Congrats To Walter Ray!

[willard46]

Congrats To Walter Ray!
I was Impressed with him today winning the masters, to roll the ball so well and with so much emphasis at age 50 - impressive!

[Drano]

I was really hoping for Ryan to continue the trend of first-time winners taking all the majors this season, but WRW was my 2nd choice to root for

Walter really kicked major butt though

[Strike Domination]

1. Put spoiler in the title next time, instead of the person's name
2. Boooo to WRW(and congrats :D)

[Stormed1]

Barnes must feel like a red headed stepchild about now. He's made 1 bad shot in the last 2 majors and gotten his lunch handed to him. Congrats to Walter. He sure made that Break Out look good

[Strike Domination]

I didn't pay much attention but I assumed it was a Break Point. The two balls look similar to me.

Are you referring to the U.S Open as the other major? If so I would say Barnes was more like screwed out of that one by the 8-pin. But yes, he can't be feeling too good about it anyways. I personally feel a little bad for him because I keep wanting him to win and luck is just not on his side or something.

[Stormed1]

The only thing the 8 pin cost him was putting a little pressure on Kelly. His bad shot split early in the game put him down in count so even if he took it off the sheet he still lost. At least his losses have this year have not been from bad shots in crucial situations but rather from bad carry

[J Anderson]

I didn't pay much attention but I assumed it was a Break Point. The two balls look similar to me.

Are you referring to the U.S Open as the other major? If so I would say Barnes was more like screwed out of that one by the 8-pin. But yes, he can't be feeling too good about it anyways. I personally feel a little bad for him because I keep wanting him to win and luck is just not on his side or something.

I feel bad for him too. I haven't seen Walter Ray dominate a game like that in years. As for Chris, I remember watching Walter Ray back in the eighties come into the finals, throw every ball in the pocket and lose because his opponent had better carry.

[Strike Domination]

I forgot about the World Championship. I agree with you then Storm.

Yeah, Barnes is possibly my favorite player on tour, he definitely deserves to win more than he does in my opinion.

[Stormed1]

Chris is undeniably the most versatile player on tour. Sometimes I think that ersatility gets in the waay of his winning as he sometimes overthinks the situaton rather than letting his raw talent do the job

[JAnderson]

WRW had such a good look and ball roll - he was going to be hard to beat no matter the opponent.

I'm amazed by one of the stats they posted during the telecast. WRW's number of wins is impressive, but consider that he now has 92 top-2 finishes. I'd be interested to know if there is another bowler who has 92 top-10 finishes. Probably a handful at best.

[Strike Domination]

That'd definiely be interesting to know Jay. Chris Barnes and Bill O'Neill come to mind when I try to think of people that will be able to do that. PDW and probably Norm Duke too since they've been around for some time.

[Maine Man]

Even though I can not stand the man personally, congrats has to go out to WRW for winning the Masters. I think a sad side note for the tournament, though, is that they could only get 268 entries. I have bowled the Masters four times (the most recent was two years ago), and every time we had 450+. It goes to the sad state of the PBA, USBC. and competitive bowling in general. Too bad, but for WRW to do what he is doing at his age is truly amazing.

[mike-boogie]

I was there for the finals and what a match! If you ever get to see a live finals, I recommend it! I knew barnes was gonna chocke like he always does on tv. What a thing it would've been to see a 300! Almost. Wrw makes it look so easy. Congrats to him, and what a stand up guy. After the win, and media obligations, he came over and signed a pin and took a pic with my son. What a great sport! :)

[Stormed1]

Barnes didn't choke, He had bad pin carry. It's that simple.

As for the number of entries for the masters i think there are a couple of reasons
1. Obviously the economy.
2. The close proximity of the US Open (only 2 weeks apart) many can'6t afford to do both so close together

[JAnderson]

Even though I can not stand the man personally, congrats has to go out to WRW for winning the Masters. I think a sad side note for the tournament, though, is that they could only get 268 entries. I have bowled the Masters four times (the most recent was two years ago), and every time we had 450+. It goes to the sad state of the PBA, USBC. and competitive bowling in general. Too bad, but for WRW to do what he is doing at his age is truly amazing.

The economy will have a lot to do with entries being down as well. It's not a $100 entry at the local center.

[Maine Man]

The economy MAY have something to do with it, but I bet it's the fact that the USBC slashed the prize fund that had more to do with it. This tourney has pulled much better numbers than this year in the past couple of years during the down economy, so what was different this year? Lower prize money. Bowlers aren't going to dump in $450 tournament dues, and probably over $1500 for the whole trip to make half what they have in years past. Common sense, it has nothing to do with it the fact that it costs more than a $100 local tourney. Like I said earlier, I have bowled in 4 of these, and the houses were always packed. The USBC needs to get their head out of their butt and find a way to get the prize funds up so bowlers will want to come out to compete.

