Annual Tourney comming, how to enforce rules?

[Cobalt]

Our lanes is going to host an annual tournament this March. Its USBC sanctioned, and on the application for the tourney, it states that all USBC rules will be in effect.
Since I'm running the Pro Shop in the house, I've said that I'll have our Kaufman scale up front to weight balls to make sure they are legal. The past 2 times that the tournament has happened, we've never weighed balls to see if they are legel - mainly because our pro shop operator at the time was lazy and wanted to bowl in the tournament himself (and his balls were illegal).

Well, after saying that I would be weighing the balls, 3 of the old timers at the lanes heard about it and blew up on me about weighing the balls.
I want to weigh them because I know for a fact that people have a ton of illegal balls, and the USBC rules are supposed to be enforced. Technically, I have the right to weigh every ball, and reject them from the tournament if they are illegal, but my question is how do you all feel about this?

Its not like we have a massive 50+ lane house, its only 20 lanes, and about 18 teams have signed up. People are already talking about going to our local USBC President and getting me removed from the tournament because of this.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.

[BubbaRay]

If the tournament committee implimented the rules on the entry blank that all balls will be checked there isn't anything that can be done. What you can do if specify that balls will be weighed for everyone who cashes .

If someone does not like the ball weighing rule , that should raise a red flag and make you wonder. If they have nothing to fear it should be a problem to them.

[Cobalt]

If the tournament committee implimented the rules on the entry blank that all balls will be checked there isn't anything that can be done. What you can do if specify that balls will be weighed for everyone who cashes .

If someone does not like the ball weighing rule , that should raise a red flag and make you wonder. If they have nothing to fear it should be a problem to them.

The entry form says that USBC rules will be enforced overall. It doesn't say specifically that all balls will be weighed.
As for weighing all balls for people that cash out, I do plan on doing that. But that raised the question as to what will happen to the money if the person's ball is found to be illegal?

As for the people jumping my case for wanted to weigh balls, I know two of them do have illegal balls, and thats probably why they got bent out of shape. As for the others, I have no idea, but I do know that they hate it when anything is changed, including the oil patterns!

[bluerrpilot]

I think its a great idea. The only time I see balls being checked at tournys are at Regionals and Nationals. Other than the ocassional peved bowler, the only problem your going to see is if a ball on your scale is over and on someone elses scale its under......

[BubbaRay]

I do plan on doing that. But that raised the question as to what will happen to the money if the person's ball is found to be illegal?



If the ball is found to be illegal, the person is disqualified and the standings move up one notch. So if the 4th place finisher is disqualified the 5th place moves to 4th and so on.

[Cobalt]

If the ball is found to be illegal, the person is disqualified and the standings move up one notch. So if the 4th place finisher is disqualified the 5th place moves to 4th and so on.

Makes perfect sense... probably why I didn't think of it. :D

[Cobalt]

the only problem your going to see is if a ball on your scale is over and on someone elses scale its under......

Thankfully, my scale can be zero'd with no ball in it. Its a Kaufman scale (i think thats how you spell it), which is pretty much the standard device for ball weighing.

[Rowdy]

Weigh away. The form says ALL USBC Rules are in effect. Not,"Just the USBC Rules we feel like enforcing". Some peckerhead has a problem with weighing their gear,you KNOW it's illegal. This is one of those,"Why are you bitching so much? Got something to hide?" deals.

Now for what sounds like a Stoopid Question,but it's not. Do you know how to properly weigh a bowling ball? Not just total weight,but in all six axies? No sense doing total weight if you can't do side weight,too.

[BubbaRay]

That's right and do not back down. Hold your stance on this rule .

[Cobalt]

Weigh away. The form says ALL USBC Rules are in effect. Not,"Just the USBC Rules we feel like enforcing". Some peckerhead has a problem with weighing their gear,you KNOW it's illegal. This is one of those,"Why are you bitching so much? Got something to hide?" deals.

Now for what sounds like a Stoopid Question,but it's not. Do you know how to properly weigh a bowling ball? Not just total weight,but in all six axies? No sense doing total weight if you can't do side weight,too.

Didn't sound like a stoopid question Rowdy, its a good one actually. To answer your question, yes, I know how to measure all the static weights. I do it all the time - I use the Kaufman Scale to do it and was trained by Jeff Ussery himself. :D

I agree with your stance on measuring everything, if they don't like it they may be hiding something.
It just doesn't go over too well when a 22 year-old tries to tell a bunch of old guys that have been bowling for 22 years that they can't use their ball unless I weigh it.

