Handicap vs Scratch
Ok, I'm new to the game (hence my screen name)
I know handicap vs scratch is a big issue.
I think bowling is one of the few sports that has handicap. I'm guessing the main reason they do it is to get interest in local leagues and tournaments. Otherwise there would be less interest if you know you're going up against 240-260 average guys and you're at 170. And money is always the bottom line.
What if someone has been bowling 10 years and still has a handicap of 140 vs someone who has been at it for only 2 years and is already 220 average. Sometimes someone is just better than others, regardless of experience.
The 220 bowler is just a better bowler and will always be a better bowler than the 140 guy. Sure the 140 guy would probably win a handful of handicap tournaments but that's because he is being given 80 extra pins. So yes the 140 guy would technically "beat" the 220 guy in handicap tournaments but I'm sure the 220 bowled better than the 140 guy with more pinfall.
Some people just plateau and hit their max. No amount of teaching, sessions, practice will ever get them to improve. Like Iceman would say, they just don't have the GIFT.
And of course there is the whole sandbagging issue with handicap tournaments.
I'm not a fan of handicap leagues or tournaments because of some of the issues you've mentioned.
A guy with a 170 average and a 30 pin handicap bowls 220, and you have to score 250 to beat him.
That said, where my game is at currently, I'm not ready to take on scratch leagues and tournaments. Hopefully I'll get there. If I don't, oh well......at the end of the day, if I beat someone in the scratch score, I don't really care whether the handicap final score ends up.
Back in the day, it was fairly normal to see a 170 bowler in a scratch league.Originally Posted by jab5325
To make the teams competitive, there was an entering average cap.
4 man teams might be 760, so if you have a couple of 200 bowlers, they are going to need someone like 170, and 190 to fit under the cap.
With todays averages inflated, 170 might not quite be there yet, but if you're teachable, you can still be an asset to the team.
I really like the idea of scratch leagues with ceilings. It's not a direct handicap but levels the playing field.
Personally I have no problem with handicap leagues - I think, particularly for a more casual (or new) bowler, they are way more likely to get into/stay in the sport if at the end of the day there's a chance they can beat a 200 average person. The % difference in average more than offsets the likeliness of them winning on a regular basis anyway.
The sandbaggers are the ones you have to watch out for. Not too much of an issue in my leagues but in the big money Wednesday league that a lot of my tuesday league guys are in - apparently it really can be.
If you're "newtobowling" and joined in February 2015, after Iceman had long since left the site, how do you know about Iceman's "gift philosophy"??Ok, I'm new to the game (hence my screen name
Like Iceman would say, they just don't have the GIFT.
Huh? Iceman??
And I agree. If I could start a league it would be a sport shot league with 3-person teams and a reasonable cap of 525 total entering average. I'd allow returning teams to carry up to a 555 average over to a 2nd season and increase their limit by 10 pins each season the ENTIRE TEAM returns...in order to keep people coming back rather than quitting because their average went up too much and they still want to bowl together.
But a cap is fair. And new bowlers would certainly still be in demand when you got two high average bowlers looking to squeeze a low average bowler (especially a teachable one!!) onto their trio.
I dislike handicap leagues mainly because of the sandbagging. In my Tuesday league...the same male and female have won thousands of dollars at sweeps in Vegas both of the last 2 seasons. He is a high average, former competitive bowler, and the female is the niece of a former PBA (regional I think) bowler. The male bowler only "tries" when he has a 300 game on the line and still averages over 200 (1 of only 2 bowlers out of 172 in the league). The female bowler flat out said that she "doesn't really try until Vegas".
My goal is to get good enough to smoke both of them at Sweeps since they obviously are not competing in a way that is in the spirit of handicap play...but the fall back option might be some change to the rules that factors in your Vegas series into your handicap. For example, in the Virtual Bowling Tour that was held last year...everyone had their average count as 1 game. So if they claimed they had a 157 average and then averaged 201, 210 the next two weeks...the good perfomances early on didn't "kill" them. And if they had a 200 entering average and then bowled two 157 average series (or tried to sandbag in the early rounds)...their average would always count that 200. I think leagues that sweep and pay out significant money at the end of the season should have that Vegas performance calculated into the following season's average. I mean, the guy that "averaged 205" throughout the season and then shot a 721 series (average of 240) should have his average the following season be something like (205+205+240)/3 = 223. And the female bowler that averaged in the 170s all season and then shot a 621 series in Vegas should have to enter the following season with a (179+179+207)/3 = 188. Granted, they certainly could still sandbag the whole season to lower it...but including it in that initial calculation hurts their ability to do that and ALSO doesn't allow someone to totally TANK in Vegas (which happens alot) and then have an unrealistic starting average of 160 when they are a 190 bowler.
Last edited by Aslan; 04-02-2015 at 04:34 PM.
In Bag: (: .) Zen Master Solid; (: .) Perfect Mindset; (: .) Brunswick Endeavor; (: .) Outer Limits Pearl; (: .) Ebonite Maxim
USBC#: 8259-59071; USBC Sanctioned Average = 192; Lifetime Average = 172;
Ball Speed: 14.7mph; Rev. Rate: 240rpm || High Game (sanc.) = 300 (268); High Series (sanc.) = 725 (720); Clean Games: 198
Smokey this is not 'Nam', this is bowling. There are rules. Proud two-time winner of a bowlingboards.com weekly ball give-away!
These boards are kind of slow so I've been doing a lot of reading from past pages. Sounds like he was pretty active until he just decided to drop off the face of these boards.If you're "newtobowling" and joined in February 2015, after Iceman had long since left the site, how do you know about Iceman's "gift philosophy"??
Huh? Iceman??
I would love to see scratch leagues at different levels with realistic average caps. I bowl in an "almost scratch" league on Tuesday nights. It works like this:
1. Team max average is 865 for four players.
2. Lineups are automatically set with the low average leading off, and the high average bowling anchor.
3. Each game is scratch between players: #1 vs #1, #2 vs. #2, etc. with one point per game and one point for totals.
4. Team game is handicap, also with one point per game and one point for totals.
This league is a lot of fun, and I really don't see why it wouldn't also work for lower average leagues with a lower cap.
I love the format of that league.
This league sounds awesome. Love every aspect of it.
I love it too, however realistically I see two problems with setting up leagues like this with too many different cap levels:
1. It would limit the social aspect of bowling together to bowlers with similar averages.
2. It would limit the size of leagues, and since many leagues are put totally into the hands of the league secretary who gets paid for his/her services based on the number of bowlers in the league, it probably wouldn't go over too well with them.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks