How do your leagues set your average/handicap?

[NewToBowling]

Just finishing up my first league. It is non-sanctioned fun summer league. Average is calculated week to week throughout the season. I believe HC is 10% of 200 (or something like that)

I've heard some leagues set your average/handicap week 1 and leave it at that. I think that is INSANE and an open invitation to sandbagging. Especially sanctioned money leagues. I can imagine people bowling sub 100 games week 1

[LyalC52]

never heard of a league that didn't updated handicap, that would be horrible

[bowl1820]

Just finishing up my first league. It is non-sanctioned fun summer league. Average is calculated week to week throughout the season. I believe HC is 10% of 200 (or something like that)

I've heard some leagues set your average/handicap week 1 and leave it at that. I think that is INSANE and an open invitation to sandbagging. Especially sanctioned money leagues. I can imagine people bowling sub 100 games week 1

If you mean by this they never change handicap or average as established on the first night of bowling. I've never heard of any league that did that.



10% of 200 !!!!!!!!!!! That's pretty much unheard of. A typical handicap would be more like 90% of the base scratch figure.


Most winter leagues use last years league or highest book average for the entering average and hold that average for a set number of weeks/games (typically the first 3 weeks/9 games). After that it then converts to your current running average.

If a bowler doesn't have either of those, then they establish on the first night of bowling.

Summer leagues, depending on the league may establish the first night of bowling, some might use some type of book average it just depends.

[NewToBowling]

Sorry, meant 90%

[J Anderson]

Back in the dark ages, i.e. when slide rules ruled and the idea that someone might want, let alone need a home computer was incredible, there were leagues where the secretary would only update the averages every other week or less. Not only did they have to do the calculations by hand, to print the standings they would have to type a stencil and borrow a mimeograph machine.

[Tony]

I think my winter league uses last years avg, or book avg for the first 4 weeks and then uses the new average established, we were using 100% of 220 for handicap last year, I can't remember if we changed it for the coming year....

[John Anderson]

The leagues I've done used 100% of 220 as well. 220 - average = handicap. It makes it way harder for those with higher averages to win, but that's why you never saw a team of four really good bowlers. It was always one person who wasn't that good, two people who averaged pretty well, and a fourth who was really good.

When you have people averaging 140-150, bowling a 180 isn't that hard since it's just picking up some spares. If you average 200, bowling a 230-240 is quite a bit harder since you have to get at least a turkey or two a game with a clean game.

[Tony]

We have a couple teams with all 200+ average bowlers but they don't always win, and they don't understand why.... We won the league two years ago and finished second the year before that with a 140's,160's,180's and 200's average bowler on our 4 man team.

[Mike White]

The leagues I've done used 100% of 220 as well. 220 - average = handicap. It makes it way harder for those with higher averages to win, but that's why you never saw a team of four really good bowlers. It was always one person who wasn't that good, two people who averaged pretty well, and a fourth who was really good.

When you have people averaging 140-150, bowling a 180 isn't that hard since it's just picking up some spares. If you average 200, bowling a 230-240 is quite a bit harder since you have to get at least a turkey or two a game with a clean game.

That 200 bowler if he/she is a good spare shooter will on average make 5-6 strikes per game, and 5 spares.

If you take a game like X 9/ X 9/ X 9/ X 9/ X 9/X = 200, and turn just one of those 9/ into a strike,
you get X 9/ X 9/ X X X 9/ X 9/X = 219

Thats a 19 pin increase with just a 1 pin difference in what was knocked down.

Turn 2 frames of 9/ into strikes, and it's 238.

The 140-150 bowler has to improve more than 2 shots to go up 38 pins.

The 200 bowler however only had 5 opportunities to improve, where as the 140-150 bowler has a lot more due to non-strikes, and missed spares.

[Mike White]

We have a couple teams with all 200+ average bowlers but they don't always win, and they don't understand why.... We won the league two years ago and finished second the year before that with a 140's,160's,180's and 200's average bowler on our 4 man team.

The higher the % of handicap (assuming the base is higher than the highest average in the league) the close it is to a coin flip on who should win each game.

