As a very average bowler who’s happy to make it through a game
without a gutter ball, I’ve always enjoyed watching women pros who
have the skills and drive to compete in a sport dominated by
men.

Since the demise of the Professional Women’s Bowling Association
in 2003, televised women’s tournaments have been pretty much a
thing of the past.

We’ve been fortunate to have a number of pro bowlers visit
Bradford’s Byllye Lanes, over the past several years thanks to the
connections of owner Steve Feldman. His niece, Michelle Feldman,
32, was a pro bowler for a number of years before the PWBA folded.
Feldman and fellow pro bowler, Doug Kent, were at Byllye Lanes this
past weekend to participate in a Child Abuse Prevention Expo
benefit sponsored by the Bradford Exchange Club.

She took a few minutes from working the benefit to talk about
the status of women’s professional bowling and her current
involvement with the sport.

Feldman said she made the cut in this year’s women’s Tour Trials
and will compete alongside 15 other women who will bowl in the
seven-tournament PBA Women’s Series. While the series will be
televised, it will only be featured as an add-on to the Denny’s PBA
Tour for men. Thus, only each final match for the women will be
televised on ESPN. But at this point, it’s better than no airtime
at all.

Feldman said four tournaments were arranged for women bowlers
last year, the first since the PWBA folded. The seven tournaments
scheduled from October through January give some of the pro women
hope that bowling may be coming back on a regular basis for them,
even if in an abbreviated form.

“(Television advertisers) are getting good feedback on this
because people like to see the girls on TV again,” she said. “And I
think it’s good for the younger girls, the college girls” who make
up the majority of the tournament bowlers.

Feldman said when the PWBA folded five years ago, after nearly
30 years of existence, most of the 45 to 50 women pro bowlers were
essentially out of work. Feldman was one of those pros who, after
an 11-year career, found herself without a job.

“It was tough for me, because I was bowling good at the time,”
she said. “It just stunk basically, it was tough for everybody
because that’s what we did, that was our job…we basically got
fired.”

Many of the former PBWBA bowlers won’t be coming back even with
the enticement of the new women’s series.

“A lot of girls now have jobs, bowling is still not a secure
thing to just quit a job you’ve had for three or four years,”
Feldman said.

“And a lot of places aren’t going to give you seven to eight
weeks off (from work). For a lot of girls it just isn’t worth it…
and you can’t make enough to live off of it.”

Feldman said some of those who are on the tour, such as herself,
own their own businesses and can take the time off to bowl. She is
now the proud co-owner of her own bowling alley with her
grandfather in Auburn, N.Y. She also bowls in two leagues, one for
fun, the other for more serious competitors.

Her average?

About 225.

Feldman said this will be her last year to bowl professionally,
as her heart isn’t in it as it was before.

“I’m not 100 percent into bowling anymore, because we’ve been
gone for so long (since the end of the PWBA), and now that I have a
business, I want to be home with it,” she said. “I don’t want to do
something half-hearted.”

“I don’t know if anybody is going to put that type of money into
it again,” she said. “But I hope it does, for the younger girls
coming up it will give them something to bowl for and look foward
to doing” after college bowling.

She noted that bowling’s overall popularity is currently in
something of a downward slide with bowling ball companies
struggling with sales and league play on the decline.

“(Bowling’s popularity) goes in swings, so I think it will go
back up,” she said.

– Olean Times Herald