Why is it that, unless everyone on the show is a lefty, they always shoot from the right-handers' side? You can't see their release, you can't really see the shape of their shot. I just started watching this how on my DVR, and I would really like to watch Page and Allen from the left side. Incidentally, it looks like Allen turns his hand a bit early, but I can't tell BECAUSE THEY'RE TAPING FROM THE WRONG SIDE.

Also, nice to see Big Wes is back. I'll have to watch the round of 8 coverage on Xtra Frame - his round of 8 match was a defeat of Sean Rash.

Finally - Randy just did the "Cowbell" skit, but with hambone instead.

You i never thought about it, but your right they always do shoot from the right side. hmm good question but probally since they only have about 6 lefties exempt bowlers on tour they went with the odds.

And with only 6 exempt lefties on tour, isnt it funny how often we have ALL LEFTY shows, or three out of four lefties? Who said lefties don't have it easier?

editors note:
Kagekikr is a card carrying member of the IHL

If you had any idea what you were talking about, you'd realize that if the lefties had it "easy", there would be more than 6 exempt lefties out there. There are one or two shows a year where there are more lefties than righthanders.

Mr. Fin,

Since I have NO idea what I am talking about, why don't you explain to me the odds of a field of proffesional bowlers where there are 7 or 8 lefties and 50 some righties, and all or most of the stepladder finals is southpaw. I am not arguing that ALL of the exempt bowlers are phenomenal, they are, or they wouldn't be there. But how can you justify that on a regular basis, as you say once or twice a year, a field of 64 with nearly 60 righties can be whittled down to only southpaws, if there is not a distinct advantage on the left side of the lane? What I do know, is that I didn't have to look at your profile to make an educated guess that you were a lefty. You have some very nice scores to your credit. Congratulations. In that respect, I will also say that you too, must be a very good bowler, but I also KNOW that unless you bowl predominantly with full teams of left handed bowlers, you are not facing the type of adversity that those on the right side face on a frequent basis. I am not trying to say that you still don't have to make good shots, you do, but I have had GREAT left handed bowlers admit to me that the lined up in practice and didn't have to change a thing all night. With the equipment and high rev rates of many of the PBA players, conditions are subject to break down even faster, which only increases the advantage to a left hander out on tour. Can you honestly tell me that on those one or two shows a year that are all or mostly lefties, that you don't think they had a better look out there? Why aren't there more lefties on tour? A study in the late 80's estimated that 7-10% of the population was left-handed, and the current ratio of right to left handed bowlers in the PBA falls close to that ratio. It takes talent, drive, skill, support and much more to make on today's tour and that's why a ton of excellent bowlers, maybe even yourself, don't even try to make it on tour, regardless of which hand they throw with. But it's pretty simple, even for a guy like me who has no idea about anything bowling right? If you take 64 guys and have them throw balls that soak up and move oil on the lane, 57 of them are throwing on the right side, 7 are throwing on the left, who will have the more consistency if they are able to repeat shots?

Well, it's been kind of a sore subject with me for awhile, so I didn't mean to come across as short as I did, so for that, I apologize.

But, with that being said, here's a lot of the problems with the left-right inequity issues on tour.

One or two shows a year will showcase an all-lefty field, or a field with maybe one right hander. On these particular weeks, the left side started out playable, and stayed that way. Chances are, it was on the chameleon or viper pattern, which the left side has always been able to score on. Most other weeks, both sides start out tough, but the right side opens up due to the bowlers methods of attack. The conditions turn into a glorified league pattern on the right, but stay difficult on the left. As a result on those weeks, you rarely see a lefthander on the show.
So, there are times when having a condition hold up is good, and there are times when that is a bad thing. The bottom line is that there are fewer and fewer lefties on tour each year. A couple lost their exemptions after last season, and no new lefties earned one. Rhino is coming out of the TQRs a lot this year, and he may be the only new exempt lefty next year. One of the toughest things to do right now is earn a living on the PBA tour as a lefty, especially if your last name isn't Allen, Bohn, or Couch, all of which are hall of fame caliber bowlers.
So, having one or two shows a year where the lefties are allowed to score is hardly enough to say they have it easy.

And, yes, obviously, I'm lefthanded, and there are weeks where I don't have to move much (if at all), but there are also weeks where I go through all 5 balls in my bags, and still don't ever find anything that works. It is normally an advantage in most leagues, but not normally on a PBA condition.

Generally speaking, lefties will have an advantage due to the lane breaking down. There are some conditions where you would like some more people throwing on your side to help get some of the oil out of there. For the most part though, lefties are going to have a better chance of throwing more consistent shots and keeping the same line longer.


I actually benefit from more bowlers throwing on my side of the lane since I struggle with really oil conditions. It gives me more of a bumper since I usually throw deeper than most players. I can throw threw the oil out to where they are drying it out and get the ball to snap back. There are arguements on both sides for advantages.

BTW Fin, I just got back from visiting Virginia Beach. My wife and I went up there to visit one of my friends and we went duck pin bowling. It has to be the hardest sport I have every played. Even harder than golf.

I will sure agree with you about duckpins. Completely different game! Better to drink and have fun with, in my opinion.

The bumper you describe is exactly what happens on tour when the bowlers burn a hole in the pattern. If you've ever seen any of the qualifying rounds of a national tour stop, you'll see guys throwing sanded equipment up the outside in practice, and sometimes for the first couple of games of a block. They all work together to dry out the break point, giving them a larger target to hit. The left side simply doesn't have enough traffic to accomplish this, so tight lanes stay tight.

