That is indeed a great feeling when you make changes and see quality results. That's why I like this sport.

Most people feel the same way.

As for a playable shot, when you have to resort to suitcase balls I think there may be a little problem. While the outside board issue doesn't affect some people at all and some people more than others.

I only have the Viper one more time, the rest is the longer stuff that takes the outside boards out of play anyways.

As for sanctioning, I am yet to see my sanction card, or see anyone run a tape of the lanes. So I guess my extra $15 for Sport Sanction doesn't really matter. Sure it may be a sport shot of sorts but again not what I signed up for.

For the record..I lead the league with high series, and have 2nd high game, so its not every week obviously. Its also not a problem competing with the bowlers in the league. It was when it went to the Cheetah and Viper patterns that I have taken issue with the way the lanes have been dressed. You simply cannot have a short oil pattern and then have everything 1-5 be out of bounds, and have 6-7 hang half the time.

My issue is with this center and proprietor not the PBAX or Sport league concept. Like I said before I will just go bowl regionals, so I know I am at least getting an honest attempt at the proper pattern.

Look yourself up on bowl.com. It should have your sanctioning history. If you do not see your most updated information then go to the secretary of the league and ask them where your money is. If they say they turned it into the local association, then call the association and ask them if it was processed or not. All those cards you fill out each season......we have those for like 7 years, both summer and winter. So it can be looked up and see what happened to your membership.

Erin

Erin,

My only history on Bowl.com is a tournament sanction from 2002, we are 7 weeks into the season with this league and I have received nothing from USBC outside of my coaches association stuff. I paid something like $27 for it also, and was told it would be good for the Winter season as well, which did not make sense to me at all either.

As for the rest of the subject I went and took my frustrations out on my local house to the tune of 216-279-258 for a 753. Its good to be the house hack.

DD,
I am about 7 weeks into my PBAX league too, and just recieved my sanction card for the PBA league today, along with a DVD on how to play the patterns. So maybe its on its way to you.

DD, like Erin said, its time to start working up the ladder, ask the league secretary whats going on, then the local association. If things were done right you should at least be in the database with USBC. The sanction cards/money are suppose to be turned in within 30 days I believe. By 7 weeks it should have been processed at the national level. Just out of curiosity, have you done a regular sanction as well as the Sport or just the Sport? I might be wrong but I think you have to have a normal sanction as well. Most bowlers that are in these leagues already have that sanction from their fall/winter leagues. This could be the issue and just hasn't made it back down the chain.

I know all about waiting to get sanction cards. This past season one of my leagues started two weekends before Labor Day weekend. Most people paid the sanction by the weekend after Labor Day yet it wasn't submitted until the last week of October, two months after the league started. My sanction card from another league that started the day after Labor Day was already turned in, but I had paid through the first league. I was in the same weekend league several years ago, with a different sec/treas and it was regularly not turned in until late December, which was almost 4 months after the start of the league. Other leagues in the same house on the same night were turned in a lot earlier though. It was also common for part of the league not to end up sanctioned even though they paid their dues.

Of course it appears that this league didn't turn in the final averages for this season. It disbanded but even with my steady decline in average it would have been my highest yearbook average of the season.

In short either the league secretary or possibly the house, or the local dropped the ball.

The house runs the league, so we don't have a secretary.

There is suppose to still be a secretary for any USBC sanctioned league, but in this case I guess you have to question the house then the local association the center is in.

This is because nobody wants to come off looking like a whiner, so instead of complaining, they say to hell with it and go somewhere else to bowl, it is the cycle of life:

Proprietor tries to save a buck or two by hiring someone who doesn't know anything about oiling lanes, or refuses to fix the machine, or waters down the oil, the bowlers complain and get treated like a bunch of whiners and nothing gets done about it, a rival center puts down a cake easy shot and scores go through the roof, everyone hears about it and goes there to bowl.

It is not that people want to complain or want a cake shot necessarily, but that they want some acknowledgment that it was the machine and not them. You might say it doesn't matter you just need to deal with it, but it is hard to know if you aren't past a certain level if it is actually you screwing up or if the lanes were off for some reason, and when you get the standard response of "Well maybe you just had an off day" when they put stripping fluid in the oil tank or something stupid like that, it gets you to think that you need to retool your whole game and start from scratch when all the [censored] had to say was "I am sorry for the shot tonight, apparently there was something wrong with the machine", that is all I need, I don't need a [censored] pizza, just save me another year of practicing to get back to where I was.

When you get to a level where you are sure about your game, then it doesn't matter if it is the machine or not, you know it and deal with it accordingly, but for those that are still learning it really makes you wonder what you are doing, or if it is you or the lanes. If you could just know that you were doing it right and it was the lanes then it would be easier to make an adjustment and learn from it, but when you aren't sure then you don't know what you are looking at since you can't see yourself bowl, it can be very frustrating.