BY MOSES LEOS III
It was a moment that will live on in the annals of YouTube lore.
After hitting 11 straight strikes in one frame at the The Luci Bonneau Striking Against Breast Cancer Mixed Doubles Bowling Tournament in Houston on August 4, Kyle resident Troy Walker was one shot away from another 300 game in his 33-year career.
And then the unthinkable happened. The final ball was denied by, of all things, the lane ball rack.
“Oh my God!” shouted an incredulous play-by-play announcer for insidebowling.com, who was livestreaming the event. The large crowd that gathered echoed the bewilderment.
Walkers’ final ball rolled down the lane. It looked to be true; a perfect game was in sight. But it was not to be.
He was given one more try to recapture the glory, but only gathered seven pins. The perfect game was gone. He only had a 297 to show for his effort.
“That was odd,” Walker said after the game.
The moment has now become a viral sensation. Over 1.7 million viewers have watched the incident on You-Tube, with ESPN’s SportsCenter playing it for their late night rundown.
But how could something so bizarre occur?
According to Walker, it was all an accident.
“After my 11th strike, I inadvertently reset the pins on the lane next to me,” Walker said in an emailed response. “So therefore, I contacted the front counter to reset the pins and when I was throwing my 12th shot, that’s when the mechanic in the back was going to re-spot the pins on my lane and not the lane next to me.”
The rest is internet history.
Walker’s lead up to the big moment did not harbor anything significant. In the first four of