The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has apparently joined all other area newspapers in the elimination of local bowling coverage, but if anything, space allotted to local golf has increased.
Since the last of Jason Swancey's bowling columns appeared in the Herald-Tribune on Sunday, Nov. 25, a full 977 column inches of space has been given to local golf scores on the H-T Scoreboard pages.
While sports editor Scott Peterson apparently considers local league bowling reports unwanted or unnecessary, his pages devoted 275½ inches to local golf scores in December, followed by 287½ inches in January and 336½ inches in February.
Therefore, even when a local bowler rolls a perfect game or an 800 series, such scores go unreported, but daily listings continue for such golf activities as best balls, scrambles and quota points events.
If you'd like to see newspaper mention of a bowler rolling a 300 game, winning a local tournament or placing high on the leaderboard in a state tournament, forget about it. But if you're interested in which foursome finished third in a low net competition at a local golf course, the Herald-Tribune is the place to look.
No shortage of golf coverage
If you go to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Web site (www.heraldtribune.com) and click on Sports, you can access numerous golf columns written by Mark Cardon over the past 12 months, and you can also call up more than 30 tennis columns written by Mic Huber over the same time frame. As for bowling, there is no mention of it anywhere.
Not only that, the Herald-Tribune has set up a main golf page within its Web site that can be accessed by clicking here.
On that all-encompassing golf page, there is the following statement: Welcome to HT Golf, a new Herald-Tribune website devoted entirely to local golf. It includes a course guide with reviews, local golf news and photos, event and tournament information, prep and league results along with course pricing specials. Plus feature stories, blogs and tournament coverage by H-T Golf's Tom Balog and much more.
In addition, visitors to the Web site's golf page can view all of the daily reports on various leagues, events and holes-in-one from area courses that also take up daily space in the print version of the Herald-Tribune. For a sample of one of those daily reports, click here.
It's obvious to to see how the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's local golf coverage compares to its local bowling coverage. It's more than a lopsided advantage for golf over bowling, because every inch devoted to golf is more space than has been allotted to bowling in more than three months.
The Herald-Tribune, along with most other area newspapers, used to provide ample space for local bowling. It was never the amount devoted to local golf, but it was more than adequate coverage, nevertheless.
Some may argue that bowling doesn't deserve newspaper coverage, but the recent ratio of golf-to-bowling space -- 977 inches to zero inches -- is ridiculous, and it's unfair to local bowlers, to say the least.
Examiner.com columnists continue to provide local bowling coverage
Even though area newspapers no longer provide space for local bowling coverage, Examiner.com columnists do their best to keep members of their respective bowling communities informed.
Bill Herald provides regular articles to serve the Sarasota-Manatee-Charlotte County area, while Celeste Oneill capably reports on St. Petersburg area bowling.
People who want to stay informed with regard to area bowling can subscribe -- free of charge -- to either of those Examiner.com bowling writers and receive e-mail notification each time an article is published.
To do so, simply click on "Subscribe" on the following profile links. For Bill Herald's columns, click here, and to subscribe to Celeste Oneill's articles, click here.
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