Leanne Barrette-Hulsenberg is one of the finest female bowlers of all time. She won 26 PWBA titles over a seventeen year period and might well have won many more if not for the demise of the PWBA in 2003. Only three other women in history won over $1 million on tour. She was PWBA Rookie of the Year in 1987, PWBA Player of the Year and BWAA Bowler of the Year in 1991, is a member of the USBC Hall of Fame, and she's appeared over 100 times in televised bowling competition. And while the folding of the PWBA ended her full-time professional bowling career, she hasn't given up the sport by any means.
She and her husband, PBA member and former Ebonite district manager Gary Hulsenberg, own The Strike Shop, a bowling pro shop at Fireside Lanes in Citrus Heights, CA, and Leanne has continued to make her mark in recent national bowling competition, having completed a USBC women's Open "grand slam" and placed 14th in last years's U.S. Women's Open despite the fact that she doesn't bowl nearly as much as she used to.
Leanne also bowls in Fireside Lanes' Steve Cook Classic league and recently rolled her highest sanctioned series ever, an 855 on games of 289-298-268. That's just three pins shy of the house record held jointly by Steve Cook, P.J. Haggerty, and Dave Seiler.
And now Leanne is preparing for a trip to Texas to compete in this year's U.S. Women's Open. She's been working on some physical aspects of her game, trying out different bowling balls and layouts, and bowling tournaments to get herelf as sharp as possible. I'm sure her many fans, myself included, will be rooting for her to do well and make it to the televised finals to be held in the Dallas Cowboys stadium.
If you'd like to read more about Leanne, check out this article on the Ebonite "In The Spotlight" page, and you can view her 2006 match with Liz Johnson below.
