Walking away with a US$20,000 (S$27,627) prize money, 31 year old Singaporean bowler Cherie Tan bagged the QubicaAMF Professional Women’s Bowling Association (PWBA) Players Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina on Sunday, Sept. 8.
This comes a week after an overwhelming victory gaining a Masters title at the World Bowling Women’s Championships in Las Vegas. Tan made a historic record as the first Asian to win the 59-year-old championship.
The Win
Tan earned the top seeding in the Stepladder Finals having bowled consistently over the week. She bowled a total of 8,744 pinfalls, ahead of Shannon Pluhowski’s 8,663.
Tan competed in the final against Shannon O’Keefe (8,170), the fifth seed and reigning PWBA Player of the Year, who progressed all the way. Tan delivered nine strikes in the title match to beat the 40-year-old American 245-204 to claim the championship.
Even after coming out as the victor, Cherie remained humble and said, “Bowling is a sport where it can be anyone’s day, and today was just my day. All the competitors are equally great.” She also said it’s really awesome to come away with “back to back wins”, which is “quite hard to achieve”.
Tan’s win earned her an invitation to the season-ending PWBA Tour Championship, which will take place in Richmond, Virginia, from Sept. 15 to 18.
The Competition
Fifty participants bowled two nine-game rounds of qualifying to produce the top 18. The 18 players then bowled two nine-game rounds of match play. Only the top five players seeded based on total pinfalls get to progress to the Stepladder Finals.
The PWBA Players Championship is one of the four major tournaments on the PWBA Tour, and is open only to PWBA members. -/TISG