Chris Barnes Has No Competition in the Cheetah Challenge

Chris Barnes showed up today at Fountain Valley Bowl at 5:30 PM EST with $5000 cash in his pocket, but nobody dared to take him on. That's right, PBA Xtra Frame was all set to live stream a contest in which Barnes and one or possibly more challengers each tossed $5000 into the pot and the highest scorer for three games would walk away with all the money. Yet, not even last year's Cheetah monster and champion Eugene McCune rose to the challenge.

If you recall, McCune not only won last year's Cheetah championship but obliterated the nine-game block scoring record by averaging an unbelievable 274 along the way in match play. I've posted a short video of part of that mind-boggling performance below.

Maybe all the players, fresh off a practice round, were resting physically and psyching up mentally for tomorrow's opening of the PBA Cheetah Open and didn't want to be distracted by a preliminary match with Barnes. Yet, I'm still surprised that no one went after him. Yes, $5000 is a lot of money for most of us, and underpaid bowlers are decidedly no exception. But surely there are well-to-do sponsors out there who would have been willing to take a gamble. After all, Chris Barnes, as great as he is, has not exactly shown himself to be unbeatable here of late on any lane condition. Yes, he had an excellent year last season despite the fact that he didn't win any championships, but HE DIDN'T WIN ANY CHAMPIONSHIPS and was completely out of the running in quite a number of tournaments.

Well, even though Chris didn't get to bowl against anybody, he did throw some impressive practice balls and talk with Xtra Frame announcer Mike J. Laneside and Fountain Valley Bowl resident bowling coach extraordinaire Mark Baker about his game, his equipment, and how to handle the Cheetah pattern, and it was quite illuminating. Chris Barnes has encyclopedic knowledge of bowling and bowling equipment and is very articulate in discussing it.

Any serious bowler who wants to get better and can afford $7.95 a month or $65 a year for Xtra Frame is crazy not to subscribe and start soaking up like a thirsty sponge the incredible information offered. And if you do subscribe and miss events like what I just described, you can always catch them in the archives and go over them as many times as you wish to learn everything you can and want to learn from them.

Not only that, but this season the PBA Tour will run several national tournaments that will be carried only on Xtra Frame. In the past, it has used Xtra Frame to cover qualifying and match play rounds, leaving the finals to ESPN or, in one instance, ABC to televise. But this year, only Xtra Frame will be carrying some of the finals as well. And the Cheetah Championship beginning tomorrow at Fountain Valley Bowl will be one of those tournaments that will be carried only by Xtra Frame from start to finish. Qualifying rounds begin tomorrow at noon EST, and the scoring promises to be high on the highest scoring of all the PBA "animal" patterns.

By the way, one of the things Mark Baker revealed on today's webcast was that he's just sent a book to his publisher entitled "The Game Changer." It is his first instructional book, and he says he's proud of it. Since he is widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, bowling coaches in the world, I'm guessing that serious bowlers will want to grab a copy of his book as soon as it comes out. Baker surmises that it will be out around March 15.

Bowling Bytes--5/10/10

~ The Gambler: How John Handegard gambled on his dreams and won -- "John Handegard had seen this before. A 20-something PBA Tour upstart grips the tournament trophy while Handegard packs up his gear, another week behind him, and gone with it another chance at trading in his day job at the plywood mill for a life chasing dreams around the country on Tour. This week, the “upstart” is Wayne Chester, and this will be the only PBA title he ever wins. He turns to smile for the flashing cameras, and tells the man holding the microphone that this is a “dream come true.” Chester has captured that dream at just 25 years old; Handegard, who came in second, is 40. His dream will wait another 17 years..."

~ 12-Year-Old Kamron Doyle Becomes the Youngest to Cash in a PBA Tournament -- "Twelve-year-old Kamron Doyle of Brentwood, Tenn., finished 30^th in the PBA Canton (Ga.) Open Regional tournament Sunday, becoming the youngest bowler ever to cash in a PBA event. He earned $400 which will be deposited in a scholarship account. Bowling as a non-PBA member, Doyle had a 2,797 13-game pinfall total of 215.1 average bowling in a 96-player field which included some of the top regional and national tour professional players from the organization’s South region. The event was won by 2009-10 PBA Player of the Year Walter Ray Williams Jr. Doyle is a youth bowling phenom who already holds the all-time record as the youngest bowler to roll a sanctioned 800 series (he rolled games of 279, 278, and 245 for an 802 three-game series at the age of 11 years, 2 months, and 1 day) and is also the third-youngest bowler to roll a 300 game in sanctioned competition..."

~ Xtra Frame Top Moment #3: Mixed Doubles Position Round -- "...At the start of the week, the chances of this event making our list was extremely low, mostly because the players treated this tournament with a bit more of a casual attitude than the usual event (heck, several top players even skipped it altogether). But as is always the case when you get tour players out on the lanes to decide a title, the competition heated up to a fever pitch in the position round. With Michelle Feldman and Jason Belmonte absolutely lapping the field, the position round was a battle between three teams for two spots on the telecast. In the best position were Kelly Kulick and Eugene McCune, but a final game collapse had them in jeopardy of missing the show. The teams of Tom Smallwood/Jodi Woessner and Brian Voss/Diandra Asbaty, meanwhile, were involved in a tight match in the 5-6 spots with Voss/Asbaty holding the lead heading into the 8th frame...Check out the entire position round free today on the pba.com home page, then later in the week by subscribing to Xtra Frame.

