BATON ROUGE - We mentioned in this column a few weeks ago that the PBA on its web site was listing the top 25 bowlers of the first 25 seasons of this century.

The top five have been announced and based on the points system that involved Top 5s, standard tournament wins, major championships, etc., it was hard not to see how it would turn out. Maybe if there had been a human poll, some of the two-handed, one-handed bias of some folks might have made the voting very interesting.

But when all was said and done, the final five were as follows:

No. 5 Walter Ray Williams Jr. – 221 points

No. 4 Chris Barnes – 226.5 points

No. 3 Norm Duke – 236.5 points

No. 2 EJ Tackett – 327.5 points

No. 1 Jason Belmonte – 450.5 points

My immediate thoughts are that the points difference between 3-4-5 and 1-2 is pretty amazing, while the difference in points between Tackett and Belmonte is even more a showing of the Belmonte dominance. And that’s despite Tackett dominating the tour the last three years.

Tackett didn’t join the tour until 2012-13 and still led all players with 20 standard titles. Just his last three seasons alone would have given him a point total for 11th in the standings.

If you removed all the major titles (15) from Belmonte’s total, he still would be No. 1. Take away all the POY honors (7), he still would rank No. 1.

And, you are saying, WRW fifth? The winningest player in PBA history fifth? But then again if you remember Walter Ray turned 40 before the turn of the century and that makes you wonder how he got to fifth? Just shows how good a player he was.

By the way, 6-10 were 6-Tommy Jones; 7-Sean Rash; 8-Anthony Simonsen; 9-Mika Koivuniemi; 10-Bill O’Neill. That’s a pretty good group of bowlers.

It was an interesting way to rank the bowlers and it seems an appropriate time for this, not only 25 seasons deep into the season but at a time when we are just over two months from a new era for the PBA as it switches TV networks and changes its setup of tournaments completely.

THANKSGIVING NO-TAP

All Star Lanes held its annual no tap event on the day after Thanksgiving with another good entry and payoffs for the nine is as good as a strike event.

In the men’s handicap division, Christopher Payne had the best four-game total of 1,210 to earn the $239 first prize. Jacob Truax was second overall for $195 but his 1,142 was the top scratch score to add another $130 to his total. Gregory Snee and Jimmie Duncan rolled 1,136 for $150 each and Brian Dinh had 1,131 for $105.

On the women’s side, A Vicknair was the winner with 1,072 for $195 and Allison Olivia won $138 for a 1,064 total.

All Star’s next holiday no-tap will be its traditional New Year’s Day event.

SNEE, HOLLIMAN PICK UP TITLES

Finally, congrats to Gregory Snee and Mykel Holliman for winning the big prize at recent events.

Snee won the big scratch shootout Thanksgiving weekend at Four Seasons lanes in Alexandria.

As it turned out the No. 2 (Snee) and Mississippian Justin Griffin, the No. 3 seed met in the final match which was best two-of three games. Snee doubled in the 10th frame of the final game to win his second point and take the title. Snee and Griffin both got the double bye for finishing in the top eight and only had to win three matches to get to the finals.

Holliman was in Shreveport at All Star Lanes for the Senior All-Star Bowling Association member/guest event and he teams with PBA legend Chris Barnes, who as noted above was ranked fourth in the Top 25 poll, to win the championship honors.

That’s it for this Monday, back with you next week.

                      Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                                                                         Kent Lowe