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51 °F Forecast | Road Cams Monday, December 13, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend December 5, 2004 Walter Ray Williams Jr. may be the No. 1-ranked player and on the verge of becoming the tour�s all-time winningest bowler, but, thanks to the all-match-play format adopted this year, he is also beatable. Williams lost to an amateur qualifier, a steel wo Lane changes With its new match-play format, the PBA has proven to be exciting and unpredictable By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune Walter Ray Williams Jr. is the perfect poster boy for the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. For more reasons than you might think. Sure, he’s the No. 1-ranked player. He’s on the verge of becoming the tour’s all-time winner. And no one has claimed more player-of-the-year honors. He’s also beatable, however, and for that he represents well this new era of unpredictability on the tour that returns to Medford next week. Advertisement Williams has already won a tournament, been in two of the first six TV finals and entered the Lakewood, Colo., tournament this week with the tour’s high average by more than 1½ pins per game. But owing to the all-match-play format adopted this year, he also lost to an amateur qualifier, a steel worker from Wichita, Kan., in last week’s event and was taken the distance in best-of-seven matches by two other qualifiers. It’s a roller-coaster ride that makes him fidget. "You can bowl very well and not have a good result or bowl mediocre and have a good result," says Williams. "That kind of irks me a little bit." The excitement that goes with the unknown has, however, revitalized a tour that’s been around since 1959. The fourth Earl Anthony Medford Classic at Lava Lanes runs Wednesday through Sunday, when the finals will be televised live on ESPN. The bracket for the tournament, which is five weeks earlier than last season because of a scheduling overhaul, will be available Monday on the PBA Web site ( www.pba.com ). It will be filled with 64 bowlers — 58 tour players, five qualifiers and Medford’s Marshall Holman, the commissioner’s pick. The qualifiers, including one amateur, will face the top five ranked players, based on point totals for the previous 20 tournaments, and Holman will take on the No. 6 seed. Qualifying is Wednesday, and bracket play Thursday and Friday will determine Sunday’s four finalists. Last year for the first time, players competed for spots this year on the tour. Tourney winners and the top 50 in the point standings made it to this year. A qualifying tournament last summer produced the other eight exempt spots. Among those who did not qualify for the tour are the first two winners of the Medford tournament, Ricky Ward and Bryan Goebel. Another local favorite, Blaise Bedolla of Roseburg, came up short as well. But there are still big names aplenty, and with the new format, the stars are as vulnerable as anyone else. Fans are liable to see a marquee matchup, a major upset or both at any time. The PBA went to the new format to increase the profile of its players, develop rivalries and, above all, infuse excitement into a game that occasionally dragged under the old format: finalists determined by pin fall through long qualifying rounds. "From the standpoint of the competition and the all-exempt field," says PBA Commissioner Fred Schreyer, "we’re really pleased. And I think the players like it. It’s not 100 percent, but nothing is. Overall, the players like it, the level of competition has risen and we’re seeing lots and lots of really good matches right out of the gate. "I think we’re on the way to developing some really good rivalries, which is what we wanted to do." Medford is the next-to-last stop of the eight-event first half of the PBA season. The tour goes to the Los Angeles area next, then takes the holidays off before winding through the Southwest and South, then heading north, for 12 second-half tournaments. Events that had been held in Washington and Nevada were abandoned in the rescheduling. The newness brought with it some new pitfalls, as Williams and others have found in best-of-seven play. "As a bowler on the other side," says veteran Danny Wiseman, winner of the first major, the Masters, and the earnings and points leader, "I always liked the longer format. I’ve always been a chaser. In the old format, if I could make it to the top 24, I could figure out a way to get to the show. The time frame now is totally different. You don’t have time to make a mistake." Sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you make a mistake. Sometimes you just run into a hot bowler. Williams, for instance, had two of the three highest scores among losing matches at the Masters, finished with the high average and placed only 33rd. And against amateur Kelly Bonta last week, he came across a buzz saw. Bonta averaged 243 and swept Williams, 4-0. "He bowled a good match against me," says Williams, who is one win shy of tying Earl Anthony’s all-time record of 41 tour victories. "He took care of me pretty easily." There are lots of good players out there, he adds, waiting for just such an opportunity. "I don’t know why the No. 1 player should be able to wipe everybody out," says Williams. "That’s not the way bowling is, and it never has been. The games are too short, only 10 frames. Then you add to that the component that when you hit the pocket, you don’t always get a strike." But, he adds, "The better players will come out on top over the long run." He’s done it often enough, which is the other reason Williams is the perfect poster boy. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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