Brett Wolfe became only the sixth amateur to win the American Bowling Congress Masters title when he devastated PBA regular Dennis Horan 269-172 to claim the record $100,000 first prize.
Wolfe won in his newest hometown of Reno at the National Bowling Stadium, but contrary to popular belief fueled by the commentary on the ESPN-TV finals, Wolfe did not practice on the lanes ahead of the tournament.
"Nobody is allowed to practice or open bowl on the lanes at the National Bowling Stadium so whatever you do out there is spontaneous," Wolfe said. "Anything else would give competitors an unfair advantage."
Wolfe found it exhilarating to beat the pros, and it was something he had dreamed about for much of his life.
"I watched the 'Pro Bowlers Tour' every Saturday when I was a kid, and I remember Earl Anthony dominating the tour stops and I dreamed of bowling like that someday myself and I succeeded today," Wolfe recalled. "I think it was a good show for the fans today and in the past I have always bowled my best here in competition."
Wolfe was a top bowler at Arizona State when he lived in Tempe and bowled in a league there with Boston Red Sox pitcher John Burkett who encouraged Wolfe to go on to the next level.
"Burky got me interested in competing in tournaments when I bowled with him in a league in Tempe, Arizona a few years ago. He worked with my bowling game to improve it in a similar fashion to the way Greg Maddox worked with him to improve his pitching game by covering intricate details when John was with the Atlanta Braves."
Wolfe clobbered his competition in the finals of the ABC Masters not with a state of the art reactive resin ball which the pros use regularly, but instead he relied on his old faithful Blue Hammer from a decade ago to whip Dennis Horan by 97 pins in the championship match as the tournament's top seed.
The new ABC champion stormed by 456 amateurs and professionals without a loss to capture his first major tournament victory.
Wolfe says he gets so many revolutions and action on his old urethane Blue Hammer that the new technology would overwhelm his game.
"I dug out this old Hammer from my closet along with some college shirts from Arizona State from four years ago and I was ready to win because I knew that the resin reactives are too much ball for my game because I already get all the revs and power I need with the old Hammer. I was actually getting more spare leaves with the new balls so that's why I don't use them."
Wolfe doesn't feel his success with the Blue Hammer will cause a massive retreat back into the old technology away from the current trend of the resin reactive surface balls which give bowlers with less power in their games an advantage.
"It works well for me but it's not for everybody, especially those pros with ball sponsors who promote the latest technology."
Wolfe was able to work at his job as Business Manager for Coca-Cola location development in Northern Nevada by working through Wednesday at his job and competing in the Masters by taking off the last two days of the work week. He enjoys the creativity of his new job with Coke and says they prefer to be unique instead of copying the efforts of their arch rival Pepsi.
"We like to be innovative at Coke so just because Mountain Dew has gone with cherry Mountain Dew known as Code Red, you won't see Cherry Mello Yellow because we're not going to say me too!. Coke would come out with another beverage before we would do that."
This must be an all-new outlook because in the past, the bottlers nationwide of Coke and Pepsi have often tried to clone each other with beverages which they say are better than their competition.
The 25-year-old says in the future he will take more time off from his Coke job to pursue his bowling career.
"I'm so happy with my progress and my win here in the ABC Masters that I know I would do well as a regular against these guys and I will be joining the PBA Tour in about six months."
Wolfe feels that it's best to join the PBA Tour soon while he's still young and not entrenched in his job. Since graduating from Arizona State four years ago, he spent a couple of years in the San Francisco Bay area and bowled in tournaments before moving to Reno.
At Arizona State as a collegiate bowler, Wolfe held the ABC record for most 300 games in a single year with 38 and he also holds the Sun Devils record for highest average in a single season.
How many sports fans actually watch the PBA finals Wolfe looks forward to competing in on ESPN-TV?
The PBA on their fall and winter tours scheduled itself frequently head-to-head against the National Football in their regular season and playoff games and the NFL had great success in the all-important ratings bracket which determines the success of a sport in producing profits from advertising for sponsors.
The PBA was slaughtered in their ratings when they directly opposed the NFL on TV. It seems that if the new owners of the PBA Tour want to expand their base to other sports fans besides the hard core group who watch the pros bowl on TV no matter what opposes them, it would be useful to move the tour finals, either live or recorded, to another timeslot.
