I guess I'm out of the bowling loop as I have never seen these so called big money events with all the hacks. Every decent tournament I've ever seen the quality of the field is at least on caliber with a PBA regional, if not better.
The advantage of the PBA Tour is they are bowling for more than just their own money. Amateur events almost never pay out more than is taken in, have to pay lineage, and if there is sponsor money hopefully it will cover the tournament organizer's take out.
huh? really? I've not seen a PBA event worth the money the put in unless you are talking about the Masters or US Open... and they are getting shorted every year. It hasn't paid to be full time tour member in many years. While bowling the best is the objective, it actually pays to not be on tour. Yea we see the big names make decent money on tour, but your avg tour player makes at best 25K maybe per year.... you can do better than that flipping burgers.
If the PBA was the ticket, then why do you see so many guys bowling their guts out all over the world OUTSIDE of the PBA? Tournaments all over the world and hell, our Bi-Annual Orbdrillers Scratch Tournament pays more than ANY scratch tournament including Regionals on that weekend and have been graced by names like Patrick Allen, Jason Sterner, Lee Vanderoof(sorry for the spelling), FERO WILLIAMS, Danny Wiseman, Tommy Jones, Walter Ray Williams Jr., and many other PBA and Regional players.
To put it in prospective, you pay $3-500 to get paid maybe 10K if you're lucky on tour and $275-400 maybe to win $7500 at Big Regionals.... Our tournament pays 5K for $150 entry.... and its on an almost US Open like pattern so no advantages to anyone. Many other non-PBA tournaments are the same. Why spend 15k/year total to maybe win 25k/year on tour when you can take the same 15k and turn it into 50k or more bowling amatuer events. TAT, the Rhodman, Orbdrillers can all have close to if not much bigger payouts than most PBA events in a weekend for a quarter to half the cost of a PBA over the course of a week. So tell me, what the advantage of being on tour again?
AND for the record, to all the bashers, Fero Williams is probably one of the best bowlers I've ever watched and bowled against. The man strikes,.... A LOT..... ON ANYTHING!.... WITH ANY BALL...... PLAYING ANY LINE maybe ugly throwing the ball but he strikes a lot, LOL! To come on an internet website and bash someone you dont know and probably have never seen takes a special low. There are many guys who can go on tour and make a decent living but why do that when you can have way more opportunities to win just by the amount of tournaments you can bowl and make a great living doing it. At the end of the day, prestige can only go so far.