A week ago, Big Mike (Weinert) of Sweep the Rack podcast fired up social media with his guest column offering "My beef with house shot leagues" at 11thFrame.com.

Luke Rosdahl, a Storm staffer whose ball reviews have made his YouTube page a popular page for people looking for Storm products reviews, was among the readers of Big Mike's piece, and he then offered "A less dramatic perspective on house shots."

Ohio bowling center manager and Eagle winner Jerry Kessler endorses house shots, but not all house shots, and offers his perspective in this interesting piece.

For what it's worth, I endorse Jerry's view that a puddle in the middle of the lane is a bad thing. I would argue that a soft shot without excessive hold but plenty of swing rewards better technique than a wet-dry cliff: Excessive hold can reward terrible technique, while swing without excessive hold (think of a soft short pattern) generally rewards cleaner releases and technique that gets a ball down the lane properly.

As this website has always been open for guest columns that bring value to bowling topics of interest, and the legitimacy of house shot bowling definitely is such a topic, I agreed to run Jerry's interesting perspective as I did Big Mike's and Luke's.

Not all house shot bowling is the same!

By JERRY KESSLER

First of all, thanks to Jeff Richgels for giving me 5 minutes of fame. I have read and enjoyed both guest columns by Big Mike and Luke Rosdahl. While we all have our opinions on bowling, everyone has come to those by personal experiences. All of these are vastly different. These all happen in a vacuum.

Not all house shot bowling is the same! Many house patterns are not good bowling. Often time the local bowling mechanic, GM, or proprietor keeps adding oil in the middle to appease certain bowlers. When this happens, you wind up with ‘tug of death’. When the ball track dries out, and you move left to find more skid, your ball never moves. This is what we need less of in our industry. It is possible that someone can experience this when their ball is not aggressive enough. This is also assuming the player is lined up correctly. The sad part of all this is there is much help to get a lane pattern that will yield high scores, and not become ‘cliffed’. ‘Cliffed’ describes a lane with too much dry next to too much oil. In fact, there is really no overreaction in bowling, just underreaction. Most centers put too much oil on the lanes. If you wish to look around Facebook, you can look at videos of the highest scoring house in the nation. Look up Jugs Bowling Center on Facebook. The ball hooks plenty there and the competing center All Strikes Lanes aka Glass Bowl. There is a Facebook group dedicated to lane maintenance. We also have the resource of the Kegel Pattern Library.

It is highly possible that Big Mike has formed his opinion on ‘bad house shots’. It is unfortunate that most of the centers keep throwing oil in the middle of the lane. If this is what he has based his opinion on it is unfortunate.

How we have come to this point is bewildering if you have followed bowling. We had the “System Of Bowling’ developed by the USBC a long time ago. This was to keep scoring in check and have the game still make sense. Bowling balls have continued to hook more every year. Technology has marched on unchecked. This does not mean you have to add oil to your lanes. These asymmetric balls should be used by the people with weaker releases. As an analogy, great golfers use blade irons and not cavity back game improvement clubs. As recent as 2006, the USBC OC pattern was exactly 19ml. More oil is not the fix.

In reference to the ABC allowing short oil and higher scores. When you had subjective and political lane inspectors, we had scores turned down because of customers not being liked. This had to come to an end. Locally a center had 300 consecutive weeks. The first week he turned down a 300. When he came back the next week to inspect the lanes, he returned to his car at the end of the night to find his tires cut. Were there honest lane inspectors? Yes. There were far too many with agendas. Short oil enabled people to bring out a tape measure and approve a score. It was the right thing to do at the time.

In closing, let people seek out the scoring pace they want to bowl on. Locally we have no sport leagues at this time. There was a small doubles challenge league last year. I can form the argument that having soft lanes allows people to become proficient at bowling quickly. This is a selling point to an already ailing industry. People denigrating house shot bowling does not help our industry or game.