[BubbaRay]

WHO you callin old Willis? :D LOL Jus t kidding Cobalt. it's an old ( no Pun inteneded) saying from an old ( No pun again ) TV show.

[agroves]

I think it is a great idea. Instead of doing every ball, which could take FOREVER, cause you know some a hole is going to bring 12 balls. You could do a percentage of the participants. Say you have 18 teams of 5, thats 90 bowlers. Do 20% of the bowlers, or 18 people, randomly drawn...

Andrew

[TenPinSniper]

What I'd is take the case of weighing the balls to the Local USBC, beat'em to it.:D

My only issue, would be if your bowling... and your weighing my ball. Is there someone else that could weigh every ball with you? So, if you find one illegal, they could re-weigh the ball all by themselves. It would be preferred if they already know how. (Just to keep controversary down.)

If you don't weigh you risk forfeiting all prize money.

[Rowdy]

I think it is a great idea. Instead of doing every ball, which could take FOREVER, cause you know some a hole is going to bring 12 balls. You could do a percentage of the participants. Say you have 18 teams of 5, thats 90 bowlers. Do 20% of the bowlers, or 18 people, randomly drawn...

Andrew

Nope. You weigh one ball,you weigh 'em all. Forget doing just the guys who cash. You make it known that the scale is going to be in use and you're expected to have every ball weighed before check in time. NASCAR don't inspect a couple of cars before a race, do they? No,they check EVERY one to make sure everythings on the up and up.

[Rowdy]

Speaking for just myself here,I would run TO a tournament that said they were going to weigh every ball before the start of competition. At last,a fair competition. Let the criers and whiners stay home. As far as the age of the guy weighing the ball,I've never seen anything on a scale where you had to enter the age of the guy operating said scale. Gravity is gravity,a pound is a pound. The ball is legal or it ain't. Better to find out BEFORE someone rolls with it than after. The PBA guys get their gear weighed every week,why can't someone do it once in a while in a tournament? Unless they've got something to hide,that is.

[Cobalt]

Well, I'm going to get a final decision tonight when I go in to our lanes. One of the heads of the tournament is in change of the league tonight, and I'm going to run the situation by her.

What I've been able to come down to is that I'm going to weigh balls, no matter what. Its the rules and that's what will happen. The only problem is that I'm the only one there weighing the balls (no one else in the house knows how!) and it would take a long time to get everyone through. So, what I've decided to try is to put the scale up front with a huge sign that not only states the rules for static weights, but says that your equipment will be weighed if you win. If found illegal, you forfeit your place, tough luck. However, I'll be there to weigh balls at the bowler's desire.
Give them a chance to get stuff checked before they bowl, and if they don't want to, its their risk.

[Cobalt]

Well, tournament is over and it sucked so hard that I've given up bowling on tournament levels, I'm just sticking to doing it for fun and maybe one league.

I was pretty much told that "we won't worry about weighing the balls" just 2 days before the tournament by one of the people running it. Sad thing was that it was very obvious that a lot of balls were illegal. At least the winners in the doubles and team events threw balls that I drilled, so I knew they were legal already.

I'm also curious about the rules for applying oil to the lanes.
We had to run the tournament in 2 shifts, one at 10:00am and the other at 2:00pm. Well, we ran into an issue with people complaining about the approaches being too slick. They started saying that it wasn't fair to be so slippery because not everyone had shoes to combat the conditions. I said tough, but they didn't like that.
Because of that, the first shift didn't finish until 2:30. Instead of cleaning and oiling the lanes to put them back to the same conditions that the first shift was able to bowl on, they just ran the machine and put the oil down again. So we had to bowl on lanes that had all the carry down and burnt up pattern with another layer of oil on top of that. It was so bad that my BWBite would only hook about 6 boards when it can run over 30 if I need it to.
Should they have cleaned and oiled the lanes to keep the conditions the same, or were they allowed to have different lane conditions down for different shifts? Both shifts were going for the same overall place.

[can-ham]

It's nice to enforce the rules, but you need the weigh the ramifications. Is it worth it to be hated and will it effect your shops business? I have nothing to hide you could weigh my balls but I am sure as shite not showing up to a tournament 3 hours before I'm supposed to bowl because some dude has to weigh 300 balls. If you can get the help of all the other shops in the area and have 3 or 4 people weighing balls then your good to go. But really around here they don't even weigh your ball after you roll a 300 anymore. However there are only two shops and they both only drill legal balls...

