How much would bowling a 300 game mean to you?
- Thread starter GoTheCell
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socko
Member
I can't imagine at this point in time what it would feel like to bowl a 300, when I have only just bowled my first 150! HOWEVER, when & if the time does come that I can bowl a 300 for the first time or even consistantly, I imagine I would be proud of each & every one of them & think back to today. Right now, at how much work I am putting into learning my whole gameplay, how hard it is originally to remember each & every time to do exactly the same thing each time I step up to the line & how I must make adjustments when I fail to follow up on a strike.
Does anyone here not recall how much work & effort they have put into their game over the past years to get to where they are now in respect to bowling a perfect game?
I don't believe any bowler can just walk up to a lane & throw their ball down 10 frames & score a perfect 300 game without some thought & effort into the routine they have done so many times before. Subconsciensly or not, you are still putting work into it. Work that over the years has paid off & therefore you totally deserve to enjoy that 300 each & every time.
Again, just my own opinion & thoughts
)
Does anyone here not recall how much work & effort they have put into their game over the past years to get to where they are now in respect to bowling a perfect game?
I don't believe any bowler can just walk up to a lane & throw their ball down 10 frames & score a perfect 300 game without some thought & effort into the routine they have done so many times before. Subconsciensly or not, you are still putting work into it. Work that over the years has paid off & therefore you totally deserve to enjoy that 300 each & every time.
Again, just my own opinion & thoughts
)
jason_doust
The Bowling Geek
Maybe Bendigo isn't as easy as some houses. Maybe it hasn't been posted. Lots of big scores don't get posted on here, y'know.
Troyza mentions it's 1000% easier to throw 300 than 30 years ago. Both here and in the US, there are nine times as many 300 games thrown today with 1/3 of the registered league bowlers. That makes it about 2700% easier.
Nobody is denigrating anybody's first 300. This poll however gives them no other choice, unless they are ill-informed or don't want to upset anyone. It is a skewed question designed to get an emotionally charged response and is therefore statistically invalid. It means nothing because it asks the wrong things with insufficient response categories.
If you bowl 300, CONGRATULATIONS! Enjoy it, regardless of whether it was in an easy house. Go out with your mates and have a hoot of a time! I did in 1988!
There is a direct correlation between the numbers of 300's being thrown and the decline of numbers of people playing the sport. While I don't think one has led to the other, I do not think that higher scores have made people stay in bowling. There have always been easy houses and there have always been hard houses. It used to be about lane surface / topography, because there were no blocked lane conditions. The trouble is today we have easy houses and ridiculously easy houses because they nearly all have easy conditions (some way too easy) and the difference still comes down to lane surface / topography! The stupidly easy houses damage the integrity of the game and ultimately centre lineage. After all, why would I practice if I average 220 bowling three games a week?
As for the "let's pick on Wayne" schoolyard bullies, do we want someone who stands up for the integrity of the game as a sport to stand as chair of the sporting body? Or someone who reckons you should average 220 on 3 games a week with no idea and 6 beers in you? Someone who loves bowling enough to stick his neck out to help people who need it even if they don't want to hear it. Or someone who just shuts up and does what's easy? Someone who tells people what they want to hear or someone who speaks truth from his heart?
I've never met Wayne Chester outside of this forum, but what I read and what I know makes me want to stand up for him. Sometimes he says stuff that people don't want to hear. Mostly they need to hear it. The ill-informed drivel I see directed at him makes me very sad indeed for the future of our game as a sport.
Stop this inflammatory rot and stick with the facts if you want to make a cogent argument. Anything else is just empty hyperbole.
Jason Doust
Whatever Jason.
I personally agree with the fact that 300 games are easier to bowl now.
What you fail to grasp is:
1. the concept that it is one of the highest achievements in our sport
2. regardless of how hard/easy it is, it is the aim of every bowler in the sport
3. people who want to promote our sport should be encouraging those who throw a 300, regardless of their own personal opinion, not degrading it because they think it is easy.
4. other than improving their game, many bowlers have nothing else they strive for.
