I also joined a PBA Experience league and like you, I was surprised at the turnout. We have 15 4-man teams with probably 2 vacancies for a total of like 58 bowlers or so. I was completely shocked. One team even joined the league cause a thurs night THS league only had 4 teams in it, so they "decided to jump to Wed Nights". What a league to "jump" to. lol
Unlike your experience though, we actually do have a lot of higher avg THS bowlers, not that you would recognize it by their scores or spare-making ability on the first night. Guessing they will get better and a little more focused as the league goes on.
We bowled on the scorpion as well, and I've noticed reading a few PBA Experience posts that it seems that a number of leagues are starting with this pattern. Our high for the night was a 645 over 3 games. And most people ended up around 520 or so. The biggest thing I heard was that the pattern was managable, but that people missed too many spares for their liking.
Only thing I didn't like about this league was that since we did have a number of high avg people who are very competitive, we ended up adopting the Pederson point system going head to head. I had personally wanted to keep the competition a little more low key to focus more on the bowling but oh well. These are the same guys who before practice even started (when a number of guys admittedly hadn't even seen the patterns before) wanted to run pots and whatnot. I told them no and was then made fun of when I shot 255 the first game (I was the one with a 645) and would have subsequently won high set. But like I said, I'm there to learn and focus and make my game better, not focus on winning a couple bucks.
Those were about the only things I didn't like, and hopefully I can figure out which parts of my game need the most improvement and make them better.
Good luck to all in their leagues!
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I have BIG BLACK BALLS!!!!
And they are both made by Hammer!