This could be paired with my letter to USBC regarding the type of bowler it's creating, and something I may have overlooked, the effect house shots have on CHANGING bowlers.  Last night we bowled some good friends, guys I've gone to Nationals with for the better part of the last decade.  A decade ago, people used to practice, people used to bowl 3 or 4 leagues a week.  Now, it doesn't take any practice to shoot 700, it's just looked at as something to avoid wasting time on.  One of my friends on the other team is 60ish, been bowling since the plastic and rubber era, before telescorers and lane machines, actually used to be a pinsetter in his younger days I believe.  Well, we are all higher level bowlers, and we can destroy a shot rather quickly just by ourselves, let alone having both our teams on the same pair, but as it would go, the shot actually held up better last night than it normally does when we bowl each other. 

Anyway, the guy in question has had several 300s and 800s, and despite some of those coming in this high scoring era, he's a guy that has bowled well, has known HOW to bowl, has known how to adjust, has had a solid mental game.  Well he had a rough game his first one, had all 3 in the 10th for 170.  Gets into the second game, clearly confused, pitches one out to 5, it doesn't come back, starts getting tight and completely yanks one, never gets right of 20, picks off the 3 on the left.  After that, he starts drinking faster (he usually has a 2 drink start before he gets there).  By frame 5 of the second game, he's completely lost and just gives up.  Next frame he gets up, starts just flipping the ball out there and turning around.  Frame after that, he trips and takes a couple steps out onto the lane, naturally tracking all the oil on his shoes back through the middle of the approach.  Takes a ball off the rack, brings it back to his bag, opens the bag, raises the ball as high above his head as he can, and slams it into his bag, after which he throws things at his back and kicks his bag.  This is all after knocking a trash can over for the first time of the night on his way back to his bag.  He finishes that game with a 115 to have 285 going in. 

Next game he actually starts with 3 consecutive marks, following which he again falls apart.  The trash can would get knocked over twice more, once emptying completely and needing a floor mat to cover the ice and water spillage right in the middle of one pathway from the seating area to the approaches, he would rev the ball up and throw it super slow, or dump it straight into the gutter, and at the end of the game he even would walk to the 2nd row of dots on the approach, put the ball down, and kick it at the pins.  So after having 55 or 56 in the 3rd frame, he finishes with a 112 for a 397 series. 

After this, he quietly packs his things up, after screaming and cussing about how he's never bowling again, shakes everyone's hands, apologizes, and says they'll never see him inside a bowling alley again, and walks out.  This team was in 2nd place in the league, and we swept them, mostly because of him, but also partly because most of their team doesn't practice and really don't concentrate, because in bowling today, you really don't have to any more unless you find yourself in one of these situations.  A decade ago, we would have had a tight, strategic match, instead of the blowout it ended up being. 

I was going to finish up with a few deeper points, but I really don't want to name drop, and I'll just leave it at saying that there were a couple nationally and professionally successful guys bowling last night with us on that guys team, and they just bowl for fun now, but they don't practice, though they can still turn it back on if they decide to, they're too good and experienced to forget it all.  Just hard to watch the sport falling apart one guy at a time. 

There are too many points to address here, but I'll hit on a couple of the ones that touched a nerve with me. They are as follows:

1) The bowler who had the meltdown needs to take a look in the mirror. Everyone loses his or her cool once in a while, but the behavior you described is simply ridiculous. There's no excuse for acting that way. I'm actually really surprised the proprietor or league officials didn't ask him to leave for acting like that. They should have. Frustrated or not, there are minimum expectations for adult behavior.

2) The whole notion that USBC has ruined the game is scapegoating. Proprietors will put down the conditions that bowlers demand. The truth is that most bowlers puff their chests out and talk about wanting more challenging conditions, but then they threaten to quit league after 3 weeks of shooting 520-540 instead of 630-650. It's convenient to claim that it's USBCs job to tell us all what types of conditions we need to bowl on or how strong bowling balls should be, but the truth is that we can and should be making those decisions for ourselves. If you think modern technology makes the game too easy, bowl with plastic or urethane. Is that going to put you at a disadvantage compared to the guys using the modern stuff, probably. But you didn't say you wanted to be at an advantage. You said you wanted things to be tougher. Bowling with pancake cored plastics or older urethanes will give you what you want, an environment that demands that you hit pretty close to your mark in order to get to the pocket and carry. Here's a suggestion for all those who think things are too easy in league - which I agree with by the way - When you're at your next league meeting, stand up and suggest that your league agree to use more challenging patterns next season. Chances are you'll be able to hear crickets chirping while waiting for someone to second the motion. The fact is that bowlers are hypocritical. They bluster away in the bar about what a joke the game is because they didn't like the fact that Bowler X - who they feel they are much better than - is able to average 210, but then they say that the house is garbage and they won't bowl there anymore after they shoot under average a few weeks in a row. Again, if bowlers truly want bowling to be a challenge, they can demand that the proprietors put them out, or they can ball down and or go challenging tournaments. Don't blame others. This is our fault as bowlers. It's not on the USBC, BPAA, or anyone else. They simply give us what MOST bowlers want, soft conditions and mindless honor scores!

