Making Bowling Tougher Critics Want Stiffer Challenge From Sport That Is Too Easy

Bowling has gotten too easy.

The solution? Make it harder.

Gary Badders, vice president of the Dayton Bowling Association, is forming a league in which bowlers would have to cope with varying lane conditions, dramatically increasing the skills required.

While adding difficulty might appall those who routinely roll gutter balls or have never nailed a 7-10 split, Badders says bowling needs a new challenge - especially for serious bowlers. “We want to try to bring the integrity back to the sport,” he said.

High scores are increasingly common throughout the country. National records for the past 20 years indicate the number of “honors scores” per bowler - 300 games or 800 series, for example - has increased dramatically.

The American Bowling Congress, which has 4 million members, awarded more than 51,000 honor scores in 1995-96. That’s one for every 82 bowlers. In 1976-77, it was 1 in 3,140 bowlers.

“The challenge is gone from bowling,” said ABC group executive Jack Mordini, from Milwaukee, who participates in one of just two leagues in the country that vary lane conditions.

Exactly how would officials make bowling more difficult? Oil.

By varying the amount of oil used on the lane, and by increasing or decreasing how close to the pins the oil is used, proprietors can change the way a ball acts.

For example, a bowler who is used to curving the ball a certain way would face a lane where the ball might curve too late. He would have to vary his “shot” to overcome the lane conditions.

To be sure, making things more difficult speaks mostly to the serious bowler. It is the dwindling popularity of the sport and need to market casual bowling that has encouraged proprietors to make their lanes “bowler-friendly.”

Lane conditions are also very similar from center to center. Easy lanes and better equipment have led to inflated scores, officials say.

“The conditions most leagues bowl with don’t challenge bowlers,” Mordini said.

But Jeff Willin speaks for the masses. “My one night of bowling a week is my night to be a superstar,” he said. “I have trouble all week at work, I don’t want trouble on the lanes.”

Willin, 36, who has bowled since the second-grade, added, “It’s easy, but we like bowling when it’s easy. I don’t want to have to work hard for my score.”