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new USBC holes in bowling ball rules General bowling discussion
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Beginner 2 posts BrianCRX90 Beginner 2 posts
BrianCRX90
Hello,

I just want to clarify something with in my honest opinion, a stupid rule by USBC having to plug weight holes and don't really understand the purpose of this. 

So does it also mean that if you throw the ball with say no thumb your thumbhole must not exist or must be plugged?

I have a few balls in my closet with weight holes however I recently went to a reverse pitch grip with my fingers so I have no desire to throw older equipment anyways much less pay to have them re-plugged.

I had been practicing a ring/thumb release with my spare balls...something Walter Ray Williams used to do long ago and for my my accuracy was much better. So is this an illegal shot? 

Does any of this have to do with the pyramid/triangle grip that came out in moderation years ago giving no thumbers/two handers an advantage by having multiple layouts simply having 3 middle finger holes and can rotate the axis? 


Last, don't you think USBC should have more priorities like I dunno...lower costs for sanction and if anything how about sanctioned USBC shots such as Red, White and Blue for example. Not saying going to sport shots and I'm struggling to hold on to a 190 average on a house shot but I think it's something worth considering? 

Thanks. 
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bowlersensi Beginner 93 posts
bowlersensi
BrianCRX90 wrote:
Hello,

I just want to clarify something with in my honest opinion, a stupid rule by USBC having to plug weight holes and don't really understand the purpose of this.
 

If you go to the USBC site there is article after article that tells all about the changes, the purposes and videos its alot of reading though.
https://www.bowl.com/BowlingTechnologyStudy/
here's a sample video:SECTION III: The Impact of Balance Holes


Quote:
So does it also mean that if you throw the ball with say no thumb your thumbhole must not exist or must be plugged?


Yes.

Quote:
I have a few balls in my closet with weight holes however I recently went to a reverse pitch grip with my fingers so I have no desire to throw older equipment anyways much less pay to have them re-plugged.


Quote:
I had been practicing a ring/thumb release with my spare balls...something Walter Ray Williams used to do long ago and for my my accuracy was much better. So is this an illegal shot? 

Yes, You got a hole in the ball there needs to be a finger in it. (Most likely though if you did that, no one would notice. Unless you drew attention to it. But you never know who might call you out on it.)

Quote:
Does any of this have to do with the pyramid/triangle grip that came out in moderation years ago giving no thumbers/two handers an advantage by having multiple layouts simply having 3 middle finger holes and can rotate the axis? 

You can't do that either, Did it play a part in the decision to change the rule? Possibility along with other considerations.


Quote:
Last, don't you think USBC should have more priorities like I dunno...lower costs for sanction and if anything how about sanctioned USBC shots such as Red, White and Blue for example. Not saying going to sport shots and I'm struggling to hold on to a 190 average on a house shot but I think it's something worth considering? Thanks. 
Rin, Pyōh, Tōh, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen.........Kō
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Dare Pro Member 1,817 posts
Dare

Quote:
I had been practicing a ring/thumb release with my spare balls...something Walter Ray Williams used to do long ago and for my my accuracy was much better. So is this an illegal shot? 


Yes, You got a hole in the ball there needs to be a finger in it. (Most likely though if you did that, no one would notice. Unless you drew attention to it. But you never know who might call you out on it.)


Just hope the opposing team doesn't have any slo-mo stop action cameras
Motiv Ripcord       Columbia Beast
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Bob_DeDowney Amateur 346 posts
Bob_DeDowney
Every new rule since 1975 has been to increase sales of Bowling Balls .
So let’s figure it out.
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themrfreeze Moderator 3,820 posts
themrfreeze
BrianCRX90 wrote:


Last, don't you think USBC should have more priorities like I dunno...lower costs for sanction and if anything how about sanctioned USBC shots such as Red, White and Blue for example. Not saying going to sport shots and I'm struggling to hold on to a 190 average on a house shot but I think it's something worth considering? 

Thanks. 


Welcome to the board.  We had a lengthy discussion about this when the rule was first announced, and yeah, it's not being done to "make things more fair", it's being done to sell bowling balls.  IMHO it's been a long time since the USBC's priority was actually the bowlers.  If it were they wouldn't have treated me and my league like crap a few years back when they threatened to rerate our league as a sport shot league!
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Bob_DeDowney Amateur 346 posts
Bob_DeDowney
Could you relate what happened with your league? I missed it. Or a link to a thread. Thanks .
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themrfreeze Moderator 3,820 posts
themrfreeze
Bob_DeDowney wrote:
Could you relate what happened with your league? I missed it. Or a link to a thread. Thanks .


The center I bowl in is a little mom-n-pop 8 lane place with old wood lanes that were oiled by hand.  Between the hand oiling and the old wood it made for a challenging shot that varied quite a bit week to week.  Most of the people in our league bowl there because of the "traditional" conditions.

The USBC passed a new rule a few years back regarding averages...if a bowler bowls league in multiple centers and there's an appreciable difference between his/her averages (like 20 pins), the USBC felt a rerate was in order.  When it comes to a specific league, if the league's members average more in other leagues than they do in this specific league, then the league would be rerated by the USBC from being a "standard" league to a "sport shot" league.

My league was informed by the USBC that we would be rerated as a "sport shot" league.  This basically meant that if one of our bowlers who averaged 200 in our league bowled in a tournament, they'd be rerated for the tournament as a ~230 average bowler.

Needless to say our league wasn't happy with this, and as league secretary I wrote several letters to the USBC to appeal this.  We explained about bowling on old wood lanes.  We explained about the hand oiling.  We explained that we weren't doing anything illegal...the "honest" conditions simply led to lower averages.  The USBC didn't give a damn...they treated us like criminals who were sandbagging and didn't give a damn if their rerating might ultimately lead to our center going out of business.  

Ultimately the center somehow scraped up enough money to buy an old used oiling machine and installed newer kickbacks with more "action" to try and make the conditions higher scoring.  Once they informed the USBC about this, the USBC magically decided this was good enough...the numbers they kept throwing at us to justify their actions were now irrelevant and they IGNORED THEIR OWN RULE regarding the numbers and canceled the rerate.

End result of all this?  Our center had to "sell its soul" to appease the USBC despite the fact that they didn't show one iota of caring about the bowlers or the center itself. 

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