This is all very true from a logical and factual standpoint . . I get the reality, I just don't like it.  But every other sport mandates certain rules for sanctioned or legal competition.  It's no different than following rules in the rule book.  Can the USBC enforce the rule against using easy slide on your shoes?  No.  Can they enforce every league bowler using balls within the legal tolerances for sideweight?  No.  This is the same deal.  People will cheat it, people will try to get around it, but if you get caught, you're in trouble.  Instead of maintaining a standard, they have just given people "what they wanted."  This isn't a good solution for the longevity of anything.  But honestly, you're right, I do what I have to do to be as competitive as I can.  The pros do the same thing, and I really don't think they like it too much either, but it's either quit, or make concessions.  There's no point in going to tournaments or even bowling league if you're not going to try to win, and if it's legal for everyone else to use, I'm using it, I won't deny that.  I'll always fight to make conditions tougher, I'll always fight to change things or at the very least give those of us that want tougher conditions the opportunity to have them.  There are no opportunities for youths to go any further than the local adult leagues, and I don't like that.  Keeping silent is basically the same as agreeing with what's going on.  And I go to challenging tournaments, but I don't have the opportunity to even practice on anything difficult so it's impossible to prepare. 

At the end of the day though, that's the reality.  Everybody is giving the majority what they want, and I'm not in the majority, so I'm probably not going to get what I want.  And maybe its impossible to get bowling back to where we think it should be, but as golf equipment got better, courses got tougher, why am I wrong to expect the governing body of our sport to make similar adjustments? 

I'm not saying it's wrong to have expectations of USBC - or any other governing body. They do need to have some accountability, but, again, you also have to take into consideration all that USBC is dealing with. They are watching membership dwindle year after year. Do some bowlers leave because they don't like how easy it is to score these days? I'm sure there are some, but I think the majority of the losses are simply due to there being too much competition for leisure time/leisure dollars these days. As such, it's not in the organization's best interest to mandate tougher conditions because that's just not what the majority wants. Instead, they've tried to encourage bowlers to take on more challenging conditions - see Sport Bowling/PBA Experience, Team USA Experience, Red, White, and Blue patterns, etc. What has happened? Nothing. Why? It's because the majority of the bowling public doesn't have any interest in being challenged. They want to stand to one side, fling to the other, carry all night long and add rings and other trinkets to their awards collection. If you disagree with that, just look at what happened when USBC went away from giving out patches and considered going to lifetime rings for achievements. With the way bowlers reacted, you'd have thought they had mandated that everyone had to start bowling no-thumb with the opposite hand or something! People had a holy fit.

Believe me, I know where you're coming from. I'm part of the minority that actually enjoys the challenge of the sport. In the two years that I worked for USBC, I lobbied for one of two alternatives, either making all certified league patterns adhere to Sport compliance, or tiering membership so that the awards package you were eligible for was tied to the oil ratio used in your league. The response was that they feared that mandating those types of conditions would cause bowlers, especially the young ones, to become discouraged and quit, which would further hurt membership. As much as I hate to admit it, they're right. Can you honestly see people sticking with it if averages suddenly dropped 20 pins? I can't.

Like you, I'm frustrated. It sucks that I average 210-225 on cake house shots but then average a buck 180 when I go to Nationals or try my hand at other high-end tournaments. Why does that happen? It's easy; I am not a "good bowler". I've known that for a long time, and it was painfully affirmed when I worked at USBC and got to work and bowl with people like Derek Eoff, Shannon O'Keefe, Bryan O'Keefe, Erik and Amanda Vermilyea, Bob Learn Jr., Stefanie Nation, etc., etc., etc. Those people are good bowlers. I'm a guy who is pretty good at knowing how to exploit a wide-open house shot. Sadly, a lot of people don't realize that there's a difference between those two concepts. With that being said, what are my choices? I can moan about it, which is very easy and tempting to do, but is that going to change anything? No. So, I can simply join the herd and whack away at house shots taking some solace in the fact that at least I know that it really means nothing to do so, or I can quit. Well, I love the game, even in its less-than-perfect form - too much to quit. As such, I spend 36 weeks a year donning the false appearance of a good bowler while I bowl league, and then I spend 3 days at Nationals proving just how average (or maybe worse) I really am. It's a sad reality, but unless there's a culture shift and the majority of bowlers starts actually wanting a challenge, it's not going to change.

I'm not saying it's wrong to have expectations of USBC - or any other governing body. They do need to have some accountability, but, again, you also have to take into consideration all that USBC is dealing with. They are watching membership dwindle year after year. Do some bowlers leave because they don't like how easy it is to score these days? I'm sure there are some, but I think the majority of the losses are simply due to there being too much competition for leisure time/leisure dollars these days. As such, it's not in the organization's best interest to mandate tougher conditions because that's just not what the majority wants. Instead, they've tried to encourage bowlers to take on more challenging conditions - see Sport Bowling/PBA Experience, Team USA Experience, Red, White, and Blue patterns, etc. What has happened? Nothing. Why? It's because the majority of the bowling public doesn't have any interest in being challenged. They want to stand to one side, fling to the other, carry all night long and add rings and other trinkets to their awards collection. If you disagree with that, just look at what happened when USBC went away from giving out patches and considered going to lifetime rings for achievements. With the way bowlers reacted, you'd have thought they had mandated that everyone had to start bowling no-thumb with the opposite hand or something! People had a holy fit.