~ PBA Southwest Region Leaders through May 9, 2010

~ PBA South Region Leaders through May 10, 2010

~ Liz Johnson has another big day, leads U.S. Women's Open after Qualifying -- "Liz Johnson (left) of Cheektowaga, N.Y., posted the day's best block for the second consecutive day to take the lead in qualifying at the 2010 U.S. Women's Open, a United States Bowling Congress event. Johnson's eight-game pinfall total of 1,797 on Sunday at Cityview Lanes pushed her total to 5,307 pins (221.13 average) to give her the lead by nearly 100 pins over Kelly Kulick (right) of Union, N.J. Kulick averaged nearly 225 to lead the first two rounds of qualifying but averaged just over 201 on Sunday..."

~ Shaker Al-Hassan flies past his opponents to win ABF Tour Bahrain leg -- "Shaker Al-Hassan (pictured left9 cruised to the title in the Asian Bowling Federation Tour Bahrain leg Sunday at Funland Bowling Center in Manama, Bahrain. In the title match the UAE international flew past Yousif Falah (right), Bahrain, 279-175, to claim his fourth career title on the Tour. In the semifinal, Al-Hassan topped Ryan Lalisang, Indonesia, by 99 pins, 267-168, while Falah defeated his compatriot Fawaz Abdulla, Bahrain, 229-211..."

~ Minnesota duo takes doubles lead at USBC Open Championships -- "Three years ago, John Kreyer Jr. (right) of Fridley, Minn., made headlines with the first perfect game of the 2007 United States Bowling Congress Open Championships, and this weekend, he's back in the spotlight at the National Bowling Stadium. The 29-year-old left-hander threw 30 strikes on the way to games of 258, 279 and 279 for an 816 series and teamed up with fellow southpaw Steve Bohn (left) of Norwood, Minn., to take the Regular Doubles lead with a 1,514 total Saturday. Jeffrey Mersch of Orlando, Fla., and Erik Vermilyea of Mansfield, Texas, previously held the lead with 1,507..."

~ The 11th Frame: McCune wins PBA Regional -- "Long-time PBA Tour player and champion Eugene McCune defeated Mark London 217-146 Saturday to win the PBA Midwest Region Liberty Lanes Open in Libertyville, Ill. With Mother's Day on Sunday, the event featured a special one-day format with all 65 bowlers on one squad for seven games of qualifying and the top 16 advancing directly into bracket matches. Scores were low on the Scorpion pattern with just under a 200 average (1,398) grabbing the last cash spot and a 203 average (1,421) making match play..."

~ Born a natural: Carson sophomore has eyes on a college scholarship, PBA Tour -- You could say Joey Bowers was born to bowl. “When I was 18 months old, I had Pepsi cans set up in the hallway and I would roll a ball at them,” said the 15-year-old Bowers, who is a student at Carson High School. “My parents were in leagues and they always took me with them, so I was down there a lot. When I was 3, I was in a league.” Nearly 14 years after his hallway bowling, Bowers has turned into a dominating force on the Northern Nevada junior bowling circuit, his average ranging from 215 to 230. He also is Carson High's best bowler, and a big reason why the school has won nearly 80 straight matches against other high school teams in the area..."

First Round Match Play in Dublin

I've spent a couple of hours this morning watching live match play at the Earl Anthony Memorial Open in Dublin, California on Xtra Frame on the PBA website. As I type this, the video coverage has concluded until 2 PM PST, but game seven of a best-of-seven game match between Eugene McCune and PJ Haggerty is still unfolding, and I'm following the frame by frame scoring of it on the PBA website.

I know PJ's mom, Debbie. In fact, we just won the doubles championship of a small fall league a few weeks ago, and this is actually the second time we've done this since I moved to Sacramento and started bowling league where I do now. Debbie has been voted by Bowlers Journal as one of the top 100 bowling coaches in the USA, and she was also voted by the USBC as the top junior bowling coach in the country last year. She runs a marvelous junior program at Fireside Lanes, and she's a good person.

Her son PJ was two time collegiate bowler of the year at Fresno State and is now an exempt player and Columbia 300 staff member on the PBA tour. He hasn't been on the national tour long and hasn't made it to the TV finals yet, but maybe this week will be his week as I see that he's just defeated Eugene McCune in the round of 28 and will next face Steve Weber in a best-of-seven match in the round of 16 to be bowled later today.

One of the things I enjoyed about this morning's Xtra Frame coverage was a guy named Rob Allen who sat in with Xtra Frame commentators Mike Jakubowski and Jeff Mark and displayed his unbelievably encyclopedic knowledge of PBA tournament results over the past forty-five years. He could list every Tournament of Champions winner from the beginning in 1965, and he seemed to know who won just about every PBA tournament, where it was held, whom he beat, and what score he shot to win since that time. People watching Xtra Frame could write in and challenge Allen with trivia questions, and he was up to the challenge an overwhelming majority of the time. It was a nice trip down bowling memory lane and an amazing display of a prodigious memory.