PBA Xtra
“WHEN I WAS 27, 28, 29, I KIND OF HAD IT WIRED THAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO WIN, AND ANYTHING ELSE WAS A FAILURE. SO I DIDN’T REALLY ENJOY THE WINS SO MUCH AS I WAS RELIEVED THAT IT WASN’T ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT.” — CHRIS BARNES
each of the Motel 6 Roll to Riches events held in 2005 and 2006. What is new, though, is the 45-year-
old Chris Barnes who looks back on the player he was 15 years ago and no longer recognizes him. That was the young up- start who won a couple PBA titles in 1999 as he exited his 20s, then made 12 shows the following year and had zero titles to show for the effort by season’s end. “When I was 27, 28, 29, I kind of had
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Chris Barnes interview, touch the play button above.
Money is nothing new to Barnes. No one in PBA history reached $2 million in earnings faster than he did. Of the three majors the Triple Crown winner has claimed, two earned him six-figure checks — the 2005 U.S. Open and the 2006 Tournament of Champions. Those two years proved particularly profitable, as Barnes enjoyed $200,000 paydays in
it wired that I was supposed to win, and anything else was a failure,” Barnes re- calls. “So I didn’t really enjoy the wins so much as I was relieved that it wasn’t an- other disappointment. Now, I enjoy the ride more and I am open to the process and the whole experience.” “Over the past five, seven, eight years,
as my TV record has gotten better, I am more comfortable,” Barnes adds. “I can just be who I am, a high-intensity play- er that’s emotional and wears it on my sleeve, good, bad, or indifferent. That’s who I am when I bowl on TV, unlike when I was trying to be who I thought
CHRIS BARNES
people at home or in the companies I represented wanted me to be. It frees you up a bit.” The Barnes who no longer bothers to
be anyone other than who he is has now bowled two of the highest-profile 300 games in recent bowling memory. At the QubicaAMF World Cup in Wro-
claw, Poland, last November — an event he penciled onto his bucket list years ago — he blasted Ukraine’s Myhaylo Kalika with a 300 game before holding off Tobias Börding for one of the sport’s most coveted titles. A couple months later, he earned more than nearly any PBA Tour title will pay in 2015 with that 300 in Japan. “Something I have in common with
Mika [Koivuniemi] is timely big games,” Barnes says of his PBA Tour roomie. Riding a 300 game to a nearly six-fig-
ure payday using the very equipment his new company was about to bring to market is as timely as it gets. Now, Barnes is eyeing a win at the one ma- jor that has eluded him — the USBC Masters — to complete the Grand Slam of majors. And he has set a goal of ul- timately bagging 25 titles before his touring days are done. “For a lot of years, 20 titles was a goal,
but now with the World Bowling Tour and other opportunities, 25 titles is the high-end goal at this point,” Barnes says. If the new perspective Barnes
has paired with his new gear is any indication, time may well prove to be on his side.
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