Feature “As much as knee surgery has set me


back, it might have been something I needed to figure out what was going on in my game,” Malott says. “It is something that has been very


devastating to me and has caused a lot of pain and keeps me from being able to do a lot of things. But at the same time, it’s also made me realize things I need to work on to continue to be one of the best players out on tour and learn some of my faults that I was struggling with.” In fact, that elusive major title Malott


failed to capture even amid a 2008- 09 season in which he made nine championship round appearances, came to him only after going under the knife. Malott made his TV debut at a major,


the 2004 PBA World Championship, where he finished third after losing to “Major” Mika Koivuniemi in the semifinal match. It was the 17th and final event he bowled in the 2003-04 PBA season, and the $20,000 payday he enjoyed there was only $4,100 less than his total earnings from the previous 16 stops combined.


WES MALOTT These days, Malott may be wondering


when the success he has had in majors since then will earn him a moniker of his own. Malott went on to place second at the


2007 U.S. Open, a runner-up to five-time U.S. Open champion Pete Weber. Two weeks later, he placed fifth at the PBA World Championship. He finished in the top 10 in each of the


four majors contested the following year, including a seventh place finish at the Unit- ed States Bowling Congress Masters, sev- enth at the Tournament of Champions, and a pair of fifth place finishes at the World Championship and the U.S. Open. He again surfaced on a major telecast in


the 2009 World Championship, where he finished runner-up to Tom Smallwood. But it was just as his knee troubles began to dog him most that his hunger for a major grew greatest. Malott slogged through the pain of a


knee that was still a couple months away from being surgically repaired to bowl the TV finals of the 2013 Masters. He met top- seed Jason Belmonte in the title match and did what a lot of players who bowl Bel- monte in title matches do: He posted a 245 only to find it wasn’t good enough. Then he did what few players want to do


BONUS INTERVIEW To listen to more from the


Wes Malott interview, touch the play button above.


in the middle of their careers: He elected to have surgery after two doctors told him he had a torn meniscus in his left knee. “It all happened back in November


of 2012 at the World Series of Bowling in Vegas. My knee just swelled up and got real tight and tense, and I wasn’t able


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