Weber, Williams and Duke ARE on the downside of their careers. What else do you expect from guys their age? It's just plain ol' logic. Yes, we love them, but no one stays at the top forever. Not in bowling, golf, business, popular music, nothing. That's just life.
Having said that, I don't understand how they even got themselves worked into this post. The rules were clear. Finish in the top 6 at the World Series, bowl the final show. It doesn't matter who anyone wants to see. It matters who qualifies to be there.
As someone mentioned above, what I was really interested in was why, throughout the entire WSOB, a lot of the pros tried to play the lanes completely wrong. It's almost like they were infected with a case of League Bowleritis, trying to hook the whole lane when it wasn't needed. Who did the best job in the USA v. World? Haugen, Belmonte and Palermaa. Haugen was playing straight as always, Belmonte was playing straight with his plastic ball and Palermaa was playing mostly straight with urethane. The only show this year where straighter didn't seem to be the play was the one that poor Barnes lost. How many people did we have to see get 3 pins on the left lane in this telecast before it became obvious?
Jess