You can sit on your high horse and bring up all the stats you want. What you can't do apparently is recognise the reason this thread was created.
A 300 is the ultimate achievement for many bowlers and we don't need people making a mockery of what is a once in a lifetime thing for most.
The reason I mention people directly is simple - they are the ones who have mentioned themselves.
I personally agree with the fact that 300 games are easier to bowl now.
What you fail to grasp is:
1. the concept that it is one of the highest achievements in our sport
2. regardless of how hard/easy it is, it is the aim of every bowler in the sport
3. people who want to promote our sport should be encouraging those who throw a 300, regardless of their own personal opinion, not degrading it because they think it is easy.
4. other than improving their game, many bowlers have nothing else they strive for.
You can sit on your high horse and bring up all the stats you want. What you can't do apparently is recognise the reason this thread was created.
A 300 is the ultimate achievement for many bowlers and we don't need people making a mockery of what is a once in a lifetime thing for most.
The reason I mention people directly is simple - they are the ones who have mentioned themselves.
Dozza
Member
I have and never will bowl a 300 game. My bowling came to an early end with a bad shoulder injury and when I converted to left handed bowling I could only ever manage about a 120 average but I did earn that with hard work.
I will never take the prestige away from anyone bowling a 300 game. Back in the 1970’s given the equipment and conditions they didn’t happen so often but with today’s technology and information they happen a little more frequently. My thoughts are that I would expect them achieved more often now than before. But ask the bowler before he gets up for his 12th strike how he feels and he’ll tell you the adrenalin is pumping, even if its their 10th 300 game. They’re always amazing to watch!
Don't worry about those knockers out there. let's keep enjoying the game!!
Dozza
I will never take the prestige away from anyone bowling a 300 game. Back in the 1970’s given the equipment and conditions they didn’t happen so often but with today’s technology and information they happen a little more frequently. My thoughts are that I would expect them achieved more often now than before. But ask the bowler before he gets up for his 12th strike how he feels and he’ll tell you the adrenalin is pumping, even if its their 10th 300 game. They’re always amazing to watch!
Don't worry about those knockers out there. let's keep enjoying the game!!
Dozza
jason_doust
The Bowling Geek
I don't fail to grasp any of these points. (That's a pretty bold assumption, by the way...)
The first 3 are elementary and make perfect sense. The fourth point presents the dangers of not planning through your goals. So what do people do after 300 if 300 is their aim? Often, once they've bowled one. They quit a few months later. I've seen it before. Goals once reached offer no further challenge or conduit for the pursuit of excellence. People look for other goals. They move on. Usually to another sport.
I say this to aspiring players - Plan beyond your first 300. Even for the best players in the world, 300 is a freak experience. It requires luck. It's great, but it is not mastery. Work out what the next thing is. This sport can be enjoyed for the rest of your life. Improving your technique through quality instruction and learning is a much more independent and fulfilling goal and will undoubtedly help with that 300 and well beyond it.
I'll say this again, as it's imoportant and you have apparently misundertood and consequently misconstrued my words. Nobody is "mocking" a 300 game in any of these fora. The question in your poll is however extremely leading and suggests that anyone who disagrees with the obvious direction the choices give is mocking people's efforts. And that is just not true. 300 is great. It should be celebrated regardless of how fantastic or even bad it was. I knew a guy whose first 300 (circa 1987) was six in the pocket, six Brooklyn. Of course he went out afterwards!
300's are almost never bowled on tough conditions. It's just too hard. Even in the greatest 300, if you watch closely enough, you will see variations of some kind. That's what it means to be "on a roll." But some houses are beyond the pale - 300 factories spitting out a couple a week. Even in the easiest house on Earth, I would still never be so rude as to denigrate, let alone "mock" someone's big night. I don't know any good player who would do so either. Open grade players are people too y'know and we all used to average 120 somewhere a long time ago. We all remember putting in lots of hard yards. My first league average was 114 at Parramatta. The highest average in the house was 192 and better players around town thought it was a pretty easy centre. We didn't have today's bowling balls that strike so much more. And there's another point. I am sure that the huge difference between the top and bottom averages in a centre is causing many beginners to see it as insurmountable and leave. That's gotta be hurting bowling.
