All Hail the Queen - champion bowler Wendy Macpherson

Bowling Digest, Oct, 2000 by Lydia Rypcinski

Wendy Macpherson's triumph in the WIBC Queens tournament gives the Women's Bowler of the '90s a jump-start on claiming similar honors in the new decade

IF WENDY MACPHERSON WERE A STOCK, SHE'D BE ONE OF THOSE sure-and-steady blue-chip performers that "old money" loves almost as much as navy blazers and summers at the Cape. Since winning the 1988 WIBC Queens as an amateur, the 32-year-old Nevadan has assembled one of the most impressive resumes in women's bowling, particularly in recent years.

She racked up 10 pro titles between 1996 and 1999, and this spring she passed Tish Johnson on the all-time PWBA earnings list (with a current total of $936,795) becoming odds-on favorite to become the second female bowler to win $1 million in her career She holds the PWBA record for single-year winnings ($165,425) and annual average (218.85), the latter of which she fashioned last year. In recognition of her excellence, Macpherson was named BOWLING DIGEST'S 1999 Women's Bowler of the Year, her third such award, and the PWBA player of the yeara third time, the BWAA bowler of the year, and the female bowler of the decade by BD and a number of media and media groups.

However, the '90s became yesterday's news at 12:01 January 1, 2000. And as Macpherson herself says, "I bowl in the present, not the past."

Nowhere does she do that better than in Nevada, where prior to this year she'd already won five titles, including the 1988 WIBC Queens in Reno. It seems only fitting, then, that title No. 17--and her first major of the new millennium-- should come in "the Biggest Little City in the World," and at the same tournament where it all started for Macpherson 12 years ago.

A 227-202 triumph over Marianne DiRupo in the stepladder finals at the National Bowling Stadium won Macpherson not only the 2000 WIBC Queens title but also a cool $23,000--$23,700 with match-play bonus money--thanks to the generosity of presenting sponsor Reno Tri-Properties, representing the El Dorado, Circus Circus, and Silver Legacy hotel/casinos. The first prize helped put her squarely atop the PWBA money leaders through the end of the spring tour, with $61,925, and in position equal or better her own all-time earnings mark, which she set in 1997.

"I think it's interesting that I also won my first Queens tournament in Reno, in 1988," Macpherson says. "And that both times I came out of the winner's bracket to do so. I've had a shot at the title in past years coming out of the [contender's] bracket, but I always fell by the wayside."

The omens in the weeks and days leading to Macpherson's victory indicated there would be no falling-off this year. She made three of the five PWBA TV shows that preceded the trip to Reno, cashed in every tournament, and averaged a snappy 213.56, third-best among the pros.

The weekend before the Queens started, Macpherson and her High Roller five-some catapulted into the Classic Team lead in the WIBC Championship Tournament at the Stadium, shooting a record 3,234. Macpherson carded a 693 series in that event, and even though she fell off in the doubles and singles that followed--she tallied 1,833 for all-events--she remained upbeat about her game and her chances.

"I think I was still a little high from doing so well in the team event the night before," Macpherson says. "Then, too, everyone on our doubles and singles pair the next day struggled, because of the way the lanes had been broken down on the previous squads. I knew it had nothing to do with how I was playing, and that even though the Queens would be contested on the same lanes, we wouldn't encounter the same condition."

Still, Macpherson's first five-game Queens qualifying block was a little shaky compared to some; she stood 85th after the first round. "After the first day, I just started seeing the lane differently and matched up my equipment better," she says. While Cheryl Daniels claimed the top spot after 15 games, Macpherson connected for a 1,227 set in her second block--the highest five-game set of the tournament--to place 14th among 480 entries with a 215.49 average.

Wendy Mac wasn't the only one striking at will on Stadium lanes. Australian Cara Honeychurch, a likely contender for PWBA rookie of the year honors this year after making a brief but outstanding splash on the 1999 fall tour, tied a Queens record set a year ago by Dede Davidson with a three-game set of 801. Soon-to-be-pro Novella White and multi-titlist Carolyn Dorin-Ballard popped the first and second 300 games of the tournament, respectively. Kim Canady Terrell rolled three 700 series and averaged no less than 230.38 in her comeback from the contender's bracket (which most other sports refer to more bluntly as the "loser's bracket") to make the stepladder finals.

"I don't think most of us regarded this as a `shootout' condition," Macpherson says. "I think it was just that some pairs really scored very well, and certain players did better on certain pairs than they did on others. If you could catch one of those pairs when you were hot, and catch a break in opponents, you could do well."