I'm trying to create a database for my bowling league. I've found it quite difficult to try and come up with a design and still get the information I need. I think I've got something quite close to the mark and wondered if you could take a look and give me some suggestions.

If you need more info to put the diagram in context then I'd be happy to provide.

Cheers
Rich

Edit: I've realised this is useless without some supporting info, so I'll try to get some noted down and re-post this a bit later today.

OK, here's the supporting info...

A team consists of three bowlers.
A match consists of six series' (one for each bowler of each team).
A series consists of three games.

Each bowler's score is logged in the score table (one row for each game) and is linked by the series_id to the series table. This allows me to tie up the scores with the bowler, team and match.

I think this should work, but wondered if I need to split anything else out or if it's fairly well normalized.

A bowler can only be on one team?
You are storing "Bowler_ID" and "Opponent_ID" in a table? Does that mean you are going to duplicate the same record for the opponent, with the roles reversed?
I'll warn you that modeling a game/sports type of database can be tricky, especially if you are tracking leagues and teams as well.

That's correct.
Yes, that was the plan. It didn't seem right to me, but I couldn't think of another way to do it. Any ideas? That's why I added the score table, in order to remove any additional duplicate data in that table.
I'm starting to realise that, but I'm sure I can handle it, just need to get the basics down.

Cheers
Rich

Drop the Bowler_ID and Opponent_ID from your Series table.
Drop the Score table. Replace it with a SeriesBowlers table where you store two records for each Series (one for each Bowler in the series). That record will include the Bowler_ID, their handicap, their score, etc.

OK, I think I've made the changes that you suggested.

I've renamed the tables slightly so they reflect the data that's in them a little better.

The series table contains the bowler, scores, and handicaps (the actual series date) and they're linked to the sub_match table which is in essence the match of two individuals, one from each team, and that in turn links to the match table which is the everall match of the two teams.

See the revised attached document.

If "Series" is the commonly used term, then I would stick with that rather than "sub-match".
I would recommend you drop the "Team_Members" table if you are only going to allow bowlers to be in one team, and instead include Team_ID in the Bowlers table. Of course, this one-to-one relationship means that you will need to create a new database each year, or a new entry for each bowler if they switch teams.
Having "Game_One_Score", "Game_Two_Score", "Game_Three_Score" in your Bowler_Series table is a little tenuous from the standpoint of normalization, but acceptable if there will ALWAYS be three games in each series (IE, that is one of the rules of bowling...is it?).

A series is the term for the total pin fall of three games. So that's why that table was renamed.

There isn't really a term for when one player plays another, so I called it sub-match as it's part of the overall match of one team playing another.

I was beginning to think that the team_members table seemed a little redundant and think I will remove it.

Finally, there are always three games in a series and it's not possible to have less. If someone only bowls two (maybe they get injured half way through) then their average is used in the third game.

Thanks for all this help.

How about "Pairing".

That'll do me

Cheers
Rich

OK,

Here's the re-jig and I think I might try sticking some data in it and running a few queries and see how it works out and how easy it is to get along with.

Cheers
Rich

I'm concerned about your Match<Pairing<Series tables.
A match can have more than one pairing. OK.
A pairing can have more than one series. OK.
But will the individual bowlers within a single pairing change from on series to the next? What, exactly, is "Pairing" pairing up? I thought it was pairing two bowlers for a series.

This is correct, a match will have three pairings.
Partially correct, each bowler only bowls one series, but the pairing is to link the series' of two bowlers, so as far as the pairing table is concerened, it's a 1:m relationship.