When I was about 12 years old. In Indiana, there was a tour that was sponsored by Pepsi, and it was divided into age groups named after pop brands – Pepsi Tour, Mountain Dew Tour. There was one summer that I won every event I played in, and that was the year (2010) that I qualified for the US Junior Am and the Junior PGA.
What were those events like?
The Junior PGA was in Sycamore Hills in Fort Wayne, 30 minutes from where I lived. The first round I was nervous and I played horrible — I think I shot 85. Justin Thomas set the course record for the day with a 65. The next day it rained, and my dad and I went to the driving range and adjusted my swing. I shot an even-par 72 in the second round, which wasn’t good enough to make the cut but at least I redeemed myself. At the Junior Am at Egypt Valley in Michigan, I shot, like, in the mid-70s both rounds and missed the playoff by a few strokes.
;)
And he does this while becoming one of the best junior skaters in the nation. In 2011, he made the Junior Team USA – and as a teenager he was successful in bowling’s US Open, finishing in 20th place. When was the last time you chose bowling over golf?
When I decided I wasn’t good enough to play golf. I played golf at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (now Purdue Fort Wayne), a D1 school. I went for three semesters. I wasn’t seeing the results I thought I should be seeing. I hated school and didn’t want to do it anymore. My parents had a bowling center my whole life, and they weren’t very good, so I was always working a lot at the center, too. I wasn’t living on campus, I was walking an hour back and forth to school, trying to work every day – maybe it was too much for me to handle. I decided to try another way. I knew I was always really good at throwing the ball. I got my PBA card in October of 2012, and here we are.
Do you feel like there is a lot of overlap between sports in terms of strategy?
There are a ton of similarities. I’m not a big guy – 5-foot-8, 150 pounds, but I’m very strong in each game. My way of swinging goes out without going back to each position. If you look closely at my bowling footwork, when I get to [foul] line, sometimes you will see my heel come off the ground. That uses the ground as a spring, just like golf does. They load the left knee, and it straightens as they turn through the ball, and sometimes that left heel comes off the ground. Then there is the old saying: “Stand on it.” If you try to get things done early in your turn, you slow down your timing and get herky-jerky.
What about the mental side? Most “perfect” shots in bowling do not produce strikes. It seems that dealing with bad breaks, or what feels like bad breaks, is important.
In golf, at least in stroke play, you really play against the green. In bowling, you bowl against lane conditions. The guys who know how to win, who don’t overthink things and play what’s in front of them, are the ones you see on TV week in and week out. In golf and bowling, one shot at a time. Because you cannot change what has happened, and you can only control what will happen. And that’s it.
;)
getty photos
Bowling and golf are both very similar sports – you’re competing against someone but you can’t influence what they do. How do you handle that?
I’m just here trying to do the best I can. I pay attention to what other guys do in that we’re always moving lanes, changing pitches because of the situation. If someone is swinging well, I might look at what kind of ball they are using, where they stand to start, the line they are playing, I try to get a better visual to help me. It’s not like I’m sitting in the back pushing the other person or yelling for them to separate. If someone pitches, yeah, I’ll give them a high score, or if they throw a 300 game, it’s like, “Good job – I’m happy.” It’s almost the same way on the PGA Tour. You are out there doing your job. If someone does something good, you give them a thumbs up. In all general play, however, it’s a very good business.
Another difference, unfortunately, is the amount of money in pro golf vs. pro bowling. Do you ever think about that?
All the time, because I played golf and I still watch it all the time. I won five times (including two majors) in 2023. I threw really well – and I was $40,000 from making half a million dollars. So, if you reach a high level, you can be, not rich, but not poor. But would it be worth making those million dollar payments? Definitely. If bowling did what golf did, I would have made 15 or 20 million dollars before the FedEx Cup. Like this, dangif we had bowling, you know, half a million or a million dollars in major tournaments, that changes the sport and takes it to another level. I know the people in charge of bowling are doing their best. It’s always a work in progress.
Not to romanticize it, but PBA pros often caravan from event to event, sharing hotel rooms — it feels like the PGA Tour back in the ’40s and ’50s. Does that create more camaraderie than private golf jets and five-star hotels?