Believe me, I know where you're coming from. I'm part of the minority that actually enjoys the challenge of the sport. In the two years that I worked for USBC, I lobbied for one of two alternatives, either making all certified league patterns adhere to Sport compliance, or tiering membership so that the awards package you were eligible for was tied to the oil ratio used in your league. The response was that they feared that mandating those types of conditions would cause bowlers, especially the young ones, to become discouraged and quit, which would further hurt membership. As much as I hate to admit it, they're right. Can you honestly see people sticking with it if averages suddenly dropped 20 pins? I can't.

Like you, I'm frustrated. It sucks that I average 210-225 on cake house shots but then average a buck 180 when I go to Nationals or try my hand at other high-end tournaments. Why does that happen? It's easy; I am not a "good bowler". I've known that for a long time, and it was painfully affirmed when I worked at USBC and got to work and bowl with people like Derek Eoff, Shannon O'Keefe, Bryan O'Keefe, Erik and Amanda Vermilyea, Bob Learn Jr., Stefanie Nation, etc., etc., etc. Those people are good bowlers. I'm a guy who is pretty good at knowing how to exploit a wide-open house shot. Sadly, a lot of people don't realize that there's a difference between those two concepts. With that being said, what are my choices? I can moan about it, which is very easy and tempting to do, but is that going to change anything? No. So, I can simply join the herd and whack away at house shots taking some solace in the fact that at least I know that it really means nothing to do so, or I can quit. Well, I love the game, even in its less-than-perfect form - too much to quit. As such, I spend 36 weeks a year donning the false appearance of a good bowler while I bowl league, and then I spend 3 days at Nationals proving just how average (or maybe worse) I really am. It's a sad reality, but unless there's a culture shift and the majority of bowlers starts actually wanting a challenge, it's not going to change.

Well said . . but I'm fairly certain you could be a "better bowler" if you had the opportunity to bowl on tougher conditions.  You're obviously right of course . . and maybe I am really aiming this in the wrong direction.  I still feel the USBC is responsible for making the rules, but I know very well the challenges they face in enforcement and compliance . . I've said before I'm pretty involved with the industry, and everything affects everything else.  If bowlers quit, pro shop revenue goes down . . if scores go down, they aren't just going to complain about the lanes, they're going to expect equipment to "fix it."  I do agree the USBC is basically handcuffed CURRENTLY, but I think they allowed it to get out of control in the first place.  They focused their attention in the wrong place when the equipment advances took off.  It's easy to patch the dam, but once it breaks, you're basically screwed. 

Thanks though, that gives me a different perspective or at least a direction to go, however, I've already finished writing a pro shop seminar to try to educate bowlers in our area about everything bowling related, from balls, to lanes, to layouts, etc,. so maybe it's really down to just changing the culture until USBC once again has the legs under them to enforce some things.  I'll see how it goes presenting it this summer, and hopefully will make some progress. 

Now, also, you have to remember that USBC did attempt to take a hard stance on the equipment when they toyed with the idea of enforcing layout restrictions on bowling balls. From what I remember and heard when I worked at the company, people pretty much lit the flaming torches and marched to bowling headquarters threatening to string officials up if they went ahead with those changes! Again, that's another instance of bowlers voicing their opinions that they didn't want more challenging lane patterns or their equipment limited or changed. The only mistake I think USBC has made in that arena is making Sport Bowling membership more expensive to members and more demanding on proprietors. Getting people to want to bowl on tougher conditions is hard enough without making it cost them more money, time, and effort. I know why they did it, but I always felt that they screwed the pooch on that one.

What is wrong with equipment advancements?

The fact that scoring is out of control....

You know, that's true as well. I average 210-225 on most house shots, and there are plenty of other guys in the league who do that as well. Then again, there are plenty of guys who average 160-180, etc., so, for them, the shot isn't too easy. Now, you may say that those guys would be 140-160 if the patterns were tougher, but it's still all relative, isn't it? That's something else to keep in mind. Do the numbers themselves really matter? When I started bowling - just before the resin era began -the best bowlers in my center were 200-210, the second tier were between 185-200, and the more "average" guys were 170-185. These days, we still have the same tiers, but the numbers that define them have gone up. Does it really matter all that much? We all still know who the truly good bowlers are as opposed to the guys - like me - who are just good at throwing at an area, don't we?

Actually the lines arent as clear anymore. The guys that are good top out at 235ish because its really pretty hard to score high consistently just because of carry. Plus there are guys who average 230 on cake and 170 on something tough and some who average 230 on cake and 220 on something tough, really cant tell anymore

Yes!  Because the educated bowlers know the difference.  Let the ignorant bowlers have their fantasy.  It doesn't hurt you in the least.