PreBowling

[Cam S]

Reading about old mate in USA and his 900series got me thinking.

Should our sport even have pre bowling?

Before people come after me with baseball bats and such, i understand why we have and I know with my job constraints and personal comitments ive had to pre bowl a bit myself but what other sport has anything like it.

If u play club cricket and cant play on a saturday u cant just go and bowl ure 10 overs or go and have ure dig at the creast on tuesday.
You dont see greg norman play his first round of a PGa event two days before the rest of the field.

You can gain an unfair advantage pre bowling as you can have more control over the conditions.

If you know your local house well you will know when the right time is to pre bowl to get the freshest condition and a condition that isnt going to break down as quick because you are the only one bowling on it generally.

Just some thoughts i wonder what everyone else thinks, i think im gonna pre bowl tommorow for one of my leagues something tells me i will bowl my first 300

 

[The Spanner]

Well ... Cricket games last 5 days ... or a couple of days if you are a weekend warrior. Golf Tournaments .. 4 days in a row.

Our league goes for 40 weeks.

I too am away sometimes due to work commitments. I certainly dont abuse the priveledge of being able to pre-bowl, but it's nice to know I can without losing valuable points.

I've even had to prebowl in 'disco' conditions once ... turned up at the wrong time... but I dont see too much wrong with it.... depends on the league I suppose.

 

[Matti]

damn work ey!

 

[wchester]

Although I'm not a big fan of pre-bowling, I can see the merits of allowing it in your leagues and the pre-bowled scores should be available for viewing by the opposing team.

Post-bowling, on the other hand, is NOT acceptable under any circumstances. The whole allure of league bowling, or any other competitive sport for that matter, is in the satisfaction of knowing you came out victorious or the dissapointment in the realisation that you lost the match. Post-bowling completely destroys that concept and leads to nothing more than an unhappy bowler or team of bowlers.

 

[The1bigun4eva]

I've seen some lovely acts of cheating in prebowling too. I watched a guy prebowl at certain busy time and nobody from the center noticed him changing his scores manually.
I wonder how the opposition felt turning up and seeing a 140 average bowler with 3 200+ games from his prebowl.

 

[Andrew S.]

I think prebowling is extremely questionable. If I had my way it would be banned. Our Association at Ashmore does not permit post bowling.
It would be interesting to see an on-line poll on pre and post bowling.

 

[mannah]

Our league allows pre-bowling but only with the consent of the other team who are given the opportunity of sending one of their team to watch the pre-bowl. All prebowls must be watched by either a league commitee member or representative (ie a member of another team). This rule was brought about by a team who started pre-bowling then decided there was no oil on the lane so stopped, said that game was practice, asked the centre to oil their lanes (which the Centre did) and then they did their 3 games of pre-bowl. The league constitution then changed to what it is now and also states that the pre-bowl must be conducted on the existing lane conditions (no requests for fresh oil).

Surprising what some people get up to.

 

[mannah]

I think prebowling is extremely questionable. If I had my way it would be banned. Our Association at Ashmore does not permit post bowling.
It would be interesting to see an on-line poll on pre and post bowling.

For shift workers pre-bowling is often the only way they can participate in the league. My team would lose possibly 2 bowlers if pre-bowling was not allowed. They could not afford to give up a days work to bowl. After all no work = no money = no bowling. Surely a bowler pre-bowling once every 3 weeks and still feeling like part of the team is better than no bowler at all.

To the bowlers who think they are getting a better score by changing their pre-bowl scores !! don't complain when your average goes up the next week and then you can't bowl to that false average. May you be suffer the consequences of cheating. - no sympathy from me.

 

[Andrew S.]

So whats wrong with subs?

 

[DaleS]

Subs are fine if you can get them. However that then has the problem of getting a 200+ average bowler bowling for potentially a 150 or so average. Regardless of what type of league you bowl in this can & does create controversy. You can then impose average limits of +/- 20 pins on subs, but then it raises the issue of availablility of subs yet again.

We have an 'emergency pre-bowl' provision in our league constitution where you can keep a pre bowl on file and in event of an emergency it is then used. I know in some centres scoring console keypads can be locked off, thus preventing alteration of scores during pre-bowls unless it is done by a staff member. This in itself would prevent false pre-bowls being submitted. I acknowledge that this is not available in all centres however , and perhaps where possible the solution is to pre-bowl in another league so your scores can be monitored by ther bowlers. Just a thought..............

 

[Ashy]

I believe pre-bowling is required if you want to attract more bowlers to your league. We limit the amount of pre-bowls that you are allowed to do in a season.

But this privilege is sometimes abused. In our league a certain staff member of the bowling center pre-bowled because she/he had an engagment elsewhere. When it was canceled ,he/she just decieded to turn up and bowl with their team. You would think that they would have known better.

I myself don't believe in pre-bowls( I always put in a substitue), but will tolerate them to help the league.