You can accuse me of being on a "high horse" and say "whatever" all you like. It's intellectually easy to drag it down to the tired old game of "You're bad, I'm good". Easy, but not right. I am not on a high horse. I've just been around a long time and seen a lot of things in this game.
High scores are just high scores. Excellence is a whole other thing. I've seen excellence average 202 and win.
Dozza
Member
Now there's a poll for you. What is a pie house? Who has it right? Sick to death of hearing that label.
Who has the benchmark? That poll would keep some very chatty. Oh and who is the expert?
I would think its the Mystery of Life ... yes ... hmmm. But most would tell you how they think it is.
Dozza
Who has the benchmark? That poll would keep some very chatty. Oh and who is the expert?
I would think its the Mystery of Life ... yes ... hmmm. But most would tell you how they think it is.
Dozza
This is a little off topic but when did AMF stop paying out the big money for a 300 game? From memory it was about $3000 if playing in a 5 man team and the prizemoney went down. I also remember plaques being given out for 700 series. (not sure if this was a centre initiative or not) I don't think i need to ask why these awards were stopped.
Back on topic, just my point of veiw and to avoid repeating i'll just say that i agree with Jason's comments.
Back on topic, just my point of veiw and to avoid repeating i'll just say that i agree with Jason's comments.
I made an assumption.......... isnt that what you have been doing to everyone else regarding their posts?
"So what do people do after 300 if 300 is their aim? Often, once they've bowled one. They quit a few months later. I've seen it before." I would like to know how often. This might have happened once or twice but I think you might be lying a little there.
As for the poll, it doesn't matter what question someone uses or what statistic you use there is always 2 ways to look at it. This poll has resulted in exactly the answer I thought it would. Noone is going to care what anyone else thinks if they shoot a 300 so why go on about it being easy and why try to discredit the question?
You say you have been around and seen a lot - again, who cares. If you have to resort to degrading the achievement of bowling a 300 game, or support people who do, then wtf are you doing in the sport? It is the pinnacle of our sport - the thing everyone aims for and yet people like you and a few others think it means nothing because of the equipment and the lanes.
Back tot he point of this thread which you seem to continue to try and move away from and you even admitted it was nothing short of common sene.
3. people who want to promote our sport should be encouraging those who throw a 300, regardless of their own personal opinion, not degrading it because they think it is easy.
I found out tonight you are supposedly a decent bowler and from all accounts, so is Wayne Chester (and a few others who have posted). Why make the majority of the bowlers see their 300 game as nothing more than luck and equipment assisted? Do something for the sport and stop degrading the achievements of others. You might not be doing it on the lanes but you are certainly doing it in here.
"So what do people do after 300 if 300 is their aim? Often, once they've bowled one. They quit a few months later. I've seen it before." I would like to know how often. This might have happened once or twice but I think you might be lying a little there.
As for the poll, it doesn't matter what question someone uses or what statistic you use there is always 2 ways to look at it. This poll has resulted in exactly the answer I thought it would. Noone is going to care what anyone else thinks if they shoot a 300 so why go on about it being easy and why try to discredit the question?
You say you have been around and seen a lot - again, who cares. If you have to resort to degrading the achievement of bowling a 300 game, or support people who do, then wtf are you doing in the sport? It is the pinnacle of our sport - the thing everyone aims for and yet people like you and a few others think it means nothing because of the equipment and the lanes.
Back tot he point of this thread which you seem to continue to try and move away from and you even admitted it was nothing short of common sene.
3. people who want to promote our sport should be encouraging those who throw a 300, regardless of their own personal opinion, not degrading it because they think it is easy.
