People like to make comparisons between golf and bowling, something I try to avoid because I don’t think we should compare the two. I know that golfers are usually pretty good bowlers and bowlers can hold their own on the links, but that’s about it as far as I am concerned.
However, lately I am seeing something that closely relates the two. Bowling is seeing a significant increase in high averages and high scores. For many, this is a decline in the integrity of the sport and reduces the game from sport to recreation.
Well, look what’s happening in golf. Tiger Woods destroyed the myth of Augusta. While being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, she said that based on his win, they are considering making the course more difficult. Wood’s response: "If they make it more difficult for me, it will be more difficult for everyone else."
Hale Irwin, another golfer on the Senior Tour, recently captured the PBA Seniors Championship by 12 strokes.
My point is no one in the golf world seems concerned that records for courses are falling, yet bowlers are concerned about the rise in honor scores. Let’s face it, both games are changing as they should with the times. The equipment is better in every sport today—tennis racquets, baseball gloves, hockey sticks, golf clubs, and bowling balls.
I listen to people and, yes, even I have said and written that scores are soaring and averages are inflated. But are they? And, should we be making changes in the sport to lower scores and averages?
When the great Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain were setting scoring records, and the sky-hook and "playing above the rim" began, no one said, "Let’s raise the basket. Let’s control the offense and keep scoring lower." If teams were to play a four-corner offense or zone defense and scores were in the 50s and 60s, no one would go to a basketball game.
Football has relaxed its rules to enhance scoring. The days of the "Doomsday Defense" and the "Steel Curtain" are long gone.
Yes, the games have changed, the equipment is better, but could it be there is also a better athlete playing the game? Bowlers are in better shape now and realize that to be at the top of any sport, you have to take care of the body. Running, weights, less alcohol, and fewer smokers all make for a better athlete.
Personally, I am re-thinking this whole-inflated average business.
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In February, I wrote a column ("We are not the ones wearing the sign!") about my displeasure with the 1997 Brunswick World Tournament of Champions, and I mentioned that the top five bowlers on the televised championship were lefties. This did not seem controversial to me, since all-lefty telecasts have been extremely rare. But alas, I was considered anti-lefty, an undeserving label.
In fairness, I decided to check a few facts that I hope shed some light on the lefty/righty controversy.
Of the 65 bowlers who cashed in January’s Brunswick World Tournament of Champions, 11 were lefties (17 percent). Five (45 percent) of the 11 not only cashed but made the televised finals.
The top 10 1996 leading money winners are all right-handed bowlers with the exception of Mike Aulby and Parker Bohn III. The eight bowlers in that category finished between 18th and 63rd, with the leading money winner, Walter Ray Williams Jr., finishing 24th.
So, did I think there was a lane condition that favored the lefties? Yes, I did, and I still do. That raised the question of why don’t I feel the same way when five right-handed bowlers make the telecast? Let’s look at a few more facts.
According to the 1997 PBA Official Media Guide, there are 261 PBA player profiles. Of that figure, 215 are right-handed, 41 are lefties, and five are not listed. I don’t need a calculator to realize that the odds are pretty good righties will make the show. But, that doesn’t mean I am anti-lefty.
How can anyone be anti-lefty with the likes of Earl Anthony, Mike Aulby, Parker Bohn III, Johnny Petraglia, Dave Davis, and the now-retired Steve Cook as bowling’s premier lefties? In addition to having 124 tournament wins, they all are consummate professionals and the role models you teach the youth bowlers to emulate.
People thought that I believed only Bohn and Aulby were capable of bowling well enough from the left side to compete today. Let’s look at that, too.
Of the top 20 1996 money leaders, Aulby was fifth and Bohn was sixth. Jess Stayrook finished 17th.
The top 10 average leaders only had Bohn third with 222.07 and Eric Forkel seventh with 221.15. The top 50 1996 final leading averages based on 400 games listed Mazza, 12th; Aulby, 19th; Ricky Ward, 27th; John Gant, 32nd; Jason Couch, 39th; Stayrook, 45th; Andy Neuer, 48th; and Mike Scroggins, 50th.
The top 20 Merit Point leaders had Bohn, third; Forkel, 11th, and Mazza, 13th.
The top 60 all-time earnings leaders list nine lefties: Aulby, third, Anthony, ninth; Bohn, 10th; Petraglia, 21st; Cook, 22nd; Davis, 24th; Mazza, 38th; Stayrook, 39th; and Forkel, 54th.
Looking at those statistics, it should be relatively easy for anyone to figure out why I believe that Bohn and Aulby are the top lefties on tour.
So, what was this little exercise all about? It’s about lane maintenance and its effect on bowling’s outcome. The sport is difficult enough without external factors making it more difficult. I certainly don’t profess to have all the answers, but there has to be a fair method to balance the scale and even out the left and right side.
I have the greatest respect for all the bowlers and want to see the best bowlers in competition. In the Brunswick World Tournament of Champions what I saw was a comedy of errors. When I wrote the column, it was more about how a great championship was once again give Rodney Dangerfield coverage—poor camera work, late start, early finish, lane problems, and on and on. The lefty issue was simply an observation.
But no one will ever convince me that lane maintenance wasn’t the reason that there were five lefties on the televised finals.