Bowling Quote of the Day--4/30/10

"I used to only bowl in Sport leagues. Just by competing and seeing these types of patterns on a weekly basis, it helps. In my opinion, it helps with making better shots, making adjustments, reading lane transitions and ball selection. Sport Bowling has definitely contributed to my success as a bowler."
--Derek Eoff, former Team USA member who currently has the Open Singles lead in the Storm Bowlers Journal Championships

It amazes me how some bowlers are serious enough to travel hundreds if not thousands of miles and spend a small fortune to bowl in major tournaments such as the USBC Open and the Bowlers Journal Championships, yet, they not only are NOT serious enough to bowl sport leagues when they're offered in their house or area, but will definitely NOT bowl in them.

Just how do they expect to be competitive in big tournaments held on sport conditions unless they bowl a lot on these conditions before they bowl these tournaments?

Would You Rather Bowl on a Sport or House Condition?

I blogged recently about bowling last weekend in a tournament employing the Shark pattern. I wrote that even though I struggled like mad to make my ball hook, hit the pocket, and carry and averaged under 180 for six games, I wanted to bowl only in sport pattern tournaments and leagues if I could, because I thought that if I upped my game some, I could actually be more competitive on a sport condition than I could on a house shot against young crankers.

I have also reached the point of being bored with booking relatively high averages and shooting high games and series on house patterns where I have area of five boards or more to get the ball to the pocket and strike despite glaring mistakes. When I score well or average 200 on a sport condition, I feel so much more gratified, because I feel like I earned what I got. I love the challenge of bowling on conditions at least remotely similar to what the pros face instead of striking on the adult equivalent of bumper lanes. And if I average only 176, the way I did last weekend, that's okay with me. It just motivates me to get better.

Now if I didn't know better, I'd think that virtually every bowler at or above my level of proficiency would feel the same way. Yet, clearly they don't, as two people really made clear to me this week.

I was practicing with one of the top bowlers in the Steve Cook Classic league last Sunday. The Steve Cook Classic is one of the best, if not the best, leagues in the Sacramento area. Featuring such luminaries as Steve Cook and Leanne Barrette Hulsenberg (yes, THAT Steve Cook and THAT Leanne Barrette), it makes up in talent and skill for what it lacks in size.

You'd think that the bowlers in that league would want to bowl only on sport conditions, but the guy I practiced with said that while he and some of the others would like that, most wouldn't like it and would probably quit the league if it became a sport league. When I asked why, he said that most don't have the time to practice as much as they think they'd need to in order to score decently on sport patterns, and so they want to bowl on an easier house shot where they can score well.

Later, I bowled with a young woman who seems quite serious about the sport. She bowls in a scratch league and participates in many tournaments where she's enjoyed considerable success over the past few years. But when I urged her to bowl in the PBA Experience league this summer, she declined. She said she doesn't have the right equipment for it. I remember thinking that her reactive resin equipment was plenty good enough and, besides, strategy and execution mattered a lot more than equipment anyway. It seemed to me that she may have been worried about bowling lower scores than she was accustomed to and of being emotionally deflated by this. If so, I think this is unfortunate.

What about you? Would you rather bowl in a sport or house shot league or tournament?