Ok, joined a sport league because I was sick of crying about dry conditions and I also wanted to test my skills. Join a league that is scratch and puts out Kegel Sport patterns for $16 a week. First week I am so happy I shot well. All amped up to Master the pattern the next week. Show up and shoot 2 good games, and feel confident with the choice of line and ball. This is such a treat because I can finally use my Virtual to its full potential. We bowl 2 games on one pair and 2 games on a random different pair. Here is where it goes down hill. This OLD guy is throwing an "epoxy" ball. Not to mention he throws with a reverse roll so it goes half way down the lane and then changes to the other direction. This guy is in his early 60s. He insists that there is no oil on the lanes while he continues to wipe is ball down after every shot. This guy is all over the place too. There is no avoiding his. I tried for like 3 shots then he crossed me anyway. I was looking at his ball and you can clearly see that there is a 40 to 80 grit sanding pattern on his ball and the pin is actually melted into the balls surface from being sanded too much. He said the ball looks like that because he soaked it in water. Why does 1 guy have to ruin it for 3+4+3= 10 people? If you suck why join THIS league. There is no difference from pattern to pattern if you throw a rock down the lane. Has anyone else run into this in either league or tournament? If so what did you do? I don't think it is fair for 10 people to loose the pattern because of 1 bowler. I am going to sand my ball down to 180 and play just left of where ever he plays next time I face him just to mess with him. This seems like a waste of $$$.

Before on of you say to learn to play a different line let me say I did. I played 40 to 20 - 22 only to have him keep throwing Jersey towards the end of the night. It was unplayable except for maybe a plastic ball but why have to throw plastic on an expensive shot because of one bowler???????

If your that guy please chime in and tell the forum why you are so selfish? Please tell us all why you don't care about our sport. Tell us why you are so old and still throw the shot of a 3 year old with a 6# ball. Please I would love to hear from you!

im sorry, i still throw like a 3 year old. i would just talk to him about it next time you see him, old people can be mean at times, just dont get too out of hand and get him a house ball if he needs it ;]

You look like Robert Smith compared to him. He thinks he is cheating the system by using that ball. Spoke with him and asked why he used that ball and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. The other guys on the league hate this guy. They say he sands it more each year. He thinks it makes the ball curve because it is dull. HE THROWS IT BACKWARDS!!!!

i feel your anger, if he makes me look like robert smith he must be that bad. you should tell him the only thing he is cheating is himself.

40 to 20? So you lofted the left gutter for the breakpoint to be left of the pocket? Also, who cares if there's a bad bowler on your league, he just adds more to the prizefund. And don't blame your bad bowling or lanes breaking down on one guy- it just looks like you're looking for a scapegoat.

Have them check his ball to see if it meets certs, if its that old and sanded to death, probably wont? if it is a sanctioned league.

From what I remember about the epoxy ball, it didn't soak up the oil as much as the virtual or other modern balls, so don't be surprised if it doesn't break down as much next week even if you aren't on the same lanes as him.

What makes these patterns so difficult is they don't put down as much oil in the middle of the lane as on a house shot. This way it forces you to move around and play the lane different.

Did you try playing up the gutter? If so what was the shot like out there, and was the ball making it to the end of the pattern or hooking early, or not hooking at all and picking out the 10?

This is for the OP:

TBH, I really can't see why you are upset about this person bowling on the league. Think of it as a challenge. He has just as much right to throw his money away as you do to win it. So win it.

I agree. Everyone else on the pair had to deal with the same thing so get over it. If you want to find excuses, you always will. Better bowlers will focus their energy on figuring out what to do in those situations. A few shots from him crossing over will not change your shot. In fact the less accurate he is, the less it will alter the shot. The pattern will break down faster from the ball being thrown in the exact same spot. You could have moved outside of him as well.

Sorry my friend, there's no one to blame for not scoring in a sport shot league other then yourself. That guy didn't affect your shot one bit, it's probably one of two things that are taking place. Your use to bowling on a house shot, which is nothing but a area shot, or your making the wrong ajustments. There are only two beefs you can have with a fellow bowler, If there putting [censored] like (eazy slide) on there shoe's, which is a no-no in the leagues I bowl in. Or disregarding the two approach rule. Other then that you shouldn't care about his equipment choice.