Craig

 

[Blueheeler73]

If not you will lose all us shift workers!!!!!! A prebowl is sometimes the only way we can bowl league.

 

[CV]

I have to agree with Mannah and BlueHeeler73. I too am a shift worker and uni student and sometimes prebowling is my only option. I also feel that banning prebowling will not just lose a lot of shiftworkers, but a large majority of bowlers altogether.
Maybe something needs to be done in regards to monitoring pre-bowling (i.e stricter rules/guidelines) as I agree that some people certainly abuse the priveledge.

 

[MinusZero]

I think if pre-bowls are to be allowed, they should have to be done alongside another league. Instead of on your own.

I tend to play better when i pre-bowl as i think most do.

 

[bubbles01]

Our league allows pre or post bowling. However, both teams need to be in attendance and bowling together. We have a limit of how many times a team can ask for a postponment. No postponements allowed in the last 6 weeks of bowling. We bowl a 47 week season. Barb

 

[Tiger]

There was a league I subbed in a few times a couple of years ago that used to allow individual players to pre-bowl if they couldn't make it.
Example, the team I subbed against, had a player missing, but his scores were already filled out on the sheet. I said to one of the team's players about it, and they said he'd come in and bowled his games the other day, because he had to work when his league was on.

As for pre/post bowling, I'd rather pre-bowl. Having said that, I've only pre or post bowled once in over 20 years of bowling.

 

[becky22]

Pre bowling is a good option to have so long as it isn't abused. In one of my leagues, we used to have a sub for our team so that we wouldn't have to prebowl when one of us had to work or had another commitment. But now our sub works on our league night so if one of the team (it's a doubles league) has an engagement we try to prebowl.
Not having prebowls disadvantages all those bowlers who do shift work or even those who have other bowling commitments. You can't ban them altogether.
As for post-bowls, they should only be allowed in real emergency situations, if at all.

 

[Bowling Balls Australia]

There has to be some very strict guidleines set for it to work PROPERLY.

Funny how the same people regularly abuse the system (I know who you mean Mannah), pre-bowling in one afternoon for several weeks league so one can go away on holidays - uh uh !

You make a commitment to play in a team, the same time every week, exactly the same as a footballer, tennis player, cricketer & etc. You should honour that commitment and make yourself available every week. However, I do understand on one or two occasions per season there may be matters more pressing and on those occasions, I agree pre-bowling is fine.

Pre-bowling because of shift work? - choose another night or day to bowl when your work does not interfere with your commitment.

The respective leagues should set a limit, maybe 2 pre-bowls per season and then any others you miss are blind scores or you use a sub, and the sub should be for your team only and not for use by just any team in the league who happens to be a bowler short one week.

Max

 

[Tiger]

Pre-bowling because of shift work? - choose another night or day to bowl when your work does not interfere with your commitment.

Max

I remember facing a situation about three or four years back, where we had a team member in Centre League who had an attendance rate of around 25% for a season, the trouble was, he would very seldom, if ever, let any of us know that he wasn't going to turn up to bowl, and trying to get a sub at that late a stage (usually 5 minutes before the league was about to start) was nigh on impossible, given the lack of bowlers there are these days.

He was always blaming it on work, so the rest of us went to the trouble of giving him a card with our contact numbers on it, so if he knew he wasn't able to attend, to give one of us a call, and we would try and sort something out. None of us ever received a phone call, and he still only showed up maybe 1 week out of 5.
We bowled our arses off that season and despite being a player short for most of the season, only lost the season by half a point - cost the rest of us quite a fair chunk of money too.
The following season he played again, was there the first two weeks, then the abscences started piling up again, no calls to let us know, the rest of the team was starting to get pretty disenchanted with it.
I finally had it out with him on the lanes on a night when he finally decided to turn up, after 6 weeks absent, and told him he had to make a decision there and then whether he wanted to be a team sub - wherby one of us would stand out for a night if he wanted to bowl - or be replaced, we were all paying too much money for us to be constantly let down every week.
He started carrying on, telling us he wanted to be a full-time member, and when he was bluntly told that this was not an option given his miserable record of attendance, and even more lamentable record of failure to show courtesy to the rest of his team mates by his failure to notify of non attendance, he cracked the sooks and carried on even more.
I'd finally had a gutful of this tall streak of sh*t and got rid of him that night, and replaced him the following week, we ended up winning the season by a point. The team was a lot happier for it too.

 

[Blueheeler73]

The bottom line is that at the beginning of the league season you vote on how you would like your league to operate..................if you don't like it either stick your hand up and offer constructive criticism, offer an alternative, change leagues or don't bowl at all. I have changed centers and leagues because I did not agree with a few of the terms offered where I was bowling and found a league that suited me better. Even phantom leagues where you are always pre-bowling. There is another great league that i would like to bowl in, but they only offer limited pre-bowl so I act as a sub for them and all are happy.