Kelly Kulick's Historic Victory

Kelly had a great week, defeating several of the top-ranked men bowlers in the world, and hopefully she can truly enjoy the moment and appreciate how it is not only a big deal in bowling, but a major moment in her life and potentially the lives of others.
--Billie Jean King

This may be the greatest performance I've ever seen given the circumstances.
--Randy Pedersen

You talk about a dream come true...you can't explain it...I'm speechless.
--Kelly Kulick

I’ve been bowling and watching professional bowling for closer to fifty years than forty. I’ve seen just about every great moment in televised PBA history from Billy Hardwick's inaugural TOC title to the first 300 game to Don Johnson’s heartbreaking solid 10-pin in the twelfth frame to Mark Roth’s 7-10 split conversion to Liz Johnson’s second place finish to Jason Belmonte's two-handed triumph last year to, well, you name it. But I can truthfully say, even 24 hours after it occurred and with the heat of my excitement now cooled somewhat by the sobering reality of the sports world’s relative indifference to bowling and to what transpired yesterday, that Kelly Kulick’s steely stellar performance in bowling's equivalent of the PGA Masters, after an almost equally impressive showing two nights before, rises to the top of the list. It was magnificent, it was thrilling, it was moving (I think I saw tears of joy in the legendary Carmen Salvino’s eyes after he congratulated Kelly after the final match, and, for the record, there were in mine too), and it WAS historic for the great sport of bowling. As PBA Xtra Frame's "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark excitedly exclaimed after the match, "Our sport will not be the same after today...There's going to be a media wave after today like you've never seen before!"

What was so impressive about Kelly Kulick's 227-223 defeat of "Major" Mike Koivuniemi in the semi-final match and 265-195 crushing of the unofficial world's greatest bowler, Chris Barnes, to win the hugely prestigious title is that she really earned her championship. She bowled all week against a formidable field of some of the greatest male professional bowlers, past and present, of all time and dominated it most of the time. And, as pba.com writer Jason Thomas explains in his column today, it wasn't necessarily a matter of the lanes unusually favoring her softer woman's game over those of the more powerful male players: "This week’s lane conditions favored no one and allowed bowlers to play just about any place on the lane that they felt comfortable," Thomas writes. He proceeds to put Kulick's performance in striking perspective with the following: "It was like Annika Sorenstam beating the men in The Masters at a fully stretched out Augusta National."

Kulick's effort yesterday was a monumental performance under unimaginable pressure. What's more, Kulick showed tremendous class and poise in her interviews after she won the title. Aside from being a great bowler, Kelly Kulick is one intelligent, earnestly articulate, gracious, and seriously focused young lady who is a remarkable credit to bowling and to professional sports in general with her exemplary character and demeanor.

I really hope that the predictions of people like Jeff Mark come true and that Kulick's victory brings to bowling the attention and appreciation it deserves. Jason Thomas reports in his column that "as of Monday morning she was the #1 most searched item on Google and Yahoo!’s home pages." I hope this lasts long enough to help rekindle an interest in women's and men's professional bowling that securely removes them from the brink of extinction. And, in any case, the proverbial sky is now the limit for bowling's new superstar, Kelly Kulick.

Odds and Ends

* Kulick's ball rep reported in an interview with Jeff Mark on PBA Xtra Frame after the tournament that Kulick used an Ebonite Mission with the pin down to win the title and, as I understood him, that she used the same ball with various layouts and, perhaps, surface adjustments throughout the week.

* When Xtra Frame's Jeff Mark asked Kulick about her match with Barnes, she said, "The lanes broke down to the advantage of me. My hand just was able to clear the ball through the front part of the lane really well, and the ball just pounded the pocket." And when Mark commented that she "had such a good look all week" and asked if she "did anything different than before," she replied, "Somebody told me instead of trying to change my hand, change balls. So I really just tried to keep the same hand position all week long and go from ball to ball to give me the better reaction."

* In her interview with Xtra Frame announcer Mike Jakubowski, Kulick commented that she was so nervous she couldn't feel her legs most of the day but that winning that first match with Mika built her confidence and enabled her to "groove into the lane" and throw all those strikes by focusing not on beating Chris but on executing and knocking down the pins.

* Randy Pedersen commented during the televised action that Kulick had the crowd behind her all week and that this surely helped her. When ESPN announcer Rob Stone asked him to quantify how much this helps a bowler, Peterson replied that it was probably worth about 12 pins a game. And Kulick herself acknowledged during her interview with Jakubowski the importance of the crowd's support when she said, "By far the secret to my success this week was the crowd. I mean they were behind me from the get go from match play on, and here today it was the energy from you guys out there that really carried me over."