Not the point OLD GUYS. Trying to state the point that there are rules and there is sportsmanship. EVERYONE that draws either on this guys team or against, HATE HIM. This is the problem with the advancement of the sport, people don't care. I wanted THIS challenge not HIS challenge. If you can't see that point then you must have a 40 grit ball in your bag too. Brian Voss had this problem in the beginning of the season with another bowler burning his line up in practice. The guy was instructed by his ball rep to use a 180 grit ball and throw it as many times as he can like 2 boards left of BV. The guy never intended to play that area he just wanted to hook from 40 over to that spot. The shot was an inside shot where BV had no room right only left but the other guy took it away. Legal, YES, sportsman like, NO. Just trying to say that it is a so hard to find these conditions to work with. If you don't care about bettering you game to play the pattern, please have a little sportsmanship and allow those of us who want to learn and advance out game a chance. I don't want the be that guy that can only bowl on a house shot but if there is one guy that takes my chance away to learn on something else that just sucks. I can't believe the guys that say just think of it as a challenge. I bowl with idiots like him all the time on league and I use it to my advantage. When you pay for a spot shot or PBA experience that is supposed to be my challenge, not the old [censored] off that never learned the basics. Thanks for the idea about the eazy slide. I use a 10 slide sole. Wonder how he can bowl if he breaks his hip on my powder trail? I will make sure I use the exact approach he does and powder up every time! Now is that sportmanship? It is not against the rules just as a 40 grit ball. 2 can play! He should think of it as a challenge....right!

No, I don't have a 40 grit ball in my bag. And I don't make excuses for not scoring. I've bowled on some pretty messed up conditions, and the bottom line is, it's up to me to find a way to score.

The Voss incident was about his opponent, Chris Loschetter, burning in a shot for himself. This has been going on for years. Some guys throw plastic inside their line to give themselves a shim and some other guys throw a dull ball outside their line to give them recovery. And none of that has anything to do with what sounds to me like a bowler who isn't very good who happened to be throwing the ball all over the lane.

Like I said, if you're looking to find excuses, you're going to find them.

Actually, it is against the rules to introduce a foreign substance to the approach.

You don't want to better your game. If you did, you'd figure out a way to score no matter what. The PBA players don't whine that the lanes are too dry to throw plastic at the Japan Cup. They loft it 40 feet. Norm Duke doesn't complain when Sean Rash jumps on his line on TV in the World Championships, even though he never played there during the week. He makes good shots.

Suck it up. You say you want a learning experience, and you have one in front of you, but you curse it.

My foot is not the approach first off. That being said I would never do that because I care about the sport. Reading my last post you would have understood my point; I want the pattern as a challenge not the idiot. Why am I paying for the pattern when I could have just joined a regular house league? My gripe is that people of this mindset (me, me , me) make people not want to join leagues like this. Bigger picture!!! I would never join this league again knowing that this guy does this every year. The league is for advanced skilled players. Would you join a PBA experience where their were only kids using plastic balls and you were the only one using a reactive one. If you would then you just don't appreciate the skill it takes to bowl on a pattern so don't waste you money.
Would the PGA just play on the same course every tournament? NO, they change venues to test skills. The weather is the only unpredictable factor players have to contend with. When it rains too hard or it gets too dark they stop the game and resume when it is better for the players to perform. This guy is like the unpredictable factor in the equation. He is the reason that our sport gets no respect and is treated like a joke, so just keep defending him.

Does the guy know that he is bothering everyone in the league? Does he have friends in the league that he is bowling with? What is he averaging?

Ask yourself these two questions

1) What experience are you looking for?

2) Why do you want that experience?


Do you want to bowl on conditions that you'd never see in a tournament? Because you're definitely going to run into people burning up your line in tournaments, and it will be MUCH worse than some guy spraying a sanded ball all over the lane. You'll have multiple good bowlers repeating shots and burning up lines much faster. Imagine having 6 guys on a pair, 5 games of qualifying and you're bowling the second squad. You could even have 3 squads and no re-oiling.

What you seem to want is to practice on a condition that you have to yourself. That's not competitive bowling. Part of the game is dealing with transition caused by you and other bowlers. And again, one guy spraying a sanded ball all over the lane over the course of 2 games isn't all that bad. You're going to run into much bigger challenges than this.

You are all right and I am sorry. I can't bowl and I shouldn't join leagues or enter tournaments. I will be selling all my equipment on ebay. Look for some great deals. I am taking up a real sport, GOLF.

Well, no one said or implied that, but if you're going to react this way after a few games on a sport shot, maybe it's not for you.

Sometimes your ball will land in a divot. Or, someone didn't rake the sand trap, and you'll be in their deep footprint. Will you curse the person that didn't replace their divot, or learn how to hit a ball out of a divot?