The first date the two sports went head to head was Nov. 11 and according to CBS, the ratings on that date for the NFL in their regular season games were 9.0 and the ratings on FOX for the 1 p.m. Buccaneers-Lions game were 29.6 compared to the PBA's 0.77. On Nov. 18 the NFL ratings on FOX for the one o'clock Falcons-Packers game was the lowest for their football in the timeslot with a 12.1 but rebounded for the following 4:15 ET game with the Bears and Bucs for a 34.4 rating as the showcase game of the day. The CBS game in the same timeslot against the PBA was a 9.6, the lowest for CBS's football, compared to a 0.52 for the PBA on ESPN. The next date that the two sports collided in the same timeslot was Dec. 9 where the NFL ratings for FOX were 33.3 for the Buccaneers-Lions game while the ratings for the NFL game on CBS were 13.4 for the National game and 7.0 for the Regional game and the PBA ratings were 0.62.
The NFL had a rating of 14.4 for the National game and a 9.0 for the regional game compared to 0.74 in the PBA ratings for January 6, the final week of the regular season.
The ratings margin between the NFL and the PBA widened starting with the first week of the NFL playoffs Jan. 13 showing a 16.8 rating on CBS for the Baltimore vs. Miami game compared to a 0.78 rating for the PBA Tour the same afternoon.
The next week of the NFL playoffs saw a 17.9 rating on CBS for the Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh AFC game compared to a 0.76 rating for the PBA Tour.
The AFC Championship Game on CBS between the Patriots and the Steelers had a rating of 21.2, while the PBA Tour telecast at the same time on ESPN had a rating of 0.67.
The Super Bowl from New Orleans on the FOX TV Network had an astronomical rating of 48.1 for a 64 percent share of the entire audience watching TV at the time. The PBA Tour competed on Super Sunday for a rating of 1.11 but they did not compete directly against the Super Bowl. For the first time that the NFL did not compete with the PBA directly, the ratings of the PBA went up slightly.
A rating point is equal to slightly under one million viewers which means that on an average Sunday afternoon, the games of the NFL are seen by 26 million viewers on the average, while the PBA is seen by their core group of 900,000 viewers.
Individual NFL Playoff games average a slightly higher audience than combined regular season games on CBS and FOX and the PBA ratings stay about the same.
The Brunswick Pittsburgh Team led by perennial regular Doug Becker beat the team of Sawgrass Lanes of Sunrise, FL 447 to 434 in the recent edition of the Brunswick World Team Challenge in Seminole, Fla.
Because rule changes by the BWTC of allowing a maximum of two pro bowlers per team caused some teams to juggle their lineups, Becker left his old team to join the Brunswick Pittsburgh team and his knowledge and experience in previous WTC tournaments helped guide his team to victory over Sawgrass.
Becker and his teammates saw the win by Brunswick Pittsburgh as a stellar effort by a "Cinderella" team in the tradition of the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots and the World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.
"We didn't really expect to be in this position because we were down 70 pins this morning, but like the New England Patriots we weren't expected to win this Challenge but we peaked at the right time," Becker said. "Earlier in the competition we were down 100 pins to my former team Brazeau's Pro Shop who I was with for six years and I had mixed feelings about beating since I left the team because of the rule changes I mentioned, but I'm impressed with the efforts of my new team. My former team got to the Grand Championship five times without a victory like the Buffalo Bills, and we couldn't get over the hump and something had to change so I felt I needed to move on so the parting wasn't friendly because Brian wanted me to stay."
Becker's teammate Roger Kossert fell off a ladder at his home four months ago and broke his wrist by landing on it. The total break and pulled tendon on his bowling arm kept him out of action until the World Team Challenge of Feb. 9-10.
"I'm happy to be back bowling and get a win because I haven't bowled since I broke my wrist four months ago and it was a struggle for me but the other guys held me up and kept us going until we won," Kossert said. "The wrist is still sore and it will remain that way because I stressed it by bowling with it and the tendonitis hurt but it's healed but still sore so I'm glad to contribute to our team since we weren't expected to win. I'm ready to bowl in the Grand Championship. I break a wrist, and we get good breaks out here on the lanes."
Bruce Hollen realized how lucky his Brunswick team was to win this challenge.
"Since we won last time, we've fininshed second three times and third twice but with the addition of Doug and Roger returning from breaking his wrist, we plugged away and finally took it because we were behind in several matches, but we came through it in the end like Cinderella of the Patriots and never gave up. We went at one point in the tournament from sixth to third place by shooting a big 268 in a key match and like a dark horse, we came out of nowhere to win."
Becker, Kossert, and Hollen split $2,500 with their teammates Robert Alexander, Jeff Poholsky, and alternate Mike Chontos and all of them will receive a free flight and accommodations at the Grand Championship to bowl for the major prize at the conclusion of the season.