With regards to scoring conditions, one has to decide if it is going to be the "STANDARD" for USBC league bowlers or be the standard for "professional amateurs" when it comes down to how hard the shot should be. The USBC has to do a balancing act to try and please everyone which is a difficult task especially when the whole question of high scoring and integrity only affects about 10% of the bowlers.
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"I don't want to be remembered, I want to be forgotten"

Edited on 5/2/2009 11:14 AM

Here is my take on this.  Bowling balls plays a large part on what is going on as well.  The better teams out there, take sandblasted stuff and blow open a trough to feed their strike balls to and make the shot look like a league shot.  USBC can put a tough pattern out there.  But, the best guys out there know what they are doing.  I believe the only way that USBC can toughen the shot is go to longer patterns or higher volume of oil.  However, not sure if the machines can lay out heavier volumes longer distances.  I think if you take the ability of the bowling ball out of play, you will curb scoring ALOT.  I bowled in a league last year where they messed up the first week of league and put out the pattern that was programmed from a Sport Shot league the week before (happened to be a 50 foot pattern) and if memory serves me correctly, only 3 out of 96 bowlers broke 600 that night.  I dont care what kind of pattern you put out there, if you go 38 feet and have fresh back ends, guys like Riggs are going to shoot a bunch.  

USBC is in a damned if you do damned if you dont position.  They do not want to lose entries into the tournament so they want people to be able to enjoy their experiences to the Nationals each year.  So, they take one year and make the shot a little softer.  Learning experience as the scores are soaring?  Who knows.  Maybe there is a reason for that such as Las Vegas is not a cheap place to visit.  Unless you stay at a hole in the wall roach motel, most hotel/casinos want $100+ a night to stay there.  Anywhere else, including Reno, you can stay in a nice place for almost half that. If USBC puts out a almost impossible to score type of shot, do you think the majority of bowlers would want to return?  On the flip side, they cant really put out a THS.  If they did, it would take 2400 to take all events.  

My ideas, would be to do one less squad a day, extend the tournament by an extra month, and put fresh oil for all events and not just the team events and first s/d squad in the morning.  Another idea, is like they do with association tournaments, do nothing but team events one day, then singles/doubles the following day oiling after every other s/d squad.
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Steven Vance
Pro Shop Operator
Striking Results Pro Shop
Red Carpet Lanes
Duluth (NE Atlanta), Georgia

If anyone out there is worried about the scores being too high, try duckpin!!

While scoring is indeed relative, friction is not.

The USBC commissioned a year-long study on Ball Motion (see Phase I & II Final Report on website) and concluded that coverstock chemistry and on-lane friction were the primary drivers of the extreme ball motion we see on the lanes today. There is no question that this allows "opening up the lanes" and results in ensuing scores.

Basically, their conclusion was this: there's too much friction. Furthermore, there's been so much friction for so long that its become ingrained in play-styles.

This doesn't take anything away from great bowlers like Riggs. They are just taking advantage of available friction, and as opposed to 95% of league bowlers, they're capable of playing the lanes front-to-back instead of side-to-side. I'm shocked that, in this thread, nobody has tied bowling's scoring pace to escalating friction levels. Just note that the first reactive resin balls (say, the Pearl X-Calibur, which exhibited a very obvious non-linear friction-with-respect-to-velocity behavior) came out roughly the same time the scores started escalating ...
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 "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck" -- Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And let's not forget, while "high-tech" balls are one variable, the advent of the dual-purpose lane machine (stripping/oiling daily) also plays a HUGE role in the amount of friction seen on today's conditions.

TDC,
I'm not sure what your problem is, but I suggest you keep your next psych appointment.

Riggs and I have already had a lengthy, informed discussion about the things that concern me.  I don't care who wins, as long as he/she executes better than everyone else.

Riggs' contention that things changed in 1989 is spot on...among other things, it represented the first time the 2,200 barrier was broken.  What this "change" for the better?  Now the 2,300 barrier has been broken...

We can argue all day as to whether USBC should have done something about this back in 1989.  I think most bowlers agree that something should have been done, but it never was.  This year could be an anomaly, and if so, that just underscores Mr. Voakes phenomenal bowling.  On the other hand, it COULD become a trend...much like every year since 1989.

Now if YOU are incapable of understanding this possibility...buck up tiny.