Shayna Ng and the New PWBA Season

Hearty congratulations to Singapore's Shayna Ng for capturing the first title of the 2018 PWBA season at Las Vegas' South Point Bowling Plaza in the PWBA Las Vegas Open on April 28. As a paragon of consistency, she was in first place after the first and second rounds, third place after the third, and the second seed for the stepladder finals in which she defeated Hall-of-Famer Leanne Hulsenberg 193-167 and top seed Diana Zavjalova 231-211 for her first PWBA title.

After watching most of the action live on the webcasting service PBA Xtra Frame, all I can say is that players not on Team Singapore's 9-player juggernaut are fortunate that the Singapore Slingers, as I fondly call them, are scheduled to compete in only the first two tournaments of the season due to commitments back home. If not for that, they could very well crowd out many of their competitors for cash and titles. For in the Las Vegas Open, they held 7 of the top 32 spots above the cash line after the first round of eight games, six of the top 32 after the second round with two more players just out of the cut for the Cashers round of 32, and 3 spots in the final round of 12. Given the depth and quality of the field, I think that's pretty impressive.

I plan to drive to Rohnert Park, CA to watch the PWBA Sonoma County Open this Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5, and blog about my experience there. I was very disappointed to learn that the PWBA wouldn't be stopping at my home (and much closer) house of Steve Cook's Fireside Lanes just outside Sacramento, CA this season as they did the past three seasons. But if the PWBA won't come to me, I guess I'll have to go to them at least once this season, because I love watching these awesome lady bowlers that much. And the fabulous Singapore ladies will garner a considerable share of my attention because they're THAT good.

If you can, I heartily recommend that you join me there. If you can't, please watch the livestreaming on PBA Xtra Frame. You'll be glad you did.

2013 USBC Queens Televised Finals

Why Weren't the 2011 U.S. Women's Open Finals Shown Live?

I know who won the U.S. Women's Open last night, and I'd love to be able to write about it here today. But I don't want to spoil it for any of you who wish to wait until you watch the show tomorrow to find out. If you read this blog, you probably know already or will know well before the show airs, but I still don't want to risk spoiling it for anyone.

Of course, if this were not a blog about bowling, and I wanted to write about what happened in the finals of the U.S. Women's Open in tennis or golf the morning after, I wouldn't need to wait. It would likely have been shown live on one of the major networks, and sports headlines around the country if not the world would have blared the results minutes afterward.

But, as we all know, that's not how it is with bowling. Bowling is the Rodney Dangerfield of sports. More people do it on some level or other than probably any other sport, but it "don't get no respect" by the media or, it seems, by the public at large.

That being said, I'm puzzled by something. Bowling may not get much respect, but we're still taking here about the U.S. Women's Open. Not only that, but we're talking about a U.S. Women's Open finals held in the grandest venue--Cowboys Stadium--in which ANY bowling tournament, men's or women's, has EVER been held. Not only that, but it attracted the largest field of any U.S. Women's Open ever, almost 300, from 17 countries, and offered the richest prize fund ever. And to top all that off, it offered a monumental $1 million to anyone who shot 300 in the championship match.

It seems to me that the sponsors of this great tournament--the BPAA and Ebonite International--pulled out all the stops to build interest in this wonderful tournament and its stepladder finals and to draw viewers to television coverage of the finals except for the one measure that might have been the most effective. They were unable or unwilling to do whatever it took to have the finals shown live instead of two days after they took place.

Now just how many people do you think are going to spend Saturday afternoon or evening (depending on your time zone) of a Fourth of July weekend watching a women's bowling tournament of which almost everyone who'd be likely to watch already knows the results? And how many people do you think are going to be drawn to watch by the prospect of seeing whether someone wins the $1 million if they already know whether or not someone won it two days go?

Yes, hardcore bowling fans and bloggers like me will watch no matter what. Besides, I have a horse, so to speak, in the race. Leanne Hulsenberg and her husband Gary bowl league and have a pro shop in my home house. Of course, I want this already legendary bowler to win the one women's major that has so far eluded her during her remarkable career. But there apparently aren't too many like me. As I wrote yesterday, even the preponderance of fairly serious bowlers and self-proclaimed bowling fans appear to be afflicted with a chronic case of the ho-hums. So how many of THEM are going to watch the finals on a holiday weekend or even record it to watch it later when they already know who won, what all the scores were, and whether or not the champion shot 300?

I don't want to be overly critical of the BPAA and Ebonite, mind you. After all, if they hadn't stepped in and rescued a tournament that the USBC abandoned after last year, there'd have been no U.S. Women's Open this year or perhaps ever again. I'm grateful to them. And if I'M grateful to them, just imagine how grateful the women are who cashed or who made the finals of the tournament!

And I'll be the first to admit that I don't know anything about securing live television time on ESPN2 or any other network any time of the day or night. Perhaps it was all but impossible to work out logistically or financially. Yet, it seems to me that there had to have been a way to show the grandest women's bowling tournament ever live, and that someone blew it somewhere, somehow in its not happening.

I don't know what the future holds for the U.S. Women's Open. But if it has a future, I hope I get to see the finals of the next one and of all the ones thereafter live on television and to blog here about them immediately thereafter.

On the off chance that you don't know who won the Open but want to know now instead of trying to hold out until you watch it tomorrow, or perhaps you won't or can't watch it tomorrow, you can click here for a recap of the finals. If you want to watch or record the finals tomorrow, they will be shown Saturday, July 2 on ESPN2 in HD at 6 PM Eastern.

