The Dick Weber Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)
Playoffs, an expanded PBA Tournament of Champions
field, a sold-out World Series of Bowling and other open
events including the PBA World Championship, U.S. Open
and Bayer USBC Masters have provided the most
opportunities for PBA’s regional players to compete at the
sport’s highest level during the 2010-11 Lumber
Liquidators PBA Tour season than they have had in nearly
two decades.
With a PBA Tour schedule that visits a reduced number of cities, PBA fans are
still able to see many of PBA’s talented players through its regional program
which last season conducted 170 tournaments in seven regions across the U.S.
Some of the PBA’s talented players who compete largely at the regional level
have converted their success to opportunities in prestigious high-profile PBA
Tour events.
One of those players with a predominately regional background is former PBA Tour
exempt player Randy Weiss of Columbia, SC, who will make his first PBA Tour
television appearance and first serious run at a PBA Tour title in the Lumber
Liquidators Championship Round of the Dick Weber Playoffs which will conclude
the 2010-11 Tour season live on ESPN Sunday at 1 p.m. ET from Woodland Bowl.
“I wish I had been at this level earlier in my career, but it is what it is,”
said the 37-year-old Weiss who competes in about 18-20 regionals a year. “You
never know when it’s going to be your time and I hope I make the most of this
opportunity. This is what I’ve dreamed about since I was five years old.”
Weiss, an eight-time regional titlist whose previous best Tour finish was ninth,
will battle 13-time Tour winner Chris Barnes and two-time titlist Dick Allen for
the Playoffs title. It will be a finals that could be considered reflective of
PBA’s membership—Barnes, who has established himself as one of PBA’s
contemporary superstars; Allen, who could probably be best described as a
journeyman Tour player, and Weiss who has for the most part made his name at the
regional level.
“I go into every tournament I bowl expecting to win and bowling the best I can
but I really didn’t know what to expect in the Playoffs,” Weiss said. “Because
of the format there is probably no better example of a tournament where you need
to stay in the moment and approach it one tournament round at a time.”
Another player who made his name on the regional Tour is Lennie Boresch Jr. of
Kenosha, WI, who also made his first Tour television appearance in the
Playoffs but was eliminated in the regional round. Boresch, a 24-time regional
tour winner earned his first Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour exemption in the
2010-11 season by finishing fourth in the 2010 PBA Regional Players Invitational
last December in Reno.
The PBA playoffs format featured six independent regional groups bowling
elimination rounds within their respective regions (North, South, East,
Southeast, Southwest, Midwest and West/Northwest). A total of 156 players that
included regional as well as Tour players competed in the event.
“It’s a great format and it was a lot of fun,” Boresch said of the PBA Playoffs.
“With the elimination format your odds were better to make the TV show because
you just had to make sure you bowled well enough within your division and not be
one of the bottom few players to be eliminated. It’s not like a normal Tour
event where you have to be in the top five out of however many are entered in
the entire tournament to make the TV show.”
Boresch and Weiss aren’t the only regional players who have experienced
personal career highs during the 2010-11 season. South Region veteran Tom
Daugherty of Wesley Chapel, FL, made his television debut – one he’ll never
forget – in the $1 million PBA Tournament of Champions. Midwest Region
competitor Tom Hess of Urbandale, Iowa, converted his first TV appearance into
an emotional victory in the Bayer USBC Masters.
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