Setting sights for many more eyes: the El Paso native's only PBA title was the genesis of the popular, long-running "Pro Bowlers Tour" - The Match I'll Never Forget - Roy Lown, bowler

Bowling Digest, Oct, 2002 by Roy Lown

WHILE READING A "WHO Wants to be a Millionaire?"-style quiz in a Las Vegas bowling newspaper, I happened upon the following question: "Who was the first player to win a nationally televised PBA tournament?" The possible answers were Don Carter, Dick Weber, and Roy Lown.

Only a real fan would remember that I was the person who accomplished the feat, rather than one of those more fabled bowlers. I have no problem remembering, however--it was the match I'll never forget, the 1961 PBA National Invitational held at the Paramus (N.J.) Bowling Center and televised on ABC-TV's "Wide World of Sports."

That match was not only my first PBA win, it also was the only victory in my pro career, which ended in 1965 when I decided to settle down back in El Paso and raise a family the right way. My young son Steve had been on the tour with me, and I thought it would be better for him to grow up at home rather than the road.

I recently pulled out my scrapbook and read an article about the National Invitational that said the matches were so close that the 1,000 fans in Paramus Bowling were on the edges of their seats for the whole show. I have a lot of newspaper clippings about that day, because there was a lot of press coverage of the tournament. The enthusiasm of the fans and media at that show convinced ABC-TV officials to televise PBA matches on the Saturday afternoon "Pro Bowlers Tour," which ran until 1997. The network chose the PBA over the National Bowling League, which featured competition between teams representing several American cities. I feel honored to have been a part of that move.

In the final, I defeated Pat Patterson and Rich Robinette to win $15,000, more than double the previous highest first prize in the PBA's three-year history. The highest total prize fund for any of the 11 PBA tournaments that preceded the National Invitational was $44,000, and most of those tournaments paid between $2,500 and $3,500 for first place. So the $75,000 total purse--with a first prize of $15,000--at Paramus was a major step forward for the PBA.

Another reason that victory remains special to me is that I became the first left-hander to win a PBA title. When I won, left-handed bowlers were virtually nonexistent. After I won, a bunch of lefties came out of the woodwork. They thought that if I could win, they could do it, too.

When Eddie Elias formed the PBA in 1958, I was not one of the 33 charter members. My El Paso bowling pals, Harry Golden (who eventually was named PBA tournament director) and Snead Christian, and I didn't know about the new pro tour until a month after it was formed. The three of us sent in applications as soon we found out that it existed.

I bowled in the first PBA tournament, in 1959 in Albany, N.Y., and had a top-five finish at Las Vegas in 1960, when I earned the grand total of $1,975 for the whole year. Then came the three-day National Invitational. It was the second tournament in 1961 and had a field of 192 of the best bowlers in the country. Leading the pack were Carter and Bill Tucker, who were seeded into the 32-man match-play competition--Carter for winning the World Invitational championship in Chicago the previous December and Tucker because he was the BPAA All-Star Tournament winner.

After the 24-game qualifying round, I was in 16th place. At that time, the PBA held a draw to create the bracket for the two-game, total-pin, single-elimination matches that determined the four TV finals participants. I drew Carter for my first match and won, 421-406. Ironically, my finals opponent, Robinette, defeated Tucker in his first match.

In my second match, I bowled against Harold Zimmerman and won, 524-446. I then bowled against "Billy G," Billy Golembiewski, and won, 410-397, to advance to the televised finals.

Patterson and Glenn Allison--PBA charter members and ABC Hall-of-Famers--joined Robinette and me, both of us relative newcomers, in that historic TV lineup. I was known in my part of the country--where I won the first Maxie Kosof Endurance Classic in Ogden, Utah, in 1955 and a singles tournament in Albuquerque--but I hadn't accomplished anything on a national scale. Patterson had already earned fame with the Budweisers and Allison with the Falstaffs.

I had obviously never bowled on television, so I didn't know what to expect when the lights went on. I was very nervous, as we all were. In the first match I bowled against Patterson, and an unusual thing happened: After two games, we were tied at 429. The PBA didn't have a tie-breaking procedure. Its officials had to come up with something in a hurry, so they called for a two-frame rolloff. I beat Patterson, 49-38, and that put me in the championship.

For that match, the format was switched; we played the best two-out-of-three games rather than a two-game aggregate score. I won the first game, 203-187. Robinette took the second game, 228-194. So it came down to one game for $15,000. I won it, 196-191.

After I threw my last shot with the one black Manhattan rubber ball I used in that tournament, Robinette needed two strikes to beat me. He got the first strike, and I thought, "If he strikes again I'll make $8,000, but if he doesn't it will be $15,000." Robinette's shot came up light, and he left the 4-5 split. He just threw the ball poorly.