Your point is well made, but I still contend that on those weeks when you see the All-Lefty bonanza's, they clearly had it easier. I know, however, that the same would be true if there were more lefties than righties out there. You take what you get, and I see where your coming from. My youngest looks like he's going to be a lefty, so I can't hate all lefties anymore! This Rhino Page is doing great too! Darnit, my IHL membership is going to get revoked...

There are certain stops on the tour that the lefties make sure they bowl, such as Spartensburg. Some of the centers are known to be lefty friendly with the lane topography, the right pattern and other factors. I believe that one of the Dick Weber classics in the past few years gave an advantage to the lefties with the old school pattern they used. It was even talked about on the telecast. Some tournaments while not meant to cater to the lefties do end up giving them a slight advantage. I'm not going to take anything away from any of the lefties on tour though. They have the talent to bowl with some of the best, become exempt and stay on tour year after year. Most of them will go into the PBA Hall of Fame. No matter what it comes down to ability, both physically and mentally to perform at the level no matter which hand you use.

I'll agree that a few weeks out of the season, the lefties do have an advantage, but they are few and far between. What ends up happening is that some of the exempt lefties (Oatman, Kalfas, Mark Scroggins to name a few) need to place extremely high those weeks to have any chance to keep their exemptions, since there are not many other weeks where they can score well enough to keep up. There is no way to shut the right side out, since even if all 6 exempt lefties and the 1 or 2 that come out of the TQR all make match play, there are still 24-25 righthanders in there with them, and with the current format, you see a lot of lefties eliminating each other. Only in the weeks with round robin match play will you see the possibility of an all lefty field.

Thats true, its all about pinfall those weeks. Its all about the laws of probability in the end. Every once in a while its going to happen, just like every once in a while there might be no lefties in match play at all. No matter which side of the lane you are on its about going out there and performing. Look at how many different players this year have made back to back or 3+ telecasts in a row or have made 4 or more throughout the whole season including a few lefties. They get on a streak of throwing the ball extremely well and scoring high to make it to tv and ride it out as long as they can.

Spelled it wrong. It's Spartanburg

I actually went to the finals of that tournament and the match between Bohn and Page was awesome.

I think it just comes down to the fact that some patterns need to break down to give you a good angle while other patterns score higher with less traffic. The righties would do better on the patterns that need to break down and lefties would do better on pattern that need less traffic.

Yeah, I knew something was wrong with it, but didn't feel like looking it up at the time. That was a good match, looked like a runaway for Bohn, then Page came charging back taking advantage of a few non strike frames by Bohn just to get a little too amped on the shot that would have won it for him. Thats how I see it anyways.

There's another major reason you don't see all lefty telecasts and that there aren't a lot of exempt lefties on the tour: Most of the world is right handed. Its a pretty simple law of averages in that the more of a certain type you have, the more of a chance of pulling it out of a group of objects. In this case, there are more righties in the world than lefties so there are more exempt righties and therefore more all or mostly righty telecasts.

But Tim, that's exactly my point, it DOES happen, despite the law of averages.

2008 Spartanburg Classic Telecast
Billy Oatman (L)
Mike Scroggins (L)
Parker Bohn III (L)
Patrick Allen (L)
Rhino Page (L)

and it's not like this is the first time...
BUT... I will step off my soap box, because alot of folks have made very good points on this thread as to the reasonings behind this. Obviously, they are ALL great bowlers, regardless of wether they throw the ball down the hard or easy side (right or left.)

I will definitely agree with that. All of those guys are exceptional bowlers even when compared to other PBA bowlers. I was really hoping that Oatman would go all the way. I really like the guy but both Bohn and Page were on fire that day.

Yes it does happen, but not despite the law of averages, but rather because of the law of averages. The law of averages simply states that most of the time the sect with the greater numbers will be at the forefront, but it does leave open extreme cases where all of a sect with very few numbers will be at the front.

In our case, most telecasts will be all righties with 1, maybe 2 lefties, if any at all. The lefties do have their days where its all lefties on TV, but its probably less than 10% of the time (that and my next sentence are guesstimates so don't take hard numbers with them). Using a skewed bell curve (standard deviation), there's probably 50% of the time its all righties, 40% of the time has 1 or 2 lefties, and 10% of the time is all lefties.

BRINGING OUT THE CALCULUS!!!!

Lol no calculus involved! That was just a quick mental picture that I devised as I was writing it!

The law of averages will play a minor role, sure, but on weeks where the left side does play easier than normal, you are going to see lefties make the show. In order to get an all lefty show like you had in Spartanburg, you're going to need it to be a round robin format, not the elimination-style match play that you see more of these days. So, a combination of favorable lane conditions and a format where everyone in the top 16 gets to bowl to the finish, and you have the possibility of a lefty fest on TV. All of this is controlled by the PBA- whether it turns out like this is up to the bowlers, but there are definitely weeks when the left side is allowed to make money, and other weeks where they aren't.

This may be a little off topic, but I was wondering what happened to Jason Couch? I haven't seen him on TV in a while, and I was just wondering if he is still going strong.

This may be a little off topic, but I was wondering what happened to Jason Couch? I haven't seen him on TV in a while, and I was just wondering if he is still going strong.

This may be a little off topic, but I was wondering what happened to Jason Couch? I haven't seen him on TV in a while, and I was just wondering if he is still going strong.

Sorry about the triple post. It said that it wasn't going through.

Jason Couch deffered his exemption this season cause of Knee Surgery.

Oh ok. Thanks for the info Brandon.