What Makes Walter Ray Williams Great?

"How do you think he does it? I don't know. What makes him so good?"
--The Who, from the rock opera album "Tommy"

Last night I watched an ESPN Classic showing of the last ABC TV broadcast of the venerable "Pro Bowlers Tour." At the very end, Chris Schenkel was in tears and Nelson Burton Jr's voice cracked with emotion as he said "Goodbye" for the final time on that show. I suppose it could be said that that poignant moment marked the end of bowling's Golden Age.

But it marked only what might be called the middle of Walter Ray Williams' remarkable career. He had already been PBA Player of the Year three times when he graced that final episode of the "Pro Bowlers Tour" in 1997 and defeated Pete Weber for the title. Incidentally and, I think, fittingly, Pete Weber threw the very last ball on a show on which his legendary father, Dick, threw the first ball 35 years previously.

But Walter Ray Williams, who was already bowling's all-time money winner, has gone on to win three more Player of the Year honors, has been named Greatest Bowler of the 1990's and of the first decade of the new century by Bowlers Journal International, has appeared almost seventy more times on TV, has won many more titles, and has enlarged his all-time lead in money earnings.

Moreover, at the ripe old age of 50, when most professional bowlers are either retiring completely from competitive bowling or plying their trade on the much easier PBA senior tour, Walter Ray Williams, with his overpowering performance in the USBC Masters finals last Sunday, is tearing up the regular tour and dominating his young rivals by leading in virtually every category and could, at his present pace, win his unprecedented seventh Player of the Year award.

How does he do it? What DOES make him so good? Well, first of all, he has obviously kept himself in excellent shape, looking as fit and trim today as he did the first time I saw him on TV.

Second, his bowling, horseshoe, and golfing skill suggests that he has, as Hall-of-Famer Barry Asher and many others have commented, phenomenal eye-hand coordination.

Third, he seems extraordinarily able to repeat good shots under the most intense pressure.

Fourth, he's an amzingly effective spare shooter. He's been known to go entire seasons without missing even one single pin spare in competition, and I think I've seen virtually every one of his record shattering 171 televised appearances, and I don't recall him missing more than a couple of single pin spares; they don't call him "deadeye" for nothing.

Fifth, he seems to try on every shot to get the best pin count he can instead of firing throwaway shots out of frustration, boredom, or fatigue.

Sixth, he, as "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark has said, knows what's he's doing out there. He graduated from college with a physics degree and seems to have a keen grasp of bowling physics as well as the ability to translate his theoretical knowledge into winning practice.

Seventh, he really seems to love the competition. Many guys his age burn out, but he says he plans to keep at it until he's no longer exempt on tour. Of course, it could be argued that it's easy to retain your enthusiasm for the game when you're still winning and exempt. But I'm guessing that his enthusiasm is a key reason why he's continuing to do so well.

Finally, Walter Ray seems to be able to effectively play where no one else can. I know that some say he's not as versatile as a Norm Duke or Chris Barnes who can score very well and win tournaments playing just about any line imaginable, whereas Walter Ray seems to win most when he's able to play between the gutter and ten board.

But what these detractors seem to overlook is that when Williams wins a tournament playing an outside line, he's often the only one who has any success doing it. Everybody else has moved deep inside and not always because they have a lot more "hand" than Williams does. Many times, even the lower rev players can't hang out where Williams does because they just can't throw hard enough, with the right ball roll, and with enough accuracy and consistency to succeed. "Walrer Ray is [uniquely] able to make the condition play to him rather than him playing to the condition," says Jeff Mark. "One reason he is able to play there is that he rolls the ball so early on the lane that it does not get affected as much by the patterns as other people's balls do when it goes through the same spot. So, because his ball rolls so early, it doesn't really over or under see anything. And that's why he's able to get in that zone [on the lane] where he has hold right and hook left," which is the opposite of the hook right and hold left condition that everybody else looks for.

In less technical terms, it's not that Walter Ray can prevail only on lanes that let him play outside. He has the uncanny ability to effectively play outside when no one else can, and, because others aren't playing out there too and messing up his line, he can stay there longer with a good reaction, and his entry angle to the pocket from out there carries strikes as well if not better than the shots of the much higher rev players.

And it's not like he can do this only on a limited range of oil patterns and types of oil with limited kinds of equipment the way we've seen with some bowlers who were hot for a short time when conditions smiled on their games and when they didn't, we never heard from these bowlers again. Walter Ray has been Player of the Year in three different decades going on four through all kinds of oil patterns, oil compositions, and types of bowling balls.

Of course, none of this explains how Walter Ray is able to be so accurate, consistent, and everything else under all that pressure. That's something we'll want to explore in more detail as we learn more about the physical and psychological elements of bowling excellence, not only in Walter Ray's case but in general. Because as self-improvement guru Tony Robbins says, your best chance of achieving your goals is to emulate the qualities and actions of others who have achieved them already. Thus, if you want to be a good bowler, find out what makes great bowlers great and try to be what they are and to do what they do.

In other words, don't be like Mike. Be like Walter.