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/gallery/2001/06/20/PAjustice.gif

[uberamd]

Well, tournament is over and it sucked so hard that I've given up bowling on tournament levels, I'm just sticking to doing it for fun and maybe one league.

I was pretty much told that "we won't worry about weighing the balls" just 2 days before the tournament by one of the people running it. Sad thing was that it was very obvious that a lot of balls were illegal. At least the winners in the doubles and team events threw balls that I drilled, so I knew they were legal already.

I'm also curious about the rules for applying oil to the lanes.
We had to run the tournament in 2 shifts, one at 10:00am and the other at 2:00pm. Well, we ran into an issue with people complaining about the approaches being too slick. They started saying that it wasn't fair to be so slippery because not everyone had shoes to combat the conditions. I said tough, but they didn't like that.
Because of that, the first shift didn't finish until 2:30. Instead of cleaning and oiling the lanes to put them back to the same conditions that the first shift was able to bowl on, they just ran the machine and put the oil down again. So we had to bowl on lanes that had all the carry down and burnt up pattern with another layer of oil on top of that. It was so bad that my BWBite would only hook about 6 boards when it can run over 30 if I need it to.
Should they have cleaned and oiled the lanes to keep the conditions the same, or were they allowed to have different lane conditions down for different shifts? Both shifts were going for the same overall place.

Thats rough. I don't see why the approaches would be slippery though. I suppose adding oil ontop of existing oil, and not cleaning the backend would create some rough conditions. Crankers pulling oil to the outsides creates slick outsides, slick insides, slick backends, overall a much harder matchup vs what the first shift had.

[Hotshot]

all my balls a perfect :) I got nothing to hide * prolly why im bowling like crap hahaha :P*

[Cobalt]

Thats rough. I don't see why the approaches would be slippery though. I suppose adding oil ontop of existing oil, and not cleaning the backend would create some rough conditions. Crankers pulling oil to the outsides creates slick outsides, slick insides, slick backends, overall a much harder matchup vs what the first shift had.

Its not so much the fact that the conditions were bad, I could find a line to play. Its the fact that it was bad to a high degree - to the point where only 3 people actually made/passed their average in the second shift. First shift on the clean pattern was destroying the pins, everyone looked like a sandbagger.

It just felt like if I went to a state tournament and there were 40 lanes, but the first 20 had an easy house shot, but the last 20 had a PBA shot on it, but everyone was in the same division going for the same prizes.
Would that be allowed? Seems to me that would be against rules somewhere.

[jedi47]

My Thursday league bowls AFTER a league that bowls 2 games (3 person teams- just from January to April)) and our' 6 lanes don't get touched at all (the other 26 lanes in the house gets the "royal treatment"), between them & us, while this league is going,,,,,, some people in our' league struggle during this time, some go up & some (like me) stay the same

[Rowdy]

Well, tournament is over and it sucked so hard that I've given up bowling on tournament levels, I'm just sticking to doing it for fun and maybe one league.

I was pretty much told that "we won't worry about weighing the balls" just 2 days before the tournament by one of the people running it. Sad thing was that it was very obvious that a lot of balls were illegal. At least the winners in the doubles and team events threw balls that I drilled, so I knew they were legal already.

I'm also curious about the rules for applying oil to the lanes.
We had to run the tournament in 2 shifts, one at 10:00am and the other at 2:00pm. Well, we ran into an issue with people complaining about the approaches being too slick. They started saying that it wasn't fair to be so slippery because not everyone had shoes to combat the conditions. I said tough, but they didn't like that.
Because of that, the first shift didn't finish until 2:30. Instead of cleaning and oiling the lanes to put them back to the same conditions that the first shift was able to bowl on, they just ran the machine and put the oil down again. So we had to bowl on lanes that had all the carry down and burnt up pattern with another layer of oil on top of that. It was so bad that my BWBite would only hook about 6 boards when it can run over 30 if I need it to.
Should they have cleaned and oiled the lanes to keep the conditions the same, or were they allowed to have different lane conditions down for different shifts? Both shifts were going for the same overall place.

Sorry to hear it sucked,but don't give up.

The approach issue is a non-starter. The approaches are what they are,deal with it.

The lane oil is another matter entirely. The lanes should have been in exactly the same conditions from the first to the second shift. If I had been forced to roll in that second shift you can bet the tournament director would have re-oiled after I got through getting in her face. Or I would have demanded my entry fee back. I don't throw money away like that. You can bet all those second shift bowlers have a real bad opinion of your house after the way they were treated.

