Friday, February 4, 2011

TWO MAJORS HIGHLIGHT LUMBER LIQUIDATORS PBA TOUR’S FEBRUARY SCHEDULE

The final two major championships of the 2010-11 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour 
season will be on line as the PBA Tour heads into the February leg of its 
schedule.

The stars of the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour will convene in Reno, Nev., Feb. 
7-13 for the United States Bowling Congress Masters at the National Bowling 
Stadium. Defending champion Walter Ray Williams Jr., will attempt to join fellow 
PBA Hall of Famer Mike Aulby as the second player to win the Masters three 
times. Williams, Aulby and Pete Weber also are tied with eight career major 
titles – two behind leader Earl Anthony. Weber would like to break that 
second-place tie by winning his first Masters title, and join Aulby and Norm 
Duke as the third player in history to complete the PBA Grand Slam. First prize 
in the USBC Masters is a guaranteed $50,000.

The Masters finals will air live on ESPN on Sunday, Feb. 13, at 3 p.m. Eastern/noon Pacific. Qualifying
and match play rounds will be covered live on pba.com’s Xtra Frame video streaming service.

Following the Masters, the Tour takes a week off before heading cross-country toBrunswick Zone-Carolier in
North Brunswick, NJ, for the 68th Lumber Liquidators U.S. Open, a $400,000 event (based on 480
entries) with a guaranteed $80,000 top prize – the second-richest first prize of the season.
The U.S. Open, which gets underway on Feb. 22, is traditionally one of the most challenging 
tournaments of the year and features not only a world-class field of PBA stars, but many of the world’s best amateurs.

The U.S. Open will feature three days of live television coverage, concluding with the four-player stepladder finals live on ESPN on Sunday, Feb. 27, at 3 p.m. Eastern. ESPN2 will carry live coverage of the match play rounds on Friday, 
Feb. 25, at 6 p.m. Eastern and Saturday, Feb. 26, at 10 p.m. Eastern. In addition, pba.com’s Xtra Frame will
be on location for wall-to-wall coverage of the U.S. Open.

Chris Barnes of Double Oak, TX, and Mika Koivuniemi of Hartland, MI, are the winners of the season’s first 
two majors. Barnes defeated Bill O’Neill of Southampton, PA, 267-237, to win the PBA 
World Championship and complete the PBA Triple Crown on Jan. 16 at South Point Bowling Center in Las Vegas. Six days 
later, Koivuniemi defeated Tom Smallwood of Saginaw, MI, 269-207, to win the $250,000 first prize in the 
PBA Tournament of Champions at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas.

1 comment:

  1. I'm a huge Walter Ray Williams, Jr. fan and would like to see him take the tournament. He's still the best.

    ReplyDelete