Back to back: this magician did the near-impossible: dominate the Senior tour without winning a single event

Bowling Digest, Winter, 2004 by Brett Ballantini

A YEAR AGO, WE WERE ALL too eager to celebrate "Bionic" Bob Chamberlain as as our 2003 PBA Senior Bowler of the Year.

After all, in the past, the debates over the top Senior had been routinely dismissed by the dominance of the professor of Senior rolling, Bob Glass. Glass seemed on track to become nearly as automatic a Bowler of the Year pick on the Senior circuit as fellow professorial type Walter Ray Williams Jr. is on the regular tour.

Yes, Chamberlain supplied suspense to a Senior tour that had lost a lot of its luster, especially in comparison to the burgeoning regular tour. But if there's one thing the Senior tour now has in common with its junior, it's parity. Whatever the PBA is feeding their bowlers, it's generated two tours that are becoming more and more impossible to handicap--or to tell the players apart without a scorecard.

While last season we may have celebrated a relative upset with Chamberlain, in 2004 we honor the Bionic one as only the second back-to-back BOWLING DIGEST Senior Bowler of the Year (after Glass's pair in 2001 and 2002) and the third two-time winner of our top honor (Gary Dickinson was our top Senior in 1993 and 1997).

In 2003, Chamberlain got off to a slow start, suffered through some midseason struggles, and then made a late-season run for all the marbles, keeping our top Senior honor in doubt until the very last event of the season--the Senior Days Inn Open, which Chamberlain conveniently won. In 2004, the 56-year-old may have been a more dominant bowler from start to finish, but that didn't make our choice any easier.

You see, Glass did win two titles this season, the Senior Epicenter Classic and the Senior Chillicothe Open--the only bowler to take more than one. Chamberlain won ... zero.

What's more, there were other top Senior candidates who did win a title on the circuit this season, including David Ozio (Senior U.S. Open), Gary Hiday (Senior Clarksville Open), and Jeff Bellinger (Senior St. Petersburg/Clearwater Open).

But in a season consisting of only 10 events, a Bowler of the Year cannot be determined by titles alone. And in nearly every other way, Chamberlain dominated.

He finished among the top five bowlers in every major statistical category: first in match play appearances (a perfect nine-of-nine), championship round appearances (four) and points (137,017); third in cashes (another perfect nine-of-nine) and average (216.65); and fifth in earnings ($24,050).

This kind of all-around efficiency has been Chamberlain's hallmark for two seasons now. In 2003, Chamberlain led the tour in points (14,290) and match-play appearances, second in championship rounds (three-of-11), tied for third in cashes (10-of-10), and fourth in earnings ($24,400) and average (214.32).

Forget the bionics; maybe we should start calling him "Reliable Robert."

Glass actually finished outside of the top five Seniors in our polling. The star suffered through a remarkably uneven season, winning his two events early on and finding his game disintegrating at such a rapid rate--Glass's main source of frustration was with the PBA's new lane oils--he opted out of the final event of the tour altogether. Despite leading the tour with two titles and $28,600 in earnings, his uncommonly-low cash (67%) and match-play (56%) percentages belied his struggles, and Glass has all but said he will has retired as a Senior.

Chamberlain's two closest competitors for Bowler of the Year were Ron Winger and Hiday. Winger strung together perhaps his best Senior season, but failed to win a title. Ultimately, with only a seventh-best $17,350 in earnings and 214.59 in average, Winger had a similar, but slightly weaker, season as Chamberlain.

Hiday cast a different shadow entirely, having the additional currency of a title in his dossier. However, Hiday bested Chamberlain in only one other area, earnings ($25,150). Further, his relatively low average (213.65, 13th on the tour) put top honors out of reach.

We shouldn't be too surprised that Chamberlain defended his territory as the tour's top bowler like a bulldog, considering what he's had to fight through just to bowl at all.

A car struck Chamberlain, who was a pedestrian, four years ago, doing near-irreparable damage to the righthander's left (sliding) knee. So severe was the damage that Chamberlain needed a knee replacement, an artificial joint made of titanium. Hence, "Bionic" Bob.

Chamberlain, admittedly fortunate--not all such surgeries end in success, much less allow an athlete to participate in his or her sport again--has been relatively pain-free since his comeback two seasons ago.

"I didn't know if I was going to bowl again at this level," Chamberlain said after his second tournament back from surgery, the Senior Pennsylvania Open of May 2002, which he won--defeating Glass. "So winning is extremely gratifying."

Chamberlain went on to use the 2002 Senior season as his feeling-out period, with occasional setbacks on the lanes paling in the larger perspective of his continued health.