Michael Little
Active Member
A rolling system is fine, if the tournaments are kept the same each and every year, much like Tennis or Golf or other similar sports where there is a set tournament schedule and with the exception of the odd new event here and there, there is pretty much the same tournament schedule to follow year in year out.
The reason why the rolling system never worked and gave a false impression, was chopping and changing of tournaments year to year, so you earn points for a tournament one year, but then the following year that tournament was scrapped, thereby losing all previous points earned. A replacement tournament was not always in the same state, thereby also meaning that bowlers might not also follow the new tournament.
They also decided to offer double and triple rankings points for events from normal points the previous years, then drop the double and triple points, which again leaves a hole in someones ability to earn points etc. Not to mention, you might be an extremely consistant player and finish say 3rd in all events during the previous year and possibly do enough to win the rankings, continue with similar form the following year, but not win, due to someone not competing in an event the previous year, thereby gaining a maximum points advantage over you. Of course it averages out the following year, but this does not always portray the correct impression of the most consistant or best player for each given year.
Because we will probably only ever have around 8 or so nationally ranked events, a rolling system cannot work in the same way that it does like Tennis where they have over 100 tournaments in any one year to choose from and most players follow a set schedule to maintain or achieve certain rankings. Their rankings hold a much greater importance because they generally do showcase who the best players in the sport are and that also translates into other incentives and sponsorship dollars. Something bowling really doesn't have.
And weighting a tournament on entries received probably would have held some merit in previous years where you had tournaments that were easier to win, ie Arafura, which still received full points and there were usually the lowest tournament entries out of all in the country. I believe most events receive a similar amount of entries now, with the obvious exception being the Masters with 150 original entries. So maybe due to the status of this event, the points level can be elevated, which would also lend to it being a compulsory event for rankings points.
IMO, I still like the option of having a core group of 'Major' national ranked events and then a group of 'Minor' national events to form a rankings calendar. Similar set up to the European Tour and the PBA. You win a major and you get more points, etc etc. But I believe this will potentially help competitive bowling in Australia for the future and those states that struggle to attract numbers to tournaments. Having different tournament level access points for the non regular tournament bowler to the regular tournament bowler, would I believe lead to increased competition and the willingness of bowlers to gain a better understanding of their game, not only through self development, but gauging their skill set against higher caliber players when they decide to make that next step up. Not only do they do this in the prominant bowling tours, but in other sports ie Tennis etc, where a lower level tennis player can play the grind of week in week out smaller tournaments to potentially earn more points and boost their rankings, whereas the more talented players like the Nadals will play the majors with a splattering of lower tournaments to keep their points going.
