Six of us braved the cold Wednesday to participate in our inaugural outing for the season. Since we've all been working hard the past year to improve, I've thrown out last years averages and handicaps and for the first couple of weeks we will be bowling "scratch" and establishing brand new handicaps. Initially we have an relatively small sample size, but here are a couple of interesting highlights:
Dude finished last season with a 131 average. Remember "Dude" is a composite of all of our averages. Dude is starting the new year with a (...drum roll please) 131 average! What does that suggest? Nothing really, it's only one day of bowling without even half our members posting a single score yet. And, no one had a super great day, and no one had a tragic day, so all of the averages are reasonably close to where we left off after the full Season I. Funny how that worked out!
Two things that will change in Season II is how teams will be assigned and how handicaps are calculated. First, to remove the burden of creating "randomness" from myself, I'm proposing a blind lot draw at the bowling alley. Today, I drew two names, Todd and myself, at random to become Team Captains. Then the Captains drew blindly, their teams. Today's test seemed to work well enough, and once handicaps are assigned, this objectively random lot draw should create even teams (in theory). Second, in the past, handicaps were 90% of the difference between the bowler's average and the league "standard score". That was an unfair burden to the teams bowling with "Dude", because he could never cover that lost 10%, whereas the opposing team's bowlers, if they had a good game/set, could. So this season, everyone, including Dude, gets 100% of the difference as their handicap. And where Dude can never bowl better than his average, he will also never bowl worse, which should statistically average out for all of his team play over time.
Now for today's results. I'm including the team results (just because) but I wouldn't read too much into them because we've not balanced the teams with handicaps yet.
Although "Random Team I" managed to take 3 of the 4 games (remember the 4th game is the total of the first three), the final totals were separated by less than 80 pins.
This week's individual results, and consequently, also the overall results for Season II since there's been only one outing:
As I pointed out earlier, although there have been a couple of improvements, there were no really significant individual changes. I will highlight that my spreadsheet rounds out all of the decimal points on averages, however Cary did manage to beat out Doug in our overall league standings by a whopping .33 pins on average, or 1 pin overall as shown on the gross totals. And, of course, since we're not adding in handicaps yet, there are no "NET" totals or results.
So what does it all mean? Basically, Cary's new bowling shirt and my new lighter bowling balls just didn't make that big of a difference today. Oh well, there's always next week...
Until then, stay warm and safe!
R-
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