Iowans who enjoy bowling in their spare time should strike out for northeast Iowa to catch some of the top bowlers on the planet at the Professional Women’s Bowling Association Championship Week in Waterloo.
Gene Kanak, spokesman for the PWBA, says the event is actually three bowling tournaments in one, including the season’s final major championship.
“We started the week yesterday with a little over 80 competitors. They come from all over the world,” Kanak says. “We have bowlers from Singapore, from Germany, from Latvia, from Mexico, obviously, players from all over the United States, so it’s a very diverse field. The best female bowlers in the world are out here competing so it’s a very exciting event.”
After qualifying rounds in the PWBA Waterloo Open on Wednesday, the top 12 competitors are bowling two six-game rounds of round-robin match play today, and the top five players will advance to the stepladder finals. Kanak says the championships draw droves of spectators and it’s pretty easy to catch one of the pros for an autograph or a selfie.
“One great thing about watching professional bowling is you get to be a lot more up-close and personal than you do in a lot of other sports,” Kanak says. “I mean, our competitors are moving their equipment from pair of lanes to pair of lanes after each game, so they’re out and walking around the concourse. Fans who come out get a very nice, up-close view and our players are wonderful about interacting with the fans.”
The occasional bowler might be thrilled to break a hundred, but Kanak says these professionals are scoring significantly higher. A score of 300 is a perfect game, that’s 12 strikes in a row.
“Yesterday, for instance, it took an average of 228 per game to make the top 12 and advance to match play and we did have five 300 games rolled during competition yesterday,” Kanak says. “Two of them actually were rolled back-to-back by the same bowler, Jordan Richard, of Tipton, Michigan. She is definitely a front runner in the PWBA Player of the Year race.”
The seven-day championship event is underway at Cadillac Xtreme Bowling Center in Waterloo through next Tuesday.