PBA Player of the Year Wes Malott is First King of Bowling
Lake Wales, Fla. - 4/7/2009

Bowling fans in Florida are invited to experience the best in professional bowling when the Professional Bowlers Association’s top stars – men and women – get together at Kegel Training Center in Lake Wales, Fla., April 8, 9 and 10 for the new PBA King of Bowling Powered by Amp Energy and PBA Women’s Series Showdown presented by USBC telecasts.

The King of Bowling Powered by Amp Energy will feature the top 10 players in the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour Player of the Year points race: Wes Malott, Pflugerville, Texas, Norm Duke, Clermont, Fla., Chris Barnes, Double Oak, Texas, Mike Scroggins, Amarillo, Texas, Patrick Allen, Wesley Chapel, Fla., Walter Ray Williams Jr., Ocala, Fla., Bill O’Neill, Southampton, Pa., Rhino Page, Topeka, Kan., John Nolen, Waterford, Mich., Brad Angelo, Lockport, N.Y. plus “wild card” player Parker Bohn III, Jackson, N.J. The Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year, Malott, will be the first "King."

General admission and VIP tickets are now available for a unique series of two Women’s Showdown and five King of Bowling telecasts that will be contested over a period of three days for tape-delayed airing on ESPN and ESPN2. General admission tickets are $15 each on a first-come basis all three days ($5 if any seats are available for the final show of the day only).

The field for the Women’s Showdown, presented by the United States Bowling Congress, includes five winners of PBA Women’s Series events held during the 2008-09 season, plus Missy Bellinder of Fullerton, Calif., who finished second to two-time titlist Michelle Feldman of Auburn, N.Y., in the CLR Carmen Salvino Scorpion Championship. Other contestants are Feldman, who won the Chameleon and Scorpion Championships; Stefanie Nation of Arlington, Texas, winner of the Pepsi Viper Championship; Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, Keller, Texas, winner of the Cheetah Championship; Jodi Woessner, Oregon, Ohio, winner of the Lumber Liquidators Shark Championship, and Wendy Macpherson of Henderson, Nev., winner of the Bayer Earl Anthony Medford Classic.

To order tickets, visit pba.com and click on the “tickets” link, or visit any Kegel Pro Shop at the Kegel Training Center, Lake Wales; Kegel Bowling Center, Sebring; Cypress Lanes, Winter Haven; Orange Bowl, Lakeland, or Seminole Lanes, Seminole.

Special limited-edition VIP packages are available for $99 per day. The VIP package includes preferred seating, access to the “skybox” area where food and beverages will be available; “meet and greet” sessions with the competitors; a special Kegel autograph bowling pin; a towel-and-cleaner package; a PBA program book; a $25 discount coupon for any Kegel Training Center training package and a VIP identification lanyard.

Taping sessions begin with back-to-back one-hour Women’s Series events, featuring six top competitors from the 2008-09 PBA Women’s Series, on Wednesday, April 8, at 6 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Both shows will air on ESPN on Sunday, April 12, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The five-week series of PBA King of Bowling Powered by Amp Energy telecasts will be conducted at 6, 7:45 and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, and at 6 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. on Friday, April 10. The one-hour shows will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2 beginning April 22 and continuing through May 20.

The PBA Women’s Series Showdown presented by USBC will feature a “Showdown” elimination round, followed by a championship round – all using a unique scoring format created by PBA and newly-elected USBC Hall of Famer Johnny Petraglia. The Petraglia Scoring System ignores pinfall, but counts the number of balls thrown to clear the deck in each frame and the lowest score for 10 frames wins. A strike thus equals a “1” and a typical spare would result in a “2” for the frame. A 7-10 split, however, might require three balls - or more.

Each King of Bowling show will feature three players. In the first show, the No. 2 finisher in the Player of the Year points race will face the No. 3 finisher in a one-game match, with the winner advancing to bowl vs. the King (Player of the Year) in a one-game match. That winner will come back as the King on the following week's show. Subsequent shows will feature the No. 4 and 5, No. 6 and 7, No. 8 and 9, and No. 10 plus a “wild card” player bowling for the right to de-throne the “King.”

The players in the PBA King of Bowling Powered by AMP Energy® will be battling for shares of a $100,000 prize fund.