Bowling's Enthusiasm Problem

Last night I bowled my sport league in the house in which Leanne and Gary Hulsenberg bowl league and have their pro shop. Given the fact that Leanne is seeded second in tonight's stepladder finals of the biggest women's bowling tournament in history, I kind of thought I might hear the place buzzing with excitement. After all, most of the people present at that time were pretty serious bowlers or solid bowling fans, and many of them knew Leanne and Gary well, were customers of theirs, or were even friends of theirs. Yet, I heard nary a word about Leanne most of the evening.

Finally, I said something about Leanne making the finals to a guy who, I think, helped Leanne and Gary get their pro shop up and running, and he responded with a very matter-of-fact and underwhelming, "Yeah, she bowled pretty well."

"Pretty well?" I said silently to myself. "She bowled fantastically well against some of the best freakin' female bowlers on the planet and is just two matches away from the biggest title in women's bowling, to be won on the grandest stage, Dallas Cowboys Stadium, in bowling history, and all you can say, in an indifferent monotone, is that she's bowled "pretty well""?

He then followed that up with a quip from a PBA star friend of his about the U.S. Women's Open shot this year being "Houseshot.com," thereby, if inadvertently, devaluing Leanne's accomplishment by suggesting that she performed it on easy conditions.

And so we have illustrated here what may be one of the biggest reasons why elite bowling and even bowling in general seem as though they may be in an inexorable death spiral: hardly anybody seems to give a sh*t. I say "seems to," because maybe, deep down, a lot of people are as excited as I am that Leanne is in the finals and about elite bowling in general, but, for some perverse reason, they don't dare let it show because it wouldn't look "cool."

Then again, maybe they really just don't give a damn, like the commentators on bowl.com who were ho-hum about a high school senior holding his own with the PBA's best in the recent Team USA tryouts for the upcoming Pan Am games. Or the scratch level junior bowlers in my "PBA Experience" league a few summers back who were too busy playing on their smartphones to watch Leanne Barrette when she threw the ball. Or the guys in my scratch league who don't know who won the PBA tournament of the week before or who's doing well on tour. Or the fans who virtually ignore Walter Ray Williams Jr. when he walks into a bowling center before a big tournament.

Am I being silly, or does bowling have a serious under-enthusiasm problem? ESPN's much maligned bowling announcer Rob Stone once sat in with the guys of PBA Xtra Frame and talked about how bowling fans need to get more solidly behind the players and show more enthusiasm, and how PBA telecasts need to rise above the somber occasions of yesteryear. I am now more and more convinced that he was right, just as I am equally convinced that his advice will continue to be ignored and even ridiculed by "bowling fans" throughout the land until the PBA has gone the way of the PWBA and all you'll be able to see in what few bowling centers remain open amidst a mass extinction of bowling centers far and wide is kiddie birthday parties and adolescent rock n' bowl.

In the meantime, I'll continue to unabashedly celebrate the sport of bowling here in this blog and brim with enthusiasm for tonight's U.S. Women's Open finals, even if I wont' be able to watch it live.

2011 U.S. Women's Open Finalists Reflect on Upcoming Finals

"I am so excited. I kind of struggled last night and struggled a little bit today physically, and so I kept looking up at the scoreboard and thinking 'How am I still in the running when I'm throwing it this bad?' So, I'm really excited to be in the show, to go bowl in the Cowboy Stadium in front of all my home crowd and just have a great time."

--Lynda Barnes

"I actually get a chance in helping to break those down and hopefully get to break them down the way that I want them. 'Advantage' is a way that YOU look at it. I'm looking at bowling the first match as an advantage."

--Shannon O'Keefe

"We've bowled at some big stadiums but nothing like this. So, it's going to be an absolutely exciting, exciting day. I'd love to make it to the final match and see what goes from there. You know it's going to be a great show regardless."

--Liz Johnson

"Very seldom have I won being in the top position. I don't look at that as a plus or as a negative. But, considering as well as I've bowled this week, I'm just going to take that as a positive, see how the lanes play...I'll have the practice pair to warm up and I'll have a few minutes before the show starts for me. So, if I get lined up quick enough, I'll be alright."

--Kelly Kulick

"It's an even playing field. There's no advantage to anyone, I think, going in there."

--Shannon O'Keefe

"This venue is new to all of us, so we're all on equal playing ground. I'm just going to try to go out there, see what the lanes are doing...hopefully they're going to be similar to what they were like all week long. If I have the same look over there like I did now, I'm going to be tough to beat."

--Kelly Kulick

"It would be icing on the cake. I've always bowled well in the U.S. Open, so it would be a dream come true."

--Leanne Hulsenberg

Bowling Quote of the Day--Leanne Hulsenberg's Gift to Her Husband

"It's really personally cool for me because my husband, we didn't meet each other until after I quit bowling when the tour ended, so he hasn't really seen me have any success in bowling. So, it's kind of going to be really cool for us tomorrow."

--Leanne Hulsenberg, on the eve of her bowling in the second seed of the stepladder finals of the 2011 U.S. Women's Open

Video Preview of Stepladder Finals of 2011 U.S. Women's Open

Tonight's the night. Not that you'll be able to see it tonight, for some unfathomable reason (more about that in an upcoming blogpost). But tonight's the night that Lynda Barnes, Shannon O'Keefe, Liz Johnson, Leanne Hulsenberg, and Kelly Kulick will meet on the grandest bowling stage in human history for the championship finals of the tournament jewel of women's bowling. And below is a USBC video preview of the participants and the glory and riches to be had.