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The major changes will come in 2004-05, but the PBA Tour is tweaking its format for the season starting Oct.8-12 in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
"We're trying to make it more attractive for venue and TV spectators and more exciting for the players," said Beth Marshall, PBA director of corporate communications.
Some format changes will carry over to 2004-05 when a new look will greet players and fans.
This season marks the last time unlimited fields will be welcome at all 20 tournaments, split into two squads, each rolling nine qualifying games on Thursdays. The top 64 return Fridays for nine more qualifying games before a cut to the top 32. Starting in 2004-05 the standard tournament fields will be limited to 64.
Here is where the changes start. The top 32 will bowl single-elimination, best-of-seven match-play games, their seeds depending on a rolling points schedule from last season's 20 tournaments. A tournament winner earns 25,000 points, and the points scale works down from the second-place finisher to the 64th. A 65- to 160-place finisher earns 1,000 points. The player with the most points earns the No.1 seed; the player with the least is seeded 32nd.
From here on it is simple - winners advance to the round of 16, losers go home. The four matches in the round of eight determine the winner.
"What you have right from the start are individual matches going on in the house simultaneously, where spectators can follow their favorite players to the finals," Marshall said.
Some are comparing the new format to a tennis draw, but Marshall says, "it's a combination of many sports' formats that we think will produce a great show and more competitive play."
FIRST FOR MAZZANTI: Vince Mazzanti Jr. ended a 30-year drought after winning his first title in the PBA Senior Lake County Horseshoe Casino Open Aug.20 at Hammond, Ind. Mazzanti, a PBA member since 1973 from Levittown, Pa., beat Charlie Tapp 2-0 in the best-of-three games to earn $8,000. Tapp of Kalamazoo, Mich., earned $4,500.
Titusville's Pete Couture lost to Jack Wallisch of Cottage Grove, Minn., in the round of 16, and Dale Eagle of Tavares was ousted by Al Sanford of Jackson, Ohio, in the round of 32.
IN SYNCH: Bob Chamberlain found a rhythm that Sal Bongiorno could not match and won the PBA Senior Days Inn Open Aug.27 at Jackson, Mich. Chamberlain of Auburn Hills, Mich., rolled eight consecutive strikes to win the first game and nine straight to close out Bongiorno in the second game for his fourth senior title and $9,000.
Chamberlain leads the points list and is a favorite for senior player of the year. He beat Doug Hosking of Elizabethtown, Pa., in the semifinals and Bongiorno ousted Tommy Nevitt of Jacksonville. This was the final event on the seniors' 11-stop season and the tour resumes in May.
NEW COLLEGE FORMAT: College Bowling USA will conduct a national collegiate singles championship in Milwaukee, Wis., May20-22. The event will feature the country's top 16 male and top 16 female collegiate bowlers and will replace the Association of College Unions-International men's and women's national championships as the premier individual college bowling event supported by CBUSA. Hudson's Linda Woods, a Florida graduate, won the 1990-91 ACU-I women's singles titles.
The NCAA named six members who will comprise the 2003-04 women's championship committee, which will handle association-wide administration and the national championship. Among the members is Florida A&M coach Novella Franklin.
The NCAA announced the approval of women's bowling as a NCAA championship sport for the 2003-04 school year.