Bowling Video--Lynda Barnes is Back

Lynda Barnes was flying high through the first two televised matches of last year's U.S. Women's Open bowled in the novel venue of Cowboys Stadium in Texas until Leanne Barrette-Hulsenberg nipped her in the semi-final match to go on to defeat Kelly Kulick for the coveted title. Sometime after that, although I don't recall how it happened, Lynda injured her shoulder and has quietly but steadfastly worked through months of arduous rehabilitation to return to the form that's made her famous.

Well, she's back with a vengeance and occupies third place in a stellar national and international field after the first two qualifying rounds of the 2012 U.S. Women's Open, and  Matt Lawson of the USBC neatly summarizes her impressive comeback in the video below.

Bowling Video--Jessica Baker Bowls 300 in 2012 U.S. Women's Open

In last year's U.S. Women's Open, over a dozen 300 games were rolled. I guess they really DO like to do everything bigger in Texas. I don't know if they all came in qualifying or if some were also rolled in match play. But only one perfect game has been rolled through the first two 6-game rounds of qualifying this year on the lower scoring conditions at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, and former Wichita State standout Jessica Baker is the one who did it last night.

You can watch her final three impressive shots below, courtesy of  the USBC's Lucas Wiseman's camerawork, as he took time out from his one-man calling of the USBC's live streaming of the day's action to masterfully capture the moment.

Bowling Video--Qualifying Round 2 of 2012 U.S. Women's Open

Bowling Video--Qualifying Round 1 of 2012 U.S. Women's Open

Here is Round 1 of the U.S. Women's Open from Friday, June 22, 2012 at Reno's National Bowling Stadium. I will post the other rounds as they become available.

Younger Bowlers Rise and Shine in Early Stage of U.S. Women's Open

In my previous post, I mostly pummeled the USBC, BPAA, and bowling industry in general for their lack of professionalism in covering the great sport of bowling. In this post, I want to give credit where it's amply due by sharing with you Matt Lawson's of the USBC's excellent video recap of the first day of qualifying in the U.S. Women's Open. Matt always does a tremendous job with these videos. What's more, it seems that bowling's female "young guns" are loaded for bear. Now, if only they had more venues to hone their skills even further and reap the rewards of their hard won excellence.

However, I'm still pulling for local girl Leanne to repeat.

Elite Bowling Coverage Should be Better

Reno is now hosting the 2012 BPAA U.S. Women's Open at the National Bowling Stadium. Leanne Barrette-Hulsenberg is defending her championship that she won last year in the novel venue of Cowboys Stadium by defeating Kelly Kulick in the final match. This year's televised finals, albeit shown on ESPN2 six days after the fact, will be held in the even more unusual venue of outdoors under the famous Reno Arch.

As you can see from reading entries such as this, I covered last year's Open with considerable enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, I blogged a lot here about the PBA, women's tournaments, junior tournaments, international adult and junior tournaments, and bowling in general for a couple of years.

But I finally began to lose my enthusiasm not for the sport so much as for the haphazard way the bowling industry itself seems to conduct and promote it. I figured if they didn't care enough to do a better job of promoting, covering, and fostering elite level bowling in this country and, as a result, people don't care that much about the sport to follow it, why should I bother to blog about it? Why even people who call themselves bowling fans seem to suffer from a serious enthusiasm problem, and very few appear to regularly watch bowling telecasts much less read blogs such as this one, so, again, why should I spend a lot of time writing blogposts when almost no one cares enough to read them?

As an example of my displeasure with the way the bowling industry is handling their sport, I posted the following comment just a few minutes ago to the USBC's Facebook wall in connection with their coverage of this year's Open. It echoes, to a considerable degree, this blogpost of mine from a while back. A PBA representative took private issue with that blogpost. He said the bowling industry is doing all it reasonably can to promote the PBA and bowling in general. What do you think?

Elite  women's and, for that matter, men's bowling is in a sad state in this country even as it seems to be growing in popularity in other parts of the world. I agree...that the PBA seems to be hanging on by its fingernails, and there's certainly no indication that any kind of women's professional tour will be coming back. And although many will disagree with me, I think part of the reason for this is that the bowling industry has not made as concerted an attempt as it might to publicize and popularize the sport but, rather, continues on with business as depressingly usual.

I'm not sure what it would take, but maybe if they hired the best PR and advertising minds to barrage the media with compelling commercials, human interest stories, and intelligent and entertaining treatments of bowling, rather than the occasional clownish parody, in television series and movies, more participants and viewers could be brought into the fold. As it is now, bowling and bowlers "don't get no respect," and they should, if people had any idea how challenging bowling really is at the elite level.

One thing I find so disheartening is that bowling seems to get so little respect even from bowling organizations and sponsors. For instance, the BPAA, God bless 'em, is sponsoring the U.S. Women's Open, yet they don't seem to be willing or able to get the finals aired live. We have to wait several days after the fact to see them, and, of course, by then only the most hardcore bowling fan will tune in because everyone else with any interest in the results but not enough to watch a seriously delayed broadcast AFTER learning the results will already know the results and won't bother. What's more, the USBC website's coverage of the tournament seems like a confusing maze. Their videos are great, and Lucas's herculean one-man coverage is to be roundly applauded, but where the hell are the results encompassing ALL the bowlers and not just the top 49? And why can't the BPAA and/or USBC, in the interests of fan interest, provide help to Lucas and the USBC website in tracking results as they occur instead of us having to wait hours to find out how the bowlers are scoring?

If even national bowling organizations and sponsors don't respect their sport enough to give it professional level coverage, how can they expect the public at large to respect it enough to follow it and participate in it? We need a real shakeup in the bowling industry in this country, or elite level bowling here seems all but doomed!

Bowling Video--Great Analysis of the Modern Bowling Game