I found out tonight you are supposedly a decent bowler and from all accounts, so is Wayne Chester (and a few others who have posted). Why make the majority of the bowlers see their 300 game as nothing more than luck and equipment assisted? Do something for the sport and stop degrading the achievements of others. You might not be doing it on the lanes but you are certainly doing it in here.
wchester
Bowling Tragic
I do not put down anyone who bowls a 300 game. They should celebrate the accomplishment because there is no higher score possible in bowling.
My concern is with the proprietors / managers who cheapen the "sport" of tenpin bowling by giving their bowlers both free hook and hold, thus funneling the ball into the pocket.
Lets not measure the talent of a bowler by the number of 300 games they've bowled. Because if that was the case, then the following bowler would be considered nothing more than a journeyman.
DONALD JAMES (BOSCO) CARTER
Carter became the 1st star to win a "grand slam" of bowling's match game titles when he won the All-Star, World's Invitational, PBA National championship, and the 1961 ABC Masters. In 1970 he was voted the "greatest bowler in history" in a poll of veteran writers by Bowling magazine. Carter bowled with some of bowling's most famous teams, starting with the Hermann Undertakers of St. Louis and Ziern Antiques before joining Pfeiffers of Detroit. He bowled 266, 253, 235 in Budweiser's record 3858 series in 1958. In ABC tournament competition, he has a 22-year average of 201 and was a member of 3 championship teams. He has a 337-game average of 208 in Masters play. His 20 championships include 6 Professional Bowlers Association titles. He has 5 800 series; the highest is 824. He has 13 sanctioned 300 games and 5 sanctioned 299 games. Carter was the 1st president of the Professional Bowlers Association.
If you haven't any idea who Don Carter is, then you probably should look him up on Google and have a good long read of the man's accomplishments. He has 13 sanctioned 300 games... That's less than any number of bowlers who currently bowl in Australia.
Let us compare Don Carter with another bowler with the same surname (no relation)
Jeff Carter
Jeff Carter, a PBA Exempt player from Springfield, Missouri holds the United States Bowling Congress USBC record for highest sanctioned league average (261.74) and has bowled (112) career 300 games. He's proud of his average record, and yet he admits that he is also embarassed by it and wishes it had never happened. Is Jeff Carter a better bowler than Don Carter was?..Not a chance! Don Carter was a legend.. Jeff Carter is a journeyman.
When someone posts about a 300 game on this site, they often say that the bowler 'never looked like missing' This is 100% the truth..and 'looked like' are the key words here. Today's ditches often funnel bad shots into to the pocket. What they don't do is penalize the bowler for making small and in some cases, big mistakes.
To put it another way..Lots of people could compete Tiger Woods on a Putt-Putt course, but put them together on a full length gold course and Tiger win by double figures. Let's not turn our sport into an arcade game. Keep conditions and scoring honest. In the long run your bowlers will thank you for it! They'll thank you by starting to practice again. Working on improving their physical games so that they can earn those high scores.
My concern is with the proprietors / managers who cheapen the "sport" of tenpin bowling by giving their bowlers both free hook and hold, thus funneling the ball into the pocket.
Lets not measure the talent of a bowler by the number of 300 games they've bowled. Because if that was the case, then the following bowler would be considered nothing more than a journeyman.
DONALD JAMES (BOSCO) CARTER
Carter became the 1st star to win a "grand slam" of bowling's match game titles when he won the All-Star, World's Invitational, PBA National championship, and the 1961 ABC Masters. In 1970 he was voted the "greatest bowler in history" in a poll of veteran writers by Bowling magazine. Carter bowled with some of bowling's most famous teams, starting with the Hermann Undertakers of St. Louis and Ziern Antiques before joining Pfeiffers of Detroit. He bowled 266, 253, 235 in Budweiser's record 3858 series in 1958. In ABC tournament competition, he has a 22-year average of 201 and was a member of 3 championship teams. He has a 337-game average of 208 in Masters play. His 20 championships include 6 Professional Bowlers Association titles. He has 5 800 series; the highest is 824. He has 13 sanctioned 300 games and 5 sanctioned 299 games. Carter was the 1st president of the Professional Bowlers Association.