Frankly, I agree with Lefty that one guy throwing inconsistently isn't going to noticeably change the pattern. Sport patterns are frustrating, and it can be very hard to figure out the right adjustments to make. If you tell yourself it's someone else's fault and get flustered, you're not giving yourself a chance to learn what you could have done to bowl better. If you don't allow yourself to learn from the situations you are presented with, you will be none the wiser the next time you run into the same situation (and you will, if you continue to bowl tough patterns).

I'm starting to see your not fond of others point of view. The point of being a member on a form, is to have healthy debates. My perspective on your situation was only based of the limited details you choose to give us. I have a team mate on my Monday night fall league who stands up on the approach for what seems to be minutes in a Statue of Liberty like pose, who not only makes every rival team want to kill him, but me and the rest of my team mates as well want a kick his A**. It's aggrevating but that's his style, so we as well as the rest of the teams have to deal with it!

Bad sportsmanship is blaming others for your bad bowling. Bad sportsmanship is not finding a line that works for you but may breakdown some one else's line.Lanes breaking down is part of the game. Otherwise, the lanes would be oiled after every game and we would have 1 to a pair. That's not the point of bowling. If you can't adjust to lanes breaking down then you will be only a guy who can throw on a house shot. Bowling good for the first 2 games in a tournament before the lanes break down will make you a good bowler 20% of the time. Congrats, that would make you a house shot bowler

This is my first post here, seems like you guys have a great forum going.

I have been bowling my entire life and actually earned enough from scholarships to go to college from it. That being said, I have not bowled very much competitively as an adult & am just getting back into the swing of things. In fact, this summer has been my first exposure to a sport shot, with the main local house holding a shootout on a different pattern each Sunday.

I've found that regardless of what you're doing or what others are doing, sport shorts break down very quickly and force adjustments. It does not matter that some guy has a sanded ball that he wipes after each shot - adjust accordingly. switch to a ball with more polish and / or less hook, find a new line, take your hand out of the shot, etc., etc.. There are a million different things you can do to adjust, as the others on this forum have suggested.

The one thing you don't want to do, however, is get a sour attitude and let it ruin your day. Once you do that, you lose focus & take away any great chance you had of competing.

Long story short, my best friend as a kid who was a great jr. bowler but had difficulties as an adult also displayed some of the anger characteristics you've mentioned yourself having (both in this thread and others). In fact, his anger problems were so bad that I removed him from my team - my best childhood friend of 15+ years. It taught him a lesson and he cooled it down, and guess what? This past Sunday on the Route 66 pattern, he bowled his first 300 after struggling through portions of the qualifying rounds. In years past, even months ago, his attitude would have ruined him and he'd have been done for.

Blaming others for your bowling will get you nowhere, and is a weakness that will prevent you from reaching the level you'd like to be at.

Looks like my newness to these forums caused me to make an error in my previous post. I replied to mikhial66, meant to reply to mattyg3535 (in case of confusion).

RGrawhammer, if you just use the quick reply at the bottom of the page it shows as a reply to the last post. Most of us that use that reply section will use the name of the person we are replying to if making a direct reply. I believe most of us knew you were responding to the original poster so don't worry too much about it.

Oh by the way, welcome to the site.

RGrawhammer, if you use the threaded view of the site you will find yourself becoming very sad very quickly. It took me all of 10 minutes to turn if back off, once I enabled it a long time ago.

Yes, yes, yes, I get it. I let the guy get to me instead of playing my own game. I just wanted some positive support but I guess it is only tough love here? Thanks for the kick in the [censored], I needed it. As a side note......the person who is in charge of the lane conditions/owner pulled me aside last night. She wanted to know about the shot and she asked about Mr.40 grit and I didn't bring it up. She had complaints from others about him. Apparently this guy cause "trouble" just because he can. She said he was caught using an illegal ball on this league and others before. I think that is why she asked about the shot, and how it played, because he was on my pair. She was kind of pissed to learn that he was using that ball. Anyway I am over it! I bowled 14 games today on dry lanes with 3 different balls so I will have no excuses next week. Shot 250's and 240's just playing straight with heavy forward roll. Sorry for getting out of line guys!!!! I HATE GOLF!

I'm glad you get it and no one is trying to be mean.

If you go into things with the expectation that there will be challenges like this (along with even more difficult ones), you're going to be much better equipped to handle them.

The other thing to note is that sport conditions, all on their own, can cause you to vary drastically in their score. One pair you may bowl well on while the other you struggle to shoot 140. That can even happen on the same pair. My high game on sport (287, front 10) was followed with a 140 game. It can go away that fast and that drastically.

There better be a parade in the streets if I shoot 260+ in my PBA Experience league, if I shoot 280 I want the key to the city!!