Last year, Kelly Kulick could seemingly do no wrong. She enjoyed what was arguably the greatest season any bowler has ever had. I certainly can't think of a female bowler ever having a greater season than Kelly's last year when she won the PBA Tournament of Champions, the Women's U.S. Open, the USBC Queens, a PBA regional championship, the Malaysian Open, and placed high in other important national and international tournaments and led the women in virtually all statistical categories. It was a spectacular season by any reasonable person's standards.
This year has been more challenging. Kulick made it to match play but finished 49th in the TOC, made it to match play but got eliminated fairly early in the Queens, and has reported some trouble with her physical game. Yet, she still has the Women's U.S. Open ahead of her, and lest you think her best bowling is behind her, take a look at her recent performances in the 2011 Team USA Women's Pan American Trials at the International Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas. Kulick asserted complete dominance over her fellow Women's Team USA members on all four international oil patterns put out for them.
Now that's versatility for you and proof positive that Kelly Kulick is still a bowling force to be roundly reckoned with.
You can read the USBC's press release about the Pan American Trials here and watch videos of all four eight game blocks below.
"This is an incredible moment for both women’s sports and the bowling industry and an opportunity for Bowling’s U.S. Women’s Open to rightfully take center stage before worldwide audiences. Bowling’s U.S. Women’s Open is an event that sits at the pinnacle of women’s athletics. It’s both thrilling and gratifying that this event and its great women athletes – who I am proud to call my competitors – will be catapulted into the spotlight in 2011."
--Kelly Kulick
If you want to learn more about next year's Women's U.S. Open, you can click here to see the official BPAA press release about it.
Here's a great news flash hot off the presses or, rather, off redoubtable Jeff Richgels' The 11th Frame bowling blog: There WILL be a U.S. Women's Open in 2011. Since the USBC won't be sponsoring it, it will be sponsored by Ebonite and held in the Dallas area in June. For more details, click here to read Richgels' article.
If you love bowling, you had an embarrassment of bowling riches to enjoy today.
First was the final 8 games of qualifying of the U.S. Women's Open live-streamed on Bowl.com and Ustream.com from Ft. Worth, Texas. Liz Johnson started out like a proverbial house afire and overtook longtime leader Kelly Kulick early on to sit atop the leaderboard at the end of the 24 games of qualifying. The top 24 who made the cut to bowl match play Monday and Tuesday include Kelly Kulick (2nd), Shannon O'Keefe (4th), Tennelle Milligan (5th), Lynda Barnes (6th), Leanne (Barrette) Hulsenberg (8th), Stefanie Nation (10th), Michelle Feldman (14th), Kim Terrell-Kearney (17th), defending champion Tammy Boomershine (18th), Tish Johnson (19th), Carolyn-Dorin Ballard (20th), and three Singaporean bowlers.
From what I hear, they'll bowl 12 games of match play Monday, 12 games Tuesday, all carried live online, and then there will be a stepladder final broadcast live Wednesday on ESPN2 at 9 PM EDT. And you should be able to watch part or all of the qualifying rounds online whenever you wish if you missed it live.
As if that weren't enough, PBA Xtra Frame carried the match play and final rounds of the PBA South Region Canton Open live from Canton, Georgia. One remarkable story in this tournament was a 12-year-old boy named Kamron Doyle of Brentwood, Tenn. He not only bowled in the tournament but came in 30th in the field of 94 and cashed, averaging around 213 as I recall.
What was even more remarkable is that this boy didn't look like me when I was 12, yet he still managed to bowl so well. I was 6'4 at that age. This kid looks more like 10-years-old, yet, he threw his 14 pound ball amazingly well and hung in there with some of the top pros in the Southern region. I can't wait to see how good he becomes over the next few years! And you can see how good he looks now by checking out Xtra Frame's archived coverage of today's Cashier's round. You can see a lot of him at around the 40 minute mark.
But I suppose the biggest story of all in this tournament was who won. If you want to find out who it was, all you need to know is that Walter Ray Williams Jr. bowled. I'll leave it at that, except to say that the winner shot 270+ in the final match. :-)
And if this wasn't enough to sate your bowling appetite, ESPN2 rebroadcast the men's and women's USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships. I don't know if ESPN2 will show it again or if you'll be able to catch it online, but I'll let you know if it does or if you can.
What a great bowling day this was. Happy Mother's Day to all.
~ On my Bowling Quote of the Day for May 3, I quoted renowned bowling coach Fred Borden on the importance of moving fast enough on the approach and through the armswing to generate sufficient ball speed to hit the pins with more energy and better carry. I think many of us are too slow and deliberate with our games, and this results in our throwing the ball too slowly to be as effective as we could be, or we mistakenly try to increase our ball speed by forcing it with our upper body.
I think I've tended to throw the ball too slowly over the years (click here to see a fairly recent video of me throwing the ball slowly, even though I did get a strike). So I mentioned that I've recently upped the tempo of my approach and armswing and have been pleased with the effortlessly extra speed and better carry it's created. I tried it out in league this week and got good results and even threw 22 strikes in a row in practice after league as I alternated lanes. That's encouraging. Now if I can also work with a coach to successfully increase my revs and alter my axis tilt and all that fancy stuff, it should dramatically improve my scoring on a variety of lane conditions.
~ When I was growing up, I kept seeing the name Elvin Mesger as the guy with the most sanctioned 300 games. He was THE 300 god to me back then. When you're a kid who loves to bowl, you really look up to records and to the people who set them. But I never knew what Mr. Mesger looked like until this week when I saw his photo on Dr. Jake's Bowling History Blog. Now I know. He looked like a serious bowler who could get the job done.
