Tired of bowling by myself, how do I find/enter competitions, leagues etc?

[Ball99999]

I'd like to bowl competitively. Do I need to join the USBC?

Can anyone explain why handicaps can work so against me sometimes? In a couple of classes I've had, teams of people who were really bad at bowling would get like 115 extra pins and we never could overcome that..

[bowl1820]

I'd like to bowl competitively. Do I need to join the USBC?

If you want to bowl competitively, just Go down to lanes and ask about getting on a league.

Most leagues/tournaments are Sanctioned, which means you have to join the usbc and get your card.
If it's a unsanctioned league/tournaments you don't have too though.

Can anyone explain why handicaps can work so against me sometimes? In a couple of classes I've had, teams of people who were really bad at bowling would get like 115 extra pins and we never could overcome that..

Discussions about handicap are a big landmine, best thing to say is "Bowl the best you can" if you win, you win. If you don't, get over it and go on to the next game and do better.

[J Anderson]

One joining USBC has a number of advantages: You will be able to bowl in almost any league, you will have a nationally recognized average that will enable you to enter handicap tournaments, you will be able to take advantage of discounts available to USBC members.

Do you have to join? No. Should you join? That's your decision, But I would recommend that you do.

Handicaps are one of the most argued about subjects in bowling. The basic concept is that a 'fair' handicap gives any bowler a chance to win. The fact that once in a while you get beaten by a less skilled team proves that the system is working. If you lose every time you bowl a worse team and win every time you play a better team something is wrong with the 'fair' part of the system.

[dgz924s]

Nothing wrong with having another bowler to go up against. But my take on this is I am my own best opponent and if I can beat my own best score, that is improvement and also a WIN!

As for handicapped bowlers, I have won and lost, scratch the same, so if you just bowl your best you have beaten atleast one bowler.....yourself!

[bowl1820]

I'd like to bowl competitively. Do I need to join the USBC?

Can anyone explain why handicaps can work so against me sometimes? In a couple of classes I've had, teams of people who were really bad at bowling would get like 115 extra pins and we never could overcome that..

It dawned on me, you said "we never could overcome that" if you bowled against another team, then you have bowled competitively.

[J Anderson]

It dawned on me, you said "we never could overcome that" if you bowled against another team, then you have bowled competitively.

In the original post Ball99999 mentions classes, so I would assume those games were through a school.

[Ball99999]

Yeah it was just a college class. For fun basically.
My teammate and I last semester were pretty good. One of the teams in particular was a set of special needs people from outside the school. They'd literally get like 115-120 pins on us.