Guest Author - Gary King

I had an incident arise which made me realize that some, if not much, of our bowling equipment is not worth the price we are paying. While the quality and integrity of the equipment seems to be deteriorating, the price is not, and is actually going up.

One example of the poor quality of equipment is in the bag area. I have encountered situations where bowling bags are actually a hazard and some attention should be focused on them RIGHT NOW and the matter corrected. In one case, a bowler was carrying a three ball bag via the shoulder strap and the strap snapped and the bag dropped to the ground. Luckily, there were no children or anyone in that vicinity when the bag hit the concrete. But, in my opinion, that strap should never have snapped.

I have had my own problems with bags and equipment so I know where people are coming from when they tell me some of our equipment is pretty shabby. In my case, I have a 4-ball Columbia 300 bag and while the bag has been adequate, to a point, it has also had some problems. The first problem I had was with the bottom of the bars that hold the sliding handle. The bottoms were made of some other type of material--plastic I think--and they split and starting bending downward. In a short period of time, they started causing problems when I tried to roll the bag and I finally had to break them off. This left holes in the top four corners of the bottom bag. I lived with that! Next thing that happened, the sliding bars started giving me a big problem and I could not get the bars to slide. They were hanging up. Some graphite helped a little but not a lot. I lived with that!

Last night, the ultimate happened, which ended any option for rolling the bag. While trying to lift the sliding handle to pull it up, the handle snapped and I stood there holding just the handle in my hand. I took a long close look at the handle and started wondering what kind of material it is made of. Must be some kind of plastic. In any case, the fact that it snapped may not be an isolated incident.

I spoke with other bowlers and in my opinion, bowling equipment is being manufactured and marketed based on quantity of numbers, rather than quality of the products. The price we are paying for bowling equipment is definitely TOO HIGH and something should be done right now to curtail the rush to greed!

I have had many people tell me bowling is on the decline and I have written articles about that, and they currently have numerous problems at USBC, which need to be corrected NOW, in order to help bowling not only recover, but to reverse the current trend. But who listens? They do not really pay that much attention and what you tell them at USBC Headquarters goes in one ear and out the other. They have problems!

I am a League Secretary for a Senior League and received a call from the Association Women's Secretary yesterday. It seems there are issues at USBC and the membership cards for women will be issued with no averages on them. They will have the notation "N/A" in place of the average. ISSUES? Of course there are issues with USBC! There are always issues with USBC and there will be issues! And there will be issues because they do not listen and no one seems to care. But enough of that because most people know there are problems with USBC!

I thank God I have enough equipment now that I may not have to buy some for quite a while and maybe not have to buy another ball. And I thank God for that because the equipment I am looking at, like bags, wrist bands, etc., are not the kind of quality which I see coming out of golf pro shops. Maybe, just maybe, if the bowling manufacturers took a close look at how golf marketing is operating, they might learn something. When you pay a lot of money for a golf club, while that price is really too high, you at least get some tinkling promises of quality. You do not get that in your bowling equipment!

The current trend in bowling seems to be in making sure things are running--not making sure that quality and integrity are preserved. The centers are operating with the idea of bringing in money and seemingly for the open bowler. The equipment manufacturers are out there to fill their pocket and we are the ones who have to pay our money for shabby equipment. I do not see any bowling manufacturer focusing much attention on the quality of their equipment. They are charging an arm and a leg for that equipment but not taking care of the business of providing quality and integrity in what they are marketing. And when you speak out on these issues, they seem to fall on deaf ears.

Brunswick is moving or has moved its ball manufacturing to Mexico, so that adds some dimension to the fact that equipment may be even more shabby in the future. Perhaps they are playing a game out there--and giving us the option to GAMBLE on what we buy! So if we are lucky, we will end up with something that actually works for a while. But, I have my doubts about that.

Bowling bags are being manufactured with bigger wheels, supposedly for durability. But, as in the case of a bag my wife purchased recently, made by someone other than Columbia 300 or whoever makes bags for them, while the wheels are getting bigger, the quality is less. The zippers are acting up and not working very well. So that bag will probably start on the downhill run in the next week or so. So, there goes a hundred and some dollars down the drain.

I have learned one thing for sure in this GAME they call bowling. And I call it GAME because it is a game we are playing, like chess, and hoping we find good equipment which will last. Most of the equipment coming out of the chute leaves something to be desired and the attitude of those marketing that equipment leaves even more to be desired.

Yes, bowling is on the decline and it is on the decline, not because of the sport itself, but because of the attitude, the defiant apathy of the people who run their little greedy businesses, and because they just do not seem to give a you know what for us out here who keep them in business.

Well, time to go! I have to try to figure out a way to carry my equipment to the center tonight when I bowl. Two days ago, one of my main problems was to figure WHICH balls to take to which center. Now my problem has changed to HOW to carry those balls to the centers. I might wear that wrist band, you know, the one where the threads and material separated and I now have two wristbands where there was one. What about that tape I wanted to put in the thumb, you know, the tape lost its adhesian and I have to find a way to stick in the thumbhole. But wait, maybe I can clean the ball with the cleaner I paid an arm and a leg for, which may be half full of water or actually has rubbing alcohol as a base.

I will close with one major thought: with the decline in quality in bowling equipment, it makes me wonder why the manufacturers of LANE OIL might not move in the same direction as the manufacturers of balls, bags, etc. And thusly, they their oil may be water-based or whatever, and maybe, just maybe, that needs to be checked out also.

Bowl for the fun of it! Enjoy yourself! And remember what it is like because one day bowling may be a thing of the past. Those who should be paying the most attention to the sport and those producing products for the sport seem to be interested in other things and they seem to have put integrity, quality, and common sense on the back burner, if they have any of these qualities.