I should have noted the smiley face depicting the tone of the message, no offense taken Mr. Bowler.

From reading the posts on this topic, I can only assume none of you have seen sandbagging in its purest form. Well, I'm here to tell you a few things about how it's done.

First of all, you can't beat an experienced sandbagger. If you win, it's because they let you win. A "good" sandbagger will dump pins and games to get their averages down in a handicap league that is divided into halves or thirds.

Here is how it's being done by a team of extremely experienced sandbaggers in my Thursday league.

The league is a handicap league that is divided into thirds. The prize for first place is about $1300 per bowler. We'll call our sandbagging team "The Cheaters".

The Cheaters finished almost last in the first third of the season, and all of them established averages well below their 2006-2007 book averages. Here's a rundown of their book averages, what they finished the first third with, and their normal ability level.

Cheater #1- book 139, first third average 122, ability 150
Cheater #2- bood 168, first third average 142, ability 180+
Cheater #3- book 148, first third average 123, ability 160+
Cheater #4- book 231, first third average 157, ability 210-220

9 weeks into the 2nd third of the season, they are 59-4. They are bowling well enough to win with their gigantic handicap. There is no one who can catch them to prevent them from winning the 2nd third.

Once they have won enough points to lock up the 2nd third, they will begin to tank again, getting their averages back down to where they finished the 1st third. They will finish close to the bottom for the last 3rd, and take a huge handicap into the rolloff, where no one else will even have a remote chance of beating them.

These bowlers only bowl one league a season, and win a large amount of money in handicap tournaments.

So, unless any of you are doing this, you're not sandbagging. THIS is sandbagging.

The only thing you can really do is not let them back into the league next year. If you feel this is happening to a league that you're in, contact your local association or the USBC to see if they recommend a course of action. Or, you could meet them in the parking lot and express your opinion to them.

Fin09:

Now that is what I call sandbagging.

Wow! I never witness that in my leagues i bowl at. We kid around and call each other name when some good bowler is in a slump and tease him he sandbagging. But never seen someone really drop there average just so they can get bigger handicap. If book at 231 i would be depressed if i was averaging 157!

It is a shame to know people are doing that. I always try to do my best because my main goal is to improve my game, not play games with my average for financial gain.

Though we have a split season on my Monday league, overall prize money is based on total points for the season... sure there's extra cheese for the winners, but the thick gravy is in the overall...My Thursday league, where we were called sandbaggers is and always has been a single type season league.

Let them talk smack, your just getting better and they now it.

It could be hard to judge if there doing this or not. When I bowl most of the time, I'll throw 2 really good games ex 240, 230 but then I get cursed with the bad game which is like a 160-180 game. I don't do it on purpose, I just get a ton of unlucky breaks Like getting a 7-10 on a flush pocket shot.

Yeah but you're still hitting the pocket and just getting bad breaks. These guys are probably deliberately missing their marks, missing spares, not even close to the pocket, or their balls aren't hooking anywhere near what they normally do.

Or they use the wrong ball that won't carry as well on that condition, such as a dry lane ball on heavier oil or a throw a line they aren't used to throwing. These are a few things I've actually heard from bowlers that do these things. If there were no handicap leagues, and handicap tournaments this wouldn't be an issue with sandbagging as it would serve no purpose other than to try to sucker someone into some side pots. Of course if we didn't have handicap leagues how many league and bowlers would there be? Several times a season my teams will cross another team that the games are pretty much scratch, maybe a couple of pins handicap one way or another. Most of the times these are the most competitive nights of the season and many times the funnest.