You have to admire Chad Murphy’s chutzpah when it comes to hiding lane patterns at the USBC Open Championships, although I have to concede it could be that he’s simply dense enough not to understand the absurdity of his position.

During the Town Hall portion of the Annual Meeting at the 2024 USBC Convention back in April, the USBC Executive Director was asked about hiding the lane patterns.

“The simple answer to that is we survey on that every year,” Murphy said. “And I answer the question the same every time I get it. We survey on that question every year. And until the survey data flips, i.e. more people want the patterns posted then don't. Because currently, the survey is very clear that the rule that we have is the way that a majority of the tournament bowlers want it. And so until that flips, we likely would not make that change.”

You can listen at just after the 2-hour mark of this BowlTV archive.

The absurdity comes in the “When did you stop beating your wife” form of the question USBC asks. 

Here is how USBC worded the question in the survey of 2024 Open Championships competitors:
“The Open Championships lane patterns being kept secret and not revealed until after the tournament helps create a more level playing field for all competitors.”

Laughably biased questions are only a slice of the shamelessness of USBC when it comes to its surveys under Murphy.

As I wrote in this story after the post-2021 Open Championships survey results were released, USBC has gone so far as to lump neutral responses in with positive responses because, of course, someone who has no opinion of something definitely is taking a positive view of it. (Mercifully, it has stopped that garbage.)

As I detailed in this story, that was the case in 2018 when USBC simply asked if “I preferred having lane patterns secret and not revealed until after the event.” Instead of releasing the three individual results or agree, disagree, and no opinion, USBC combined agree and no opinion (65 percent) and compared that to disagree (35 percent).

If the results were, say, 15 percent agree, 50 percent no opinion and 35 percent disagree, what would that say about the popularity of hiding lane patterns? I have a feeling something like that was the result, so USBC did the combination to cover up the actual result.

And division breakdown would be huge with this question, as I'd wager few Standard or Classified players care about the issue.

USBC did say that “It is noted that bowlers whose league average was 210+ had the highest percentage (46%) of respondents who disagreed with having lane patterns remain secret during the event when compared to the overall group. It can be reasonably inferred that more competitive bowlers prefer to know the lane patterns and conditions during the event to better their performance and score at the Open Championships.”

It also can reasonably be inferred that better bowlers know that transparency is the fairest way to hold a competition, especially one where some people can watch others compete and/or have access to inside help from, for example, the ball companies some are on staff with.

But kudos to USBC for admitting that nearly half of the Regular bowlers thought its practice was wrong. 

And as I detailed in this story, in 2019. USBC changed the question when it stopped the comical practice of combining agree and no opinion answers, showing that it does seem to have a level of shame that causes it to change its practices.

Of course, it did something just as egregious by asking the incredibly leading question of whether bowlers “agreed the lane patterns being kept secret, and not revealed until after the tournament, helps create a more level playing field for all competitors.” (It actually does the opposite, because it creates an even greater advantage for those who can attend the tournament and connected players like ball company staffers who have access to far more information.)

USBC reported that 27.14% of bowlers still disagreed, not that far off the 35 percent of 2018, even with an incredibly leading question no reputable polling firm would ask. Again, Regular bowlers had the lowest approval of hidden lane patterns at 49%, compared to 59% for Standard and 63% for Classified, USBC reported.

USBC asked the same question after the 2021 tournament, and 27% either were strongly disagree or disagree, no change from 2019.

After the 2022 USBC Open Championships, competitors were asked “if keeping the lane patterns a secret and not revealing them until after the conclusion of the Open Championships helped create a more level playing field for all competitors” — the same question with slightly different words.

The answers were 15.5% strongly disagree, 11.6% disagree, 17.9% neutral, 31.3% agree, and 23.8% strongly agree.

USBC also broke down the results by Division combining the top two and bottom two categories of answers. And the Regular Division negative grew from 35% in 2019 and 34% in 2021, to 39% in 2022, while the positive fell from 49% and 49% to 43%.

Now imagine if neutral wording was used for the question, as a reputable polling organization would:
“Would you prefer Open Championships lane patterns be revealed a month before the tournament starts or hidden until after the tournament is over?” The answers would be revealed, don’t care, hidden.

The month in advance is a crucial piece because that kind of time frame is necessary for competitors at the start of the tournament to have a chance to form a game plan and ship bowling balls. There is no equity for them in releasing the pattern a few days before the tournament starts.

Now imagine the results if competitors were asked whether they would support revealing the lane patterns before the tournament if it would be accompanied by bringing back webcasts of the competition.

But I won’t even go that far with the wager I’m offering Murphy and USBC.

I will put up $1,000 for USBC charities — I donate to Bowl for the Cure, BVL, and the IBMHOF every year but not to that level — if Murphy will put the hidden lane patterns policy on the lane.

My conditions for the bet are simple.

The question will be: “Would you prefer Open Championships lane patterns be revealed a month before the tournament starts or hidden until after the tournament is over?” The answers would be revealed, don’t care, hidden.

All competitors will be surveyed, but the bet is determined by the results of Regular division bowlers. (USBC can put out different patterns for Standard and Classified and hide them if it wants — transparency only matters in the battle for the real Eagles in the Regular division.)

A reputable polling firm USBC and I both agree to will do the survey and provide me complete access to everything about the survey, along with transparency in answering questions about the survey. And I get to decide if these terms are being met.

If revealed beats hidden, USBC' policy becomes posting the patterns for at least the Regular division one month before the next Open Championships begins.

If hidden beats revealed, I will donate $1,000 to USBC charities however Murphy and the organization want it divided up. (This will come on top of what I've already donated this year.)

Murphy famously says USBC follows the data. The problem is that USBC goes out of the way to skew that data to suit its desires.

Let’s get real data from a neutral question and have USBC follow it.