This whole winter league, the lane conditions have been awful! It is not that the league has a hard shot, it is just awful with carry down. Not burnt up lanes, actual carry down left over from prior leagues and open bowling. The lanes are stripped completely for the Tuesday league, the back ends are stripped for Thursday, and then more oil is just squirted on the lane for the rest of the leagues. By the time Sunday rolls around, the lanes are shot. I can't get a ball to roll through the pocket. I can get a ball to hook, but with no drive or hit. I watched a friend bowl on another pair last night, and his ball didn't even read any dry part of the lane. The rotation was the same from his hand all the way to the end of the pin deck. I am not asking for an easy THS, just a shot where I can be rewarded with a strike on a perfectly thrown ball

Nick, the guy that normally oils and strips, said that it is a PITA to strip the lanes without a machine. One of my teammates, who has helped strip the lanes a few times, agrees with him. The owner of the house won't buy a lane machine for one reason or another, so they use the squirt bottle and mop to oil. The house is unkept, and tile from in front of the approach is coming up and missing in some spots. My shoes continually catch it, and is tearing them up. I am about to just say to hell with this house, and go to the other one in the area permanently. The only thing keeping me at this one is that I like the people on the league. Most of them anyway. This house has buckets hanging from the ceiling to catch water. As for joining Tuesday, there are entirely too many people on that league that I do not want to bowl with, like the woman that accused me of cheating at bowling poker just because I won a lot of games and she didn't. Believe me, I am working on my spare game. It is better now than it has ever been. It has dropped from not being able to string strikes because of no carry.

Since the lane conditions are not going to change, it just means that you have to change your mental outlook on the experience.  Currently, it is negatively effecting you.  Since the whole league is down in average, you are still at the same competitive rate as you are in other leagues, just at a lower average so its not like you have fallen behind the other top bowlers in the league.  Embrace the conditions as a challenge and a chance to work on other parts of your game other than your carry.  If you can accept the experience in a more positive manner, even if you don't improve your scores, you will be able to enjoy the experience of bowling with your friends more.

What's amusing to me about this is that I actually long for a situation like this. I would love to look at a league sheet and see a place where the top bowlers in the 190's to low 200's, and everyone else was 180 or lower. That reminds me of what bowling was like in the urethane days in the little center I grew up bowling in.

Now, that being said, I can understand your frustration if the shot is difficult due to laziness/poor maintenance as opposed to something that is being done be design. I want conditions to be challenging, but they need to be fair/realistic also. Sadly, you really only have three choices. You can embrace the challenge and try to make yourself better because of it, you can talk to the proprietor and/or threaten to take your business elsewhere (and possibly take some others with you), or you can actually quit and go to a center with better lane-maintenance practices. You have to determine what's going to make you happiest in the long run. Bowling is supposed to be fun, so if these conditions are making it that bad for you, don't bother.

beverlylanes.com go to league standings and click on Beverly Sport on Monday nights. You'll see what you describe.

I've been taking care of the lanes at our small center for 33 years. I strip the last twenty feet with a towel dunked in a bucket of lane cleaner and wrung out. The rest of the lane I take a clean towel and buff forward and back (not side to side) from the spot I quit stripping to the foul line. I then oil the lanes with a roll-a mop and cross-wipe the lanes spreading the oil with a lino-duster. After completing that I take the lino-duster and make two passes from the foul line to the end of the oil. I have always been told the shot was fair to all bowlers and scoreable. Once had one of the top bowlers from a larger city near us, who happened to be working in our city for a couple of weeks, came in and bowled for something to do and he remarked that is was a very nice shot for such a small place doing the lanes by hand.

I've been taking care of the lanes at our small center for 33 years. I strip the last twenty feet with a towel dunked in a bucket of lane cleaner and wrung out. The rest of the lane I take a clean towel and buff forward and back (not side to side) from the spot I quit stripping to the foul line. I then oil the lanes with a roll-a mop and cross-wipe the lanes spreading the oil with a lino-duster. After completing that I take the lino-duster and make two passes from the foul line to the end of the oil. I have always been told the shot was fair to all bowlers and scoreable. Once had one of the top bowlers from a larger city near us, who happened to be working in our city for a couple of weeks, come in and bowl for something to do and he remarked that is was a very nice shot for such a small place doing the lanes by hand.

Sir, you are by far the most dedicated lane man I have ever heard of, Bravo!

Lanes are to be conditioned to protect the lanes not to enhance or facilitate a scoring environment....we've forgotten the factor 30 some odd years ago

When Nick oils, he starts at the front of the lane, squirts a little behind the foul line, pushes it up to the line, then drags it back however far he wants it. I don't know how wide of a shot he puts out. He doesn't do a lot of effort, but he can put out a very consistent shot if the lanes aren't screwed up before he goes to oil them