Drill bit size requirement on Balance Holes

Question
Question: I had a customer go to Open Nationals and he was told his balance hole was too small. The drill bit I used for his balance hole was 11/16. He did not need very much weight taken out. I knew that there was a size requirement on the big end (1 1/4), but did not know about the size on the small end (?). The ball was legal when I weighed it. Has there been changes made that I may not know about? I am very upset that they do not have One weigh master doing this job at the tournaments...ie: Open Nationals. I take my job very seriously and was quite upset when he told me this happened. They don't seem to really know their jobs as well as they should. I was there two weeks prior and had to show the person weighing that you could take out weight in the finger holes instead of making the balance bigger.

Answer
Melanie,
The "experts" at Nationals are often local volunteers that (sometimes) must be trained about EVERYTHING. Sometimes they don't know ANYTHING (but get to wear the cool jackets, cause they got nothing better to do). When given responsibilities, there is an expectation of knowledge. Rather than just ask someone the volunteers feel compelled to answer questions whether they know or not. Sorry to say. Most are wonderful, helpful, thoughtful of the competitors. The tourney couldn't run (profitably) without them.

I hope one of the commercial operators didn't suggest the hole was too small (to make a buck).

There is a max (1 1/4inch in size as you mentioned), but no minimum (per the USBC Rules).

I'd suggest that my scale, which gets rebalanced every month may be more correct than those at the Nationals. Nor sure if they rebalance often, but I know they've made mistakes in the past. (One scale reads over, one reads fine!)

Don't be upset. But I'd suggest you rebalance your scale more often. Thanks for the questions.