[JAnderson]

Why didn't you bowl it this year?

I agree wholeheartedly that it sucks that participation has dropped from 500+ bowlers to under 300. I also agree that the state of the PBA, USBC, and competitive bowling in general is poor. It's been discussed ad naseum on any Internet bowling forum with more than a few posts.

What would you do to encourage participation and increase prize fund? What should the USBC do (for the masters).

The US Open has more entries this week than the Masters did two weeks ago. I'll end up bowling the US Open before the Masters because of the longer qualifying format, but that's just me.

[Maine Man]

U.S Open entries were down this year compared to other years also. I think that moving the Open away from Carolier (where it was supposed to be this year) to Indy hurt the turnout. They were getting huge turnouts and good crowds for the Open in NJ, so why change the venue? This is one thing that drives me crazy about the USBC and the PBA, they will have a spot where they can draw well for a tourney, and then change the venue only to find that they have hurt the tournament in the long run. Why change venues? It makes no sense. I know the people at Carolier were disappointed about the Open pulling up stakes and moving, but what can they do, it's the PBA and USBC's show to run.

I didn't bowl it this year because of scheduling conflicts with prior tournament commitments at the Green Mountain Open in VT, a scheduled demo day, and work commitments. Otherwise I would have been there again. Why didn't you bowl in the Open this year?

I have stated in blog posts my ideas to increase prize funds for USBC and PBA related tournaments to help drum up interest in competitive bowling, you can read those suggestions in my blog here:

http://bowler2bowler.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/if-the-pba-folds-does-it-really-matter-by-james-goulding-iii/

BTW, what ideas do you have to increase interest and prize funds that I did not cover in my blog. I would like to hear more ideas, thanks.

[Graaille]

I'll preface this w/This is My Opinion - take it for what it's worth.

I dare say that the main reason bowlers aren't entering PBA events are 3-fold. 1. Economy (duh). 2. Bowling isn't a well respected sport to the general population, and 3. Inflated Egos on THS vs. Actual Ability on Sport. I have a slightly longer rant on this that I may turn into a blog posting sometime.

[JAnderson]

I didn't bowl for the reason dismissed out of hand - I actually do not have the money to bowl that event at that time. Of course, you're also assuming that I'm good enough to compete at that level. Thanks.

I'd rather see the U.S. (vs. the New Jersey) Open move around the country versus allowing for bias towards bowlers from a specific region. At the cost of lost entries? If entries are that much better in NJ, host a duplicate event there. I think you'd see higher participation numbers if the event was hosted in Las Vegas and especially if the event were hosted the week before or week after the High Rollers.

As far as increasing entries at the higher levels of bowling - whether we're talking about the high roller events or PBA events or the US open - I believe you need to generate interest in the sport. "Sport" being an important word here. The jump from a house shot and weekly leagues to scratch competition on sport conditions is a big jump. Where's the middle ground, the "feeder" program into the next level? I'm not sure how something like that would be devised. The PBA regional program should fill at least part of that slot, but it misses the mark.

Your blog points about the chosen time slots of the telecasts is spot on. Has the PBA even looked at another network. My opinion of ESPN in general is extremely poor and that has nothing to do with bowling.

I'd get rid of the exempt tour format. The PBA did not achieve its goal with it - quite the opposite. Entries are down, thus the #1 source of money going into the prize funds is also down.


I would like to see the USBC commit $1 from every member that certifies, and put that money into the PBA prize fund directly

When an increase in dues has been suggested in any of the league meetings I've attended for the last 10 years, an hour long debate-and-squabble seems to be the inevitable result, even if the increase is $1. A better use of sanction fees to lower operating costs at the USBC and then using the money saved to sponsor the PBA seems a more likely choice but just as unrealistic in actuality. I don't think it is unrealistic for people to want back from an organization they pay into. USBC members are paying into the USBC, not the PBA.

Unfortunately, I'm not a marketing person and it seems like someone like me is filling that position with the PBA.

[willard46]

My opinion about competitive bowling,

I ran a center for about 8 years, I started to get competitive bowling going and I was starting to get somewhere and could have a top notched scatch league going in a few years, but the owners seen that they could make more money at the center with birthdays parties and cub scout groups with less complaining about lane conditions and machine malfunctions, I am in favor of heads up bowling myself so don't get me wrong, but it seems to be a numbers game and the older owners don't bowl any more so they are not into the game like us. That along with jealous newer and low average bowlers, the one night drunks killed my gain. I could have had some of the best young bowlers in the area, but I got over ruled. It seems birthday parties, and weekend open play is the trend so none of them are competitive so you are not going to have the number of bowlers participating in tournaments, but they think I am to serious about the game. My point of view anyway.