BATON ROUGE - This wasn’t where the column was going for this Monday, but so much to talk about in the last two weeks. We start with an event in town this weekend.

PBA REGIONAL

We’ve got professional bowling in our city in PBA SW Dudley DeBosier Open. The Southwest region covers seven states, including Louisiana.

Things will get under way on Friday with a 3 p.m. practice session for the entrants before the Greater Baton Rouge Bowling Association hosts a pro-am at 6 p.m. in which adults and youth league bowlers can bowl a no-tap competition with a minimum of three pros. Entries are available on the All Star online site.

Saturday, the real competition starts with eight games at 9 a.m. with the top 1/3 of the field moving to the advancer round of five games at 9 a.m. Sunday. The top eight from that will bowl round robin match play to determine the champion starting at Noon Sunday.

This is a great chance to see some of the professionals and I’m sure some local and area bowlers go head-to-head in the PBA environment. It’s been a while since any type of PBA event has been in this area, so this is a great get for All Star and hopefully will lead to more appearances in the future.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SHOW

Saturday’s AMF World Championship show on CBS Sports was high drama and none more so when Zach Wilkins, who was trying to win his seventh consecutive match in the nine-player stepladder at famed Strobl Arena outside Detroit, left a 4-9 split in the final frame to hand the match to top-seed EJ Tackett and in the process his fourth consecutive World Championship.

It was also the first time any bowler has won the same title four straight years in the history of the Tour.

It was an amazing four hours of television, but what got social media going was that CBS was in a rush to get off the air because they were a couple of minutes into CBS Sports’ PGA Tour air time. From the time Dave Ryan said that Tackett was the World Champion to signing off was just under 90 seconds.

The historic nature of Tackett’s win, even though he may not have bowled his best, was one of those moments on the PBA Tour that probably deserved more than it got from CBS.

FOX Sports did the same thing when they had to get to NASCAR or basketball coverage, etc. FOX was a big proponent of bowling for six years, but FOX had bigger properties they had to serve. A few other points:

1) The CW shows went long and didn’t hurry off air. CW did not have network shows following bowling.

2) The pressure in the production truck to get the second show in the time allotted had to be enormous.

3) It amazed me, in hindsight having watched as a younger person, the old Pro Bowlers Tour on ABC for all those Saturdays how they got four matches done in 90 minutes. Remember they had to get finished for Wide World of Sports and had two commercial breaks in each match. Did they bowl through commercials sometimes? Yes. Did they do interviews with the winner each week? No.

4) It is the fluff sometimes in a two-hour show that makes it difficult to get the same four matches done in the time slot now. The celebrity first ball in a championship match wasn’t necessary at all. It could have happened in commercial and taped. I understand the Jalen Rose interview, but after a rolloff in the first match, time became even more valuable. That could have been a booth interview. 

5) The CBS halftime show was kind of a sponsored waste. Basically, a CBS promo and a few comments to set up an EJ Tackett feature on his lack of wins this year, leading to another commercial.  

6) Overall, the big-time feel of the CBS shows and their version of the lane analysis graphics were good. The PBA production crew did their job for the most part. In this social media age, I think you can find Tackett’s comments online. The bowling wasn’t the greatest at times, but it was dramatic as it could be at the end. Dave Ryan is still one of the best around calling the game. Bowling fans won’t accept it, but the money that network has invested in golf trumps the PBA every time.

Bowling is back this week starting Tuesday on CBSSN for the U.S. Women’s Open. Then it’s the PBA Elite League Saturday on CBSSN at Noon CT for four hours and on Sunday, the Norm Duke Open for five hours, starting at 11 a.m. CT.

SPARE NOTES

We will get to this in detail before it happens but there is going to be a fund-raising no-tap bowling event at All Star on Sunday morning, July 5, for recent GBRUSBC Hall of Fame inductee, Wendy Chapman. The night before her induction, she was involved in a very serious automobile accident that left her with some difficult injuries and this event hopes to help with some financial issues.

There will be another All Star BR Bowler’s Mart Handicap Tournament June 26-28 with five qualifying rounds with the interesting 32-player finals format.

Also, I was almost stunned to see a Facebook post by Gregory Snee that Jan. 8-10, 2027, the locally famous BR Singles will return to All-Star for the first time since March 2023. And, if that isn’t enough, the weekly no-tap/doubles different format events will begin their summer run at All Star on June 22.

A lot going on for this bowling month. We’ll be with you some this weekend online and next Monday for the Regional wrap up.

Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                                                     Kent Lowe