but they do exist, which is notable in a bowling world where large parts of the country have none at all.


My point is that the 'psychology' of these bowlers is generally one of realism. For those who do try to compete at the competitive tournament level, the psychology of success is a different subject. Your new book addresses it well.

In the Northwest area of LA there are currently about 200+ scratch league participants across 4 centers that I'm familiar with. When looking at the question of bowling psychology in THS vs Sport, this is the group I look at for evaluation. The typical handicap league bowler hasn't achieved any real scoring success on the THS, so it's hard to make any psychological evaluations based on experiences they might have on sport.


As far as the 'so called' scratch bowlers bowlers in SoCal, I'll leave the evaluation of their respective skills to others. The past is the past. I can only do my part by participating and bowling in local tournament events when I can.