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PBA Xtra


and the other three bowlers on our pair—struggling to find the pocket, but with the cut line in sight.


Kerry Painter, just barely a “Super,” polishing a ball before match play.


And finally,


after just un- der five hours, the block is over. One


guy (who beat Walter Ray earlier this year) compared it to a colonoscopy. 18 bowlers are plus, 110 are minus. I’m 111 under, 70 pins from the cut line, 59 from the check I can’t win. Two doubles in six games. A 180 average, good enough for 86th. Tied with Charlie Tapp. Since I live exactly two hours from


PBW, I drive home and get a good night’s sleep. Too early the next morning, I’m up and ready to get at ‘em. Gonna be a much better day. Ha! I wish I’d arrived earlier. Maybe I’d have seen the lane fairy in action. Shook her hand. Took a selfie with her. The condition for round-two is even tougher, at least for some of us. For others, it’s at least playable (Hurtt, a former Team USA member, would climb from 90th to 62nd, while Pappas was making a run to match play, only to be cruelly derailed by two late splits).


In any event, it was crazy. The


common area wasn’t a concourse but rather an obstacle course. (Do the math: 128 bowlers in one squad, with an average of three double and triple bags. That’s a lot of bowling balls to step over and around.) A very angry Dale Eagle averaged 181


to drop from 13th to 55th. Painter shot 29 under and was pleasantly surprised to remain in the top 10. Hiday went 156- 300-162 (later joking that he’d averaged nearly 200 for the block without rolling a 200 game). And me? Our first game was in front of an XTra Frame camera, and Mike Laneside


and Jason Thomas had a few laughs over my shirt (it reads: Bergendorf: The Bowl- er)—and with my stellar shot-making. I whiff two ten pins but get three doubles for a 204 (the only deuce on our pair).


DENNIS BERGENDORF I later managed a 213 with a


three-bagger, but around it were buck- 70s and even a 151. When my adventure came to a merciful end, I was minus 246 and in 103rd place—and nursing a throb- bing knee.


The author and the shirt that caused a few laughs.


PBA50 GIVING BOWLERS NEW LIFE


Now in its 28th year as a true tour, PBA50 has given new life to great bowlers who, for whatever reason, weren’t able to compete on the kids’ tour. And lately, it’s been providing a platform to superstars hoping to prolong already impressive careers. We all know about


Walter Ray Williams, Jr., who segued from his role as the big tour’s most prolific winner into a two-time


WILLIAMS


PBA50 Player of the Year. Tom Baker wins the PBA World Championship and almost simultaneously becomes eligible for the senior circuit. He quickly


wins four titles, and is named Player of the Year four straight years. Other senior stars had


STUS


spotty records as kids. Or no record at all. Gene Stus spent 32 years at GM, but was a great weekend bowler. So, when he turned 50 in 1992, he went on the


Senior Tour and rolled the first perfect game on television (and was soon named SPoY). John Handegard gave


HANDEGARD


the big Tour a try in the 1970s, but failed to establish a feel for the game. With the “old guys,” he dominated, winning 14 titles,


a record that still stands. Ron Mohr? A member


of Team USA but no regular in PBA competition. After retiring as an air traffic controller, he went bowling


full time,


winning eight senior titles and SPoY two out of three years. And how about Pete


MOHR


Weber? At 52, he’s still a force on the regular tour (even winning an ESPY this summer). So far, he’s won three senior titles (including a major) and was 2013’s PBA50 Rookie of the Year.


Only 14 of 128 players averaged 200, but other than the condition (that at times seemed impossible) and the gla- cially slow pace, it was a heck of a tourna- ment. John Weber and his assistant Linda Carter ran things like clockwork, and Dave Small was a great host. I’m sure it will be a fixture on the PBA schedule, with even larger fields as word spreads. It was an honor to be a part of it.


WEBER


— Josh Hyde


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