2008 OPS Bowling Supplies WA Sports Series - Event # 2

[baron]

Paul I hear what your saying and you are spot on when it comes to bowler numbers but Im not so sure that laying down a nice easy house condition is the answer here. If this theory is correct then what the hell happenned to the Perth Cup in its final years? Sports patterns were unheard of then and we struggled to get 50 bowlers for WAs premier event. Like you say its purely weight of numbers. So many of our best players dont bowl anymore for various reasons but Im pretty sure lane conditions have nothing to do with it. As for the fringe bowler Matt is trying to compensate them with handicaps and extra pins for the girls but the sports condition has to stay otherwise what little scratch players we have that still travel will get further behind than we already are. Like Brenton said its here to stay so get used to it. Heres a tip go and bloody practice!! Im sure a centre could set up a couple of lanes for a bowler if they asked nice. Lane and machine technology now makes it easy to do. When I used to work at Morley there was a kid who used to come in every day (every f####g day) after school and ask to have a couple of lanes set up for practice which I did (begrudgingly sometimes) and he went on to represent his country. His name?....Steve Hart so it can be done. It would be interesting to see just how many bowlers show up if we ran a tourny with a "comfort zone" condition but I wouldnt get my hopes up. Baron

 

[ratty133]

Hi Paul and Baron

Thankyou for the input. I am well aware that WA has very little scratch bowler support, but the support we do have, show up to these events time and time again. However, i do believe that the lack of entries for this event have come about due to my poor planning of the event.

When i planned the calendar for the year, i did not realise that the seniors rolloffs were on the same weekend, hence losing yourself paul and im sure a few others such as sheedy due to these rolloffs. Nor did i realise that our president shield team would not be arriving back from QLD until that afternoon. And i know that bowlers such as chris, tom, aaron, matt and other juniors who have bowled the series before, would bowl if they were here. Not to mention 2 of the games greats in carol and mike being overseas at the current time, there are easily another 5-10 entries taken by prior commitments.

Yes, we do need tournaments for the "fringe" bowlers, but laying a open house shot where anyone can throw telephone numbers IS NOT the answer. Like Baron said, the sports series caters for ALL levels of bowler. Yes, the conditions may be hard, even brutal to bowl on, but these patterns ARE HERE TO STAY! The handicap bonus for the fringe bowlers and the females is to encourage more bowlers into tournament bowling in WA. Our "elite" bowlers, who do travel interstate (you yourself being one paul) know that we wont face many, if any of these sports patterns when we go away, but i know id much rather prefer bowling on these types of patterns to improve my game, rather than be casual and take my open house shot with me.

I am in no way making any personal attack, i want to make that clear.

I have learnt my lesson from planning this tournament at an awkward time and will be shifting the next one to be bowled at Rockingham to a different day (with it currently being on the long weekend).

Thankyou both again for your comments and i hope this feedback can be used to further the WA Sports Series into the circuit it has the potential to become.

Matt

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

Cheers guys, this is what I mean good constructive discussion to see what comes of it.
No matter what anyone says, these conditions are NOT here to stay, like everything else they will change, the PBA will not stay with this for eternity, FIQ does not use them, our State and National ranked tournaments do not use them nor does any Nationals I know off, maybe because the International standard is not American..anyway enough of that.

I did not say lay down easy conditions I said lay down conditions where people will get value for shot and will suit many types of bowlers...even lazy ones like some of us who don't want to challenge ourselves.

I don't think we have the mix right just yet, you could be right in saying the timing of the event, it could be because of the type of conditions, but it also could be a lot of smaller things, let us put up a comittment thread, only those of us who will commit to bowling tournaments for say the next 6 months, call it the sports series if you wish, however the only comments can only come from those willing to put their money where their mouth is and committ and comment on what they want from the tournament, then let us set it up that way.

I will bowl in anything as long as it doesn't clash with interstate or roll offs.

Even if we only have 1 tournament every 3 months the freshness should still be there, and people could save for it or get prepared for it.

Baron is absolutely correct when he says we all need to practice and we have to have something otherwise our scratch bowlers will get further behind, if OPS pull the sports series then we again have nothing, any tournament practice is better than none.

I'm on your side Matt and Greg we do need something or we will always be at the bottom of the pecking order, I haven't an answer, but I never said set lanes to be easy, just value for shot.

I'll refer to last years Darryl Holt in Perth, they were set up to roll high scores and everyone who particpated loved it, when we set up ATBSO in Perth last year, it was more challenging but you still had to roll a decent ball, but the lanes weren't easy.

The sports series seems a good idea, but we need bowler input and more importantly support by numbers on the lane, so how do we get it???

Over to the rest of you ... we've commented

BTY Matt, ATBSO Roll offs are 31st May, 1st June 2nd June, Morley, Craigie, Rockingham.