Up Front By Bob Johnson
RE-WRITING THE HISTORY BOOK
Just when you think Norm Duke has done it all, he goes out and wins the PBA Senior U.S. Open.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// The validity of that assertion became more
H
and more apparent with each passing day in the PBA Senior U.S. Open presented by Dexter, held at the Suncoast Bowling Center in Las Vegas in early June. Duke came out of the gate slowly in qualifying, but by the time he’d logged 51 games of competition — 26 in qualifying, 24 in match play and one in the stepladder finals — he had made history. He became the first bowl- er ever to win both the U.S. Open and the Senior U.S. Open. Considering that U.S. Open victories don’t
come easy in any sport, that distinction may well top the list of Duke’s career accomplishments — a list that includes being one of only five bowl-
ere’s a scary thought for the bowlers on the PBA50 Tour, courtesy of PBA Hall of Famer Brian Voss: “Norm [Duke] is as good now as he has ever been, just in an older body.”
ers to win the PBA’s “Triple Crown,” and one of only two to complete bowling’s “Grand Slam.” After Duke had defeated fellow 37-time PBA
Tour titlist Pete Weber in the championship match, he let out a long sigh. He was spent. “A U.S. Open — regular or senior — is about
the grind,” Duke reflected as he slumped in a chair following the Xtra Frame webcast. “It’s about getting through four days of misery.” It’s not just the number of games. It’s also the
number of shots, because one makes a lot more deliveries on a relatively flat U.S. Open lane pat- tern than on, for instance, a PBA Cheetah pat- tern. And when strikes are at a premium, spare shooting becomes more important.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////// July 2014 10
EVERYTHING BOWLING, ALL THE TIME
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