No matter how good you are at bowling, it doesn't make you above average at coin flipping.

[NYMIKE]

The higher the % of handicap (assuming the base is higher than the highest average in the league) the close it is to a coin flip on who should win each game.

No matter how good you are at bowling, it doesn't make you above average at coin flipping.

All our games are extremely close, 3 times in 8 or 9 weeks in my matches we had one team winning 2 out of 3 yet the other team took the wood, our league I believe is 90 percent of total differential, since I see we were getting 32 points this week, while our averages were minus 36.

[Tony]

The higher the % of handicap (assuming the base is higher than the highest average in the league) the close it is to a coin flip on who should win each game.

No matter how good you are at bowling, it doesn't make you above average at coin flipping.

We have a number of bowlers that average more than the 220 base, that's why it was raised from 210 a couple of years ago because we had quite a large number of guys with averages above 210.

[J Anderson]

We have a number of bowlers that average more than the 220 base, that's why it was raised from 210 a couple of years ago because we had quite a large number of guys with averages above 210.

Looks like it's time to raise it again or put in negative handicaps for anyone over the base.

In my experience it's very hard to convince lower average bowlers to raise the base because all they see is that the best bowlers will now be getting a few pins. They have a hard time grasping the fact that the previous base was not leveling the playing field as much as it should have.

[Jessiewoodard57]

Our bowling center uses 100% of 200. the first week they set the average and handicap then update as the season proceeds

[Mike White]

Looks like it's time to raise it again or put in negative handicaps for anyone over the base.

In my experience it's very hard to convince lower average bowlers to raise the base because all they see is that the best bowlers will now be getting a few pins. They have a hard time grasping the fact that the previous base was not leveling the playing field as much as it should have.

Just remind those lower average bowlers that while the best bowlers would be getting a few pins, the lower average bowlers would be increasing their handicap by more than those few.

Example: in a 90% of 220 league.
225 bowler gets 0 pins HDCP,
170 bowler gets 45 pins HDCP.

in a 90% of 230 league.
225 bowler gets 4 pins HDCP. 4 more then previous.
170 bowler gets 54 pins HDCP. 9 more.

[Amyers]

Just remind those lower average bowlers that while the best bowlers would be getting a few pins, the lower average bowlers would be increasing their handicap by more than those few.

Example: in a 90% of 220 league.
225 bowler gets 0 pins HDCP,
170 bowler gets 45 pins HDCP.

in a 90% of 230 league.
225 bowler gets 4 pins HDCP. 4 more then previous.
170 bowler gets 54 pins HDCP. 9 more.

Now your asking for trouble expecting bowlers to do math and think logically. Good Luck with that

[Mike White]

Now your asking for trouble expecting bowlers to do math and think logically. Good Luck with that

If they can't be troubled to think, then they deserve all of the abuse (via rules) the higher average bowlers heap on them during the league meeting.

[Tony]

Looks like it's time to raise it again or put in negative handicaps for anyone over the base.

In my experience it's very hard to convince lower average bowlers to raise the base because all they see is that the best bowlers will now be getting a few pins. They have a hard time grasping the fact that the previous base was not leveling the playing field as much as it should have.

We might be the exception to that rule, some of our bowlers want to raise the base to 100% of 225 and some of us want to go to 100% of 230 where we would have zero bowlers over the base. We will see what carries at the league meeting in a few weeks.

[Tony]

If they can't be troubled to think, then they deserve all of the abuse (via rules) the higher average bowlers heap on them during the league meeting.

I don't see that the high average bowlers in the league I'm in, have any advantage in deductive reasoning or comprehension of mathematical calculations, that would allow them to heap abuse on anyone during the league meeting.... there are a couple that might be slightly more arrogant, but I am doubtful that will help them. Most of them are just regular guys, who are more skilled at bowling than the average guy.

[vdubtx]

Tuesday uses 90% of 230, Thursday uses 90% of 220.

[RobLV1]

Most of the leagues I've bowled in use 90% of the highest entering average in the league. The "almost scratch" leagues use 80% of 240, and one senior recreational league I bowled last year used 100% of 230.