Feature Barnes does not have to bowl the Team
BONUS INTERVIEW To listen to more from the
Chris Barnes interview, touch the play button above.
USA Trials in order to be on Team USA. The top three Team USA Trials finishers automatically make the team, and two additional players from the field also are selected. Beyond that, an additional five players are selected based on their bowl- ing resumes, regardless of whether they bowled the Team USA Trials event. Barnes is a PBA Triple Crown winner who has won two PBA Tour titles since July—the Lucas Oil PBA Milwaukee Open and the PBA Viper Championship. And he has compiled 13 years of experience on Team USA. The man does not need to wor- ry about whether he will be one of those five selectees. But Barnes is a guy who prefers to feel like he has earned it. So earn it he did, shoe- ing up at The Orleans Bowling Center in Las Vegas and consistently finishing in the top 12 in each of the five rounds of qualifying at the Team USA Trials. He placed seventh on day one, 12th on day two, second on day three, 11th on day four and 10th on day five. In the stepladder finals, he blasted Mike Fagan, 231-163, to win the title. Barnes exhibited that consistency de-
spite bowling on a different World Tenpin Bowling Association pattern each day, sometimes bowling on patterns different by more than 10 feet in length from one day to the next. He had his finest day on the 34-foot Stockholm pattern, averaging 255 for the round with a 300 in game three. “It’s a test of all your skills, including
patience and perseverance,” Barnes said during a telephone interview after winning the title.
CHRIS BARNES Aside from making the team and
enjoying a cash prize, there are other perks that come with winning the Team USA Trials. The winners on each side—men’s and women’s—get health insurance from the United States Olympic Committee and the chance to represent USA at the QubicaAMF World Cup. That was an item on Barnes’s bucket list, as never before in his career has he had the opportunity to bowl the World Cup. Barnes will be representing USA along with his fellow Team USA Trial’s winner on the women’s side, Brittni Hamilton, at a location to be determined later this year. “I look forward to going over there —
wherever that may be — with Brittni for the World Cup. [Brittni Hamilton] doesn’t ever seem to flinch, whether it is as a 16-year- old, as a collegiate player or in the Team USA Trials finals, it seems like everywhere she goes, she finds a way.” Oh, and there was this little tournament
coming up called the Tournament of Champions. What better way to practice for a major than to compete in one of the sport’s most grueling tests of versatility? That part of the deal paid off handsomely. Ten days after winning the Team USA Trials, Barnes opened the second round of qualifying at the 2014 Barbasol PBA Tournament of Champions with an 869 series, shooting games of 279, 290 and 300. He nearly repeated the feat in the next round, when he opened with games of 245, 268 and 300 for an 813 series. The consistency Barnes displayed at
the Team USA Trials—and the success he subsequently enjoyed in qualifying at the Tournament of Champions a week
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