Lowe: Motor City becomes hot spot for PBA Tour

• By KENT LOWE
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Aug 18, 2009

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Well, there may be something to this World Series of Bowling as the PBA Tour spends five weeks bowling much of the 2009 portion of its 2009-10 season in Detroit.

Since we were last together, the Motor City Open has been bowled down to the stepladder finals, the Viper Tournament has been bowled down to the semifinals and the Cheetah Tournament has been won by veteran champion Norm Duke.

Over the next several days, two more of the animal nicknamed oil patterns will be rolled to the television finals spot. All of these will be rolled on Labor Day weekend and taped for the Sunday ESPN shows that start in late October.

The reason the Cheetah Tournament was bowled to conclusion is that ESPN will show that tournament in a never-before-seen documentary format that will cover the tournament from start to finish, showing highlights of the early rounds.

What’s really been interesting and a very well done idea is the online video coverage of the match play rounds of the tournament shown live. The coverage is well done with enough cameras to keep a pretty good eye on what is going on. A few more graphics and an easier way to match the live scoring with the live pictures would make Xtra Frame something special, but it has been a fun way to keep up with all the activity.

Louisiana has a rooting interest this year in Stevie Weber of Chalmette. Weber is off to a good start on the animal patterns, advancing to the semifinals in the Cheetah tournament.

Sunday he went to the seventh games three times in the best-of-seven match play before losing 243-228 in the seventh game of the round of eight to top qualifier Steve Jaros.

In 2007-08, Weber couldn’t keep the exemption he earned in the tour Q-school, but he came back this year to get another year of exemption and through three events is off to a good start in a quest to keep that exemption.

Oh and by the way, a long time ago I asked what if you held a tournament and no one showed up. It happened at the World Series. The PBA, in an attempt to do a retro back to the days of the “Pot” or “Action” bowling, scheduled an event last Friday night in Detroit with a $5,000 entry fee.

The PBA was going to add $10,000 if some of the exempt bowlers would show. It would be a two-game match and winner take all just like in the old days, when they closed the doors of the bowling “alley” and the best bowlers put their money out and let whatever happened happen.

Well, live on the PBA’s Web site, Chris Barnes put his shoes on and waited, and the clock ticked down to 9 p.m. and no one showed to take him on. Barnes won by forfeit. Just another interesting chapter in this inaugural World Series that is bringing more attention to bowling than in a good while.

So what if the events in the fall are going to be taped? Will it really matter? I don’t think so.

The U.S. Women’s Open starts TV on Sept. 13, and does it really matter that it already has been bowled? Not to the bowling fans who will tune in to watch. It will make for an interesting dynamic once the Labor Day series of tournaments are rolled.