OK, here's a question for Avabob (and the other old timers)  since he's been winning since a little before I was born.  Which era was the best bowling wise?  Rubber, Polyester, Urethan or Reactive?  Not your best results, because I've read your opinion on short oil, or the most participation, because that declines every year, but the just the most overall enjoyable time to bowl.

I know this will be very dependent on your life circumstances at various times, but try to think just about the bowling at the time.

there are some good arguments for the late 60's era.  I will say this however.  The industry decision to abandon lacquer for the more durable and higher flashpoint urethane lane finishes brought on the need soft polyester.  As an example, the polyester ball had been around for 10 years before Don Johnson started winning with regularity using a carmel white dot.  On lacquer, the performance difference between hard rubber, and polyester ( including super soft polyester ) was small. 

Brunswick was testing its epoxy astrolane finish in lots of markets.  I was bowling on it in league in a small 12 lane house while attending college.  Didn't know what I was bowling on, but struggled to average 189 with an AMF 3 dot.   Another guy throwing a full roller and using a Columbia white dot was out averaging me.  I knew I was a better bowler, and didn't find out until 3 years later what we were bowling on.   By then we had all started throwing polyester       

The Budweiser Team didn't shoot 3858 splitting a 1/2 board, lets get that straight!

It's not like the premier bowlers of today aren't high skilled.  Some of the skills required to be competitive now are just different than they were 50 years ago.  If you had a time machine and could gather all the top bowlers of every decade in to compete against each other they would all figure out what they need to do to be competitive. 

I will say this once, but have elaborated on it in another thread.  As a 65 year old codger, I see the talent and skill level of todays bowlers miles ahead of that from the so called golden era of the game.  Watch a video of the great Ned Day sometime.  He threw a looping full roller and his follow through never went the same way twice.  Great bowlers from the 50's were more accurate, because they could sacrifice a more powerful release for accuracy without losing much carrying power compared to the guys who did throw a more powerful ball.

Bold for emphasis.

That's why I chose the late 70s to early 90s, as you'd have the best of both worlds here. You would have those who sacrificed that power bowling for accuracy and did it to perfection, like your Voss, Duke, Anthony, etc. etc. Then you add in your Weber, Hoskins, Hollman, and others who were those power players.

But back to that accuracy.. This was also the era when the women shined. If Weber, Anthony, Dickinson, and Burton were high on accuracy, the women took it to a different level, because the biggest power players in women's bowling didn't emerge until the mid-90s, with Turner, Duggan, and Feldman. And to be honest, compared to some bowlers today, I'd prefer watching a Dana Miller-Mackie or Donna Adamek. You just knew that you were going to get a higher quality shot and game out of those people.

BL.

The insurance company argument has been used for years as the argument for switching from the red label lacquer.  However, people in the industry, who should know, have told me that it was primarily the lower maintenance aspect of the urethane than prompted the switch.  I do know that a lot of the bowling alley fires of the 60's occurred in centers that were on the verge of bankruptcy, and always occurred at night.

In any event, it was the introduction of the hard urethane finish that started the drive to find softer and higher friction balls to deal with the different characteristics of urethane.  I do know from my own experience that the soft shelled balls were of minor advantage at most on lacquer.  The Brunswick Crown jewel of the 60's was very soft in many batches, yet nobody ever dominated with one enough to start a wholesale move to the plastic ball prior to 1970.  I remember in about 1973 everyone was going to garage sales and pawn shops looking for the old crown jewels, as Brunswick at some point lost the original Crown Jewel formula. 

I guess that water is pretty far under the bridge at this point anyway.  The problem I had with the 70's ( I was reasonably successful so this is not sour grapes as it would be when I talk about the 80's ) is that it pretty much brought about the extreme lane blocking that we still see today.  It was actually necessary to an extent because anything resembling even oil was largely unplayable with the balls we had available at the time.  The lane simply wouldn't track the way lacquer did, and the transitions largely consisted of carry down, with broken down heads. 

I always found it humorous when the ABC mandated short oil dressing as a way to curb high scoring.   Lane men in the 70's had started going shorter and shorter with oil, and stripping the back ends as a way to get scoring better on the hard urethane finish.  Neither group really understood what was happening with the finishes.  The problem was that oily urethane had a lower coefficient of friction than oily lacquer, but the friction coefficient was much higher on drier urethane.  Because the oil sat on top of the urethane, it pushed down the lane, making the heads hook and the back ends tighten down.  Flooding the heads to make them hold up didn't work, and just made more oil available to carry down to the back end.  You have to remember that oils were low viscosity and not all solids back then.   

The most playable conditions on urethane were actually a heavy crown with the oil buffed down to 40 feet.  I knew one lane man who understood this, and we were able to play astro lane in our late scratch league the way we played lacquer. We were playing inside 3rd arrow with a fall back look and had no idea what the lane finish was.   

The hardness spec was put in place in '73 or '74.  The original Shore D (spelling might be different) immediately was illegal.  I had one.  Then Columbia came out with a new, legal version with a new spelling (maybe Shure D?).  I didn't know anyone that had much success with that one.  After several years I pulled the original out of its bag and it was covered with about 1/16" of dark "goo".  I threw it away, should have cleaned it up and kept it as a collector's item.  --  JohnP

Well I have only bowled competitively in 2 ERAs, in the late 70s with an AMF Dick Weber All Pro 5 Star rubber ball and in the Reactive ERA. In between I was out of bowling except occasional open bowling. It was easier to bowl in the late 70's but harder to score. I averaged 190 in scratch leagues. I said it was  easier because you just bowled. You didn't think about which ball to use or how to play the lanes. It was like PLEASANTVILLE nothing really changed.


In todays ERA yes it is easier to score but you have to have bowling knowledge and that is what I like about todays game. I only started bowling again in leagues in 2009 and average started where I left off and has gradually increased to around 210. Now to put one ERA over the other I can't. I enjoyed bowling back then and I enjoy bowling now just as much. It's just a different game today.