Heya gents and ladies,

So after having bowled at a recently re-opened local center the past few Sundays (Falls Church B.A. in VA) my 15lb Hammer Toxic has been annihilated by the house's shoddy ball return system. I've been thoroughly convinced there exists an army or gnomes with mini jackhammers and icepicks dwelling between the pins and I. Never have I had such HORRIFYING gauges on every game.

Anyways... I will be using my tore-up Toxic whenever I end up at Falls Church, and my unscathed Toxic n Grav. Shift when I bowl at houses I know have decent ball returns.

How do you handle local situations like this with your arsenal? Is there is a "cr*p ball" you throw when you know the jackhammer wielding gnomes are after you?

Don't bowl there and tell the management why. That's about all you can do. If people keep bowling, filling the center's pockets while not getting good service and maintenance then the center has no reason to change.

If you can narrow it down to a particular pair then refuse to bowl on that pair.

Erin

Have you shown the damage to the manager, and if so what was their response?

It's the entire house, every lane we've tried. Also we've had entire return motors die on us and trap the balls in the return for an hour.

Management is alright there saying we could leave the ball(s) to be fixed in several days, but I know my Toxic will never be the same after what they'd have to do to get down to the depth of some of the gauges.

Reason I was given for my horrid damage is "some balls don't like to get picked up by the return". The dilly......!? There's no way I'm bowling a new Gravity Shift there and throwing away 100+ bucks. I have never had this issue at any other local lanes.

To keep this "Pro Shop" related...do y'all carry a tore-up ball to bowl with when the returns aren't working well?

I say just dont bowl there. If there equipement is doing that your equipement i would take that chance of messing my equipement. I know my center will fix or replace damange equipement caused by there machines. Depending how bad it is and recommendation from the Pro Shop if its fixable or not.

I've experienced the same problems at Serra Bowl and have brought it up to management to no avail. Rather than fixing the lanes, they went out and bought a new Qubic program that gives you cards whenever you make a mark. It really is distracting and takes the fun away from bowling. Like everyone else has said, you can find another house to bowl in or just avoid the pair that gives you problems.

I've experienced the same problems at Serra Bowl and have brought it up to management to no avail. Rather than fixing the lanes, they went out and bought a new Qubic program that gives you cards whenever you make a mark. It really is distracting and takes the fun away from bowling. Like everyone else has said, you can find another house to bowl in or just avoid the pair that gives you problems.

If the gouge is in the Track area then the ball needs to be replaced if it is too deep. If the management doesn't want to replace the ball I wouldn't bowl there any more, I would also grab my team and pull them from the league and recommend the league find another house if they don't want their gear tore up as well.

I've never bowled in a house that is that bad. The house I bowl league in tonight (the last night of me doing leagues here ever unless things really change or I sub for someone) doesn't gouge up bowling balls that much even though its the using the best of equipment. There are the occasional ball return issues but rarely damaging balls. If I did come across a center that was that bad I would just not bowl there.

As for getting the balls repaired. If the gouges are deep enough they won't sand it down, well at least not until they repair it. Depending on the gouge they will either put some super glue and Qwik Patch Accelerator(or similar product that makes the glue hard quick) or for the really nasty onces actually some of the coverstock out and use the same plugging materials as they would to plug and re-drill a ball. Drilling into the cover gives it a better bond. I have only had one ball repaired and it was in the drill/plug manner because the 2 inch long by 3/8 inch gouge was close to the Track. The ball still works as good as it did before, well depending on how well the user uses it .

I had this happen to me one time and the ball was gouged deep in the Track area next to the finger holes, for a good 1 1/2" to 2" it was a fairly new ball too, the manager said he would have it fixed, I told him I bought a reactive ball not a polyester ball and the plug material to fix the gouge in the Track area would affect how the ball rolled so I wanted it replaced. He said that I wouldn't be able to tell after it was fixed, so I let them fix it.

I was bowling with it the next week and the ball kept hanging at the break point, so I went up to the guy asked him to watch me throw it and showed him the ball was not reacting the same way. He said something about them changing the shot, I pulled out a ball I had for heavy oil and it hooked up early like I would have expected, so I asked them to replace the ball and he said something about how I didn't know what I was talking about and started getting nasty so I took the ball and tossed it in the trash in front of him, grabbed my stuff and I have never walked through the door there since.