If you haven't any idea who Don Carter is, then you probably should look him up on Google and have a good long read of the man's accomplishments. He has 13 sanctioned 300 games... That's less than any number of bowlers who currently bowl in Australia.
Let us compare Don Carter with another bowler with the same surname (no relation)
Jeff Carter
Jeff Carter, a PBA Exempt player from Springfield, Missouri holds the United States Bowling Congress USBC record for highest sanctioned league average (261.74) and has bowled (112) career 300 games. He's proud of his average record, and yet he admits that he is also embarassed by it and wishes it had never happened. Is Jeff Carter a better bowler than Don Carter was?..Not a chance! Don Carter was a legend.. Jeff Carter is a journeyman.
When someone posts about a 300 game on this site, they often say that the bowler 'never looked like missing' This is 100% the truth..and 'looked like' are the key words here. Today's ditches often funnel bad shots into to the pocket. What they don't do is penalize the bowler for making small and in some cases, big mistakes.
To put it another way..Lots of people could compete Tiger Woods on a Putt-Putt course, but put them together on a full length gold course and Tiger win by double figures. Let's not turn our sport into an arcade game. Keep conditions and scoring honest. In the long run your bowlers will thank you for it! They'll thank you by starting to practice again. Working on improving their physical games so that they can earn those high scores.
The Bert
Electrolovers.net
I Have to agree with Wayne!
Not taking anything away from everybody who has bowled a 300 game! i personally haven't and would love to get the elusive 12 straight strikes!
300 games used to be rare and would be big news! but with todays conditions on your normal house shot is making it easier if you can say that!
You still have to do it, but with the amount of oil in the middle and the lack of on outsides making the free hook there!
Don Carter back in the day had it tough compared to what we have today! imagine if he had to bowl on what he did.... it would really turn heads!
Maybe we should try a tournament with todays gear on the old school conditions!
Well done to all those who have bowled 300 and hopefully one day i can...
Quote me on this, but i personally think Wayne was spot on!
Not taking anything away from everybody who has bowled a 300 game! i personally haven't and would love to get the elusive 12 straight strikes!
300 games used to be rare and would be big news! but with todays conditions on your normal house shot is making it easier if you can say that!
You still have to do it, but with the amount of oil in the middle and the lack of on outsides making the free hook there!
Don Carter back in the day had it tough compared to what we have today! imagine if he had to bowl on what he did.... it would really turn heads!
Maybe we should try a tournament with todays gear on the old school conditions!
Well done to all those who have bowled 300 and hopefully one day i can...
Quote me on this, but i personally think Wayne was spot on!
Tiger
Active Member
Not 100% sure, so someone else may be able to confirm but I thought AMF dropped the big cash payouts ($3,000) sometime during the nineties.
It was in a sliding scale according to the number of players your league team had (IE: 5-man teams, 4-man teams, Trios, Doubles & Singles).
You also got something for a 299 and 298 if I recall rightly.
The last person I recall bowling a 300 in a 5-man team down this way (when we still had 5-man teams) was Paul Lucock in 1999, in fact, I think he was the only one to ever accomplish that feat here, not sure if he got $3,000 for it or whether the practice had been abandoned by that stage and he got something smaller.
I'll ask him next time I see him.
I know in 2002 that I got $1,000 for shooting 300 in a 4-man team and two years after that, Andrew Phillips shot the next one in Rachuig trials, followed by Simon Gourlay about two months after that, shooting the last 300 on the old wooden lanes.
The talk at the time was that he was the last to receive a payout for a 300, but whether that was urban legend or not, I'm not sure.
I recall that if you'd already shot a 300 you wouldn't get the same payout again, I think the next one was $500?
After dropping 299 about three weeks after Gourlay's 300 I was made aware afterwards that 299's no longer received any payout, so double disappointment there.
There's been about ten 300's shot since the HPL's were laid down and I'm not sure if they got any money for them or not, some of them post on this forum so they might be able to tell you.
Remember the days of Gwyn Bunting and Barry Wilson pocketing $10,000 in the late 80's for shooting 300's at Fairlanes in Perth?