~ As you may know, the Women's U.S. Open is now taking place in Ft. Worth Texas and the finals will be televised live next Wednesday on ESPN2 at 9 PM EDT. It should come as no surprise that Kelly Kulickleads the tournament after the first 8-game round.
What may surprise if not shock you if you haven't been reading my blog or bowling news from somewhere or other is that the USBC recently announced that they won't be sponsoring the Women's Open in 2011 due to a budget shortage. That's right, they say they can't afford to give the women their due. So, unless another sponsor steps up to the plate, the Women's Open is on indefinite "hiatus." I don't know about you, but I think this is a travesty.
I agree with Bowlers Journal International writer Dick Evans that the BPAA (Bowling Proprietors Association of America) should do it if no one else will. They apparently did it before, and they could do it again if they really care about women's bowling in particular and bowling in general in the good ole USofA.
~ Did you read Mike J. Laneside's piece To Hambone or not to Hambone on PBA.com this week? When you read the comments there and elsewhere, you discover that some people are absolutely rabid haters of the "hambone" and of its originator, ESPN's bowling announcer Rob Stone. Here is what one particularly disgruntled guy named Dave said about the hambone and Rob Stone:
"If you use "HAMBONE", you should be fed a milkbone. Don't sink to the level of that no-nothing Stone. Also, don't drag bowling down into the sewer that he has taken it to during the regular season. I have never before been this uninterested in watching a telecast of the best in the world at a game that I have played for 44 years. Rob Stone is the biggest joke and disappointment in the history of the PBA. He should be thrown aside and forgotten after turning a great thing like the PBA into one of the biggest running jokes that we have in our bowling league. It used to be "Did you see Pete?" or "What a finish in the finals this week." Now it is "Did you hear what the moron said on Sunday?" Don't sink to his level. Put on the great show we deserve. Who knows, maybe you can be a permanant replacement. He would never be missed!"
Do you agree? Or do you think this is all "much ado about nothing"?
~ People continue to debate whether Chris Barnes is a great bowler. I think Thomas Scherrer does an excellent job of addressing the issue (don't be deterred by the "Adult Content Warning" page that comes up first when you click on the link) in his Thisis Bowling Philosophy blog. He systematically lays out 5 criteria for bowling greatness and opines that Barnes unequivocally meets one of them and is likely to meet some or all of the others before his career is over. I agree. How about you?
~ I quotedMika Koivuniemi saying that he moved to the U.S.A. when he decided that, despite his many tournament victories, he wasn't winning enough money in Europe. However, the way things are going, it looks like the men and women from the USA will soon need to move to Europe, Asia, or the Middle East to earn even half way decent money from tournaments. Yet, if Mika came here because he wasn't earning enough in Europe, and, pretty soon, there won't be any more professional tournaments here for either men or women, will this spell the end of high-level professional bowling everywhere?
~ Back when bowling apparently got more respect than it does today, they even had heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marcianoplugging Ebonite ball fitting equipment. Could you imagine a boxing or any other sport's champ doing that today? If you asked them too, they'd probably laugh in your face. How sad!
~ One nice feature of Bowl.com is its live streaming coverage of the USBC Open in Reno, and one of the highlights of that coverage this week was its airing of Mike Lichstein bowling doubles with his dad Larry Lichstein, and Pete Couture bowling doubles with John Janawicz. They were all on the same pair, and Ricky Ward was bowling on the pair to their right. As I pointed out in my blogpost, Mike Lichstein has one of the most unusual styles I've ever seen. And what I didn't point out then but have discovered since then is that his style has changed since he bowled on TV during his younger years. Check out this video and this one (that also includes a very young Patrick Allen) from two of those early TV appearances. But what watching guys like Wayne Garberand Mike Lichstein tells ME is that you can move to the line in some of the strangest ways imaginable and still get the job done if you know what you're doing and can repeat shots.
~ When it was announced that Walter Ray Williams Jr. would be bowling his first PBA Senior event last week, everybody was saying he'd waltz right through the field to the championship. After all, he'd topped all the major statistical categories and won Player of the Year on the regular tour. How could he not dominate any Senior event he entered with competition that couldn't come anywhere close to his level on the regular tour?
Yet, it seemed to me that in a single elimination match play format on higher scoring conditions against guys who, though they may be 50+ years old can still bowl, even Walter Ray was no shoo-in for a title. And when he finished in 11th place going in to match play, it looked as though I might be right, and I began to tone down my expectations for him.
I needn't have bothered. He proceeded to dominate match play with a perfect 10-0 record and average over 260 on his way to his first Senior title in his first Senior event. Yes, he got a few breaks and his opponents might have fared better had they gotten more breaks or had better carry in crucial situations. Nevertheless, if you watched then or watch now on PBA Xtra Frame, you saw or will see Walter bowl great under what must have been tremendous pressure to meet the lofty expectations people had for him. The man is an absolute bowling marvel!
Now he's bowling a PBA Regional event in Canton, Georgia that will be carried by PBA Xtra Frame tomorrow (Sunday).
When I heard he was headed for the tournament in Georgia, I commented on PBA.com that he was like the Terminator headed to another destination to "decimate" his enemies. Someone else asked if NORAD was tracking him. He DOES seem kind of like an unstoppable force right now. You know he's coming, but you can't do anything about it if you're his competition. Can he win "simultaneous Player of the Year" honors?
~ If, like me, you're impressed enough with the two-handed bowling style to try it yourself or, at least, to help others learn it, Joe Slowinski, the "Mr. Spock" of bowling coaches, has an article that dissects the style with patented Slowinskian meticulousness. Enjoy.
And that's all for this week's Bowling Week in Review. The next installment should appear next Saturday. Take care, and great bowling.