[Alucious]

Its only against USBC rules to not oil between shifts, if say they were oiled between another set of shifts. Since there were only two, that was unfortunatly, legal.

[Cobalt]

Its only against USBC rules to not oil between shifts, if say they were oiled between another set of shifts. Since there were only two, that was unfortunatly, legal.

Well, the issue happened on saturday for the singles and doubles event. However, the next day we did the team event in two shifts just like the previous day. BUT, this time, they cleaned and re-oiled the lanes between shifts so the conditions were the same for both shifts. The oil pattern was the same on both days - does that count?
Also, what rule # is that in the book?

[Rowdy]

Its only against USBC rules to not oil between shifts, if say they were oiled between another set of shifts. Since there were only two, that was unfortunatly, legal.

Why do you think it's "unfortunate" to oil between shifts? Why should the first shift get all the oil?

Keep in mind we're talking about a second shift of all new bowlers. Why should they be treated like second class bowlers just because there's more entries than spots available for the first go round?

Now if we're talking about a second shift of ALL THE SAME BOWLERS,that's different. Then I wouldn't be in favor of a re-oil. Let the shot break down and see who can adjust the best.

[Rowdy]

Its only against USBC rules to not oil between shifts, if say they were oiled between another set of shifts. Since there were only two, that was unfortunatly, legal.

Where's this Rule at? I've read the entire Rule Book from front to back and checked at bowl.com on the online Rules. I can't find anything about oiling a lane, or not, between shifts.

[bubbiesdad]

Where's this Rule at? I've read the entire Rule Book from front to back and checked at bowl.com on the online Rules. I can't find anything about oiling a lane, or not, between shifts.



I had an association member tell me at our state tournament earlier this month that soon the USBC would require re-oiling for each shift. I think he said in the next two years.

[Thepainscoming]

Why do you think it's "unfortunate" to oil between shifts? Why should the first shift get all the oil?


He said that since the tourny was only 2 shifts, it was unfortunate that it was legal not to oil.

[pba6285]

There is no requirement to oil.

Many of the local associations place the squads so close together that there is not enough time to do lane maintenance between squads.

Now if they had time to run the lane machine to put additional oil out, they could have stripped also it would have added maybe 30 seconds per lane.


However, with that being said I would have rather bowled the 2nd shift that the first shift, You could play straighter and you wouldn't have to deal with the wet/dry

Very few local asociations will weigh balls. The only time I have seen a ball weighed at the local level is when someone made a writen protest.

Even at he PBA Regional level they dont weigh everyones stuff any more.

My last event hey weighed Qualifiers 1, 4, 8, 12 and 16. The didn't touch any of the other cashers stuff.

[Cobalt]

There is no requirement to oil.

Many of the local associations place the squads so close together that there is not enough time to do lane maintenance between squads.

Now if they had time to run the lane machine to put additional oil out, they could have stripped also it would have added maybe 30 seconds per lane.


However, with that being said I would have rather bowled the 2nd shift that the first shift, You could play straighter and you wouldn't have to deal with the wet/dry

Very few local asociations will weigh balls. The only time I have seen a ball weighed at the local level is when someone made a writen protest.

Even at he PBA Regional level they dont weigh everyones stuff any more.

My last event hey weighed Qualifiers 1, 4, 8, 12 and 16. The didn't touch any of the other cashers stuff.

Well, its all done with and over, but the guy who told me to "NOT worry about weighing balls" was the same guy who told me to my face that the lanes would just get re-oiled and not cleaned as well. Just kinda interesting that it happened that way (he also bowled on the first shift and bowls with a MoRich ball that looks flat out illegal).

[Old Scratch]

Well, Cobalt. I for one would love to bowl in a tourney that you had complete control over. I really respect your adherence to the rules and your desire to give everyone a fair shot. It's too bad others wouldn't allow you to make that happen. Don't let em get you down.

[Rowdy]

If you thought the ball was illegal,why didn't you say something? Speak up or don't bitch when the guy beats your brains out with it. It's that simple.

[Bama Vol]

Our local association, I am the prez,and bowling center is hosting the Alabama USBC Association State Mixed Tournament the last week-end of this month and the first week-end of June. Any advice I need to pass on to the Board of Directors meeting we are having tonight to discuss the tourney? Here is a link to the tourney rules if anyone is interested.
http://www.alabamabowling.com/ausbca/statemixedrules.shtml