Brenton Davy's $200,000 for his in Sydney in the late '90s.
Those were the days! You couldn't do it now though, too risky
Yes, back in the day the Association's used to present you with one, obviously they were comparatively rare in those days.mickyd213 said:
Now days if you want one, you have to purchase it yourself, which is fair enough given that 700 is not rare anymore.
I can remember the very first one shot here, in 1987 by Simon Gourlay in Sponsors League, shot 208-264-277 for 749 down on 5-6 with I think a blue Roto Grip UC 2!
The whole place went nuts when he shot that, I can remember every ball the whole centre would stop and look over and very big crowd had gathered up the back.
He had the front-8 in the last game and the place was at fever pitch, left the 1-2-10 in the 9th, spared then took it off the sheet in the 10th to a massive round of applause. A very memorable night.
Compare it to now, you get a hand shake, 'nice bowling Guv' and that's about it - if you're lucky.
Last count I'd got up to forty-four 700's and that wouldn't even be close to some of the others out there, Lucock, the late Rodney Radcliffe, Ray Tilla, Andrew Phillips etc.
How times change!
PS: Sorry for the rambling post, just thinking out aloud here
According to Wayne Chester above....
"My concern is with the proprietors / managers who cheapen the "sport" of tenpin bowling by giving their bowlers both free hook and hold, thus funneling the ball into the pocket."
"When someone posts about a 300 game on this site, they often say that the bowler 'never looked like missing' This is 100% the truth..and 'looked like' are the key words here. Today's ditches often funnel bad shots into to the pocket. What they don't do is penalize the bowler for making small and in some cases, big mistakes."
Why do you even bother posting stuff Wayne? That is exactly what I have been saying you and other so-called good bowlers are doing. You are constantly degrading the achievement of a perfect game. How many of the people in here who have bowled 300 and had it posted in these forums do you think didn't deserve them?
I have already said I agree it is easier (even though I don't have one yet). What I don't do is tell people they "had their ball guided into the pocket" and "the ball made up for their bad bowling". I encourage/congratulate those people who bowl 300. I put my personal thoughts aside to keep this achievement at the top of our sport as it should be and not some "well who cares, the lanes and the ball did it, not the bowler".
I will say it again. It is about time the so-called good bowlers who use these forums stop degrading the achievement of our sport's perfect game and start promoting the sport.
"My concern is with the proprietors / managers who cheapen the "sport" of tenpin bowling by giving their bowlers both free hook and hold, thus funneling the ball into the pocket."
"When someone posts about a 300 game on this site, they often say that the bowler 'never looked like missing' This is 100% the truth..and 'looked like' are the key words here. Today's ditches often funnel bad shots into to the pocket. What they don't do is penalize the bowler for making small and in some cases, big mistakes."
Why do you even bother posting stuff Wayne? That is exactly what I have been saying you and other so-called good bowlers are doing. You are constantly degrading the achievement of a perfect game. How many of the people in here who have bowled 300 and had it posted in these forums do you think didn't deserve them?
I have already said I agree it is easier (even though I don't have one yet). What I don't do is tell people they "had their ball guided into the pocket" and "the ball made up for their bad bowling". I encourage/congratulate those people who bowl 300. I put my personal thoughts aside to keep this achievement at the top of our sport as it should be and not some "well who cares, the lanes and the ball did it, not the bowler".
I will say it again. It is about time the so-called good bowlers who use these forums stop degrading the achievement of our sport's perfect game and start promoting the sport.
bowlrig
Just A Bowler
The proprietors / managers did not reinvent the bowling ball.... the ball companies did.
The proprietors / managers also did not supercharge the lane machines.
Rob
wchester
Bowling Tragic
The proprietors / managers are the ones who ultimately decide whether or not the bowlers get a free ride to the pocket. Do not place the blame on the manufacturers. Yes, the balls are one of the culprits. Yes, the oiling machines are a tool with which you CAN lay down that easy shot.
But the bottom line is.....you have the final say. Do you want the 'sport' cheapened or do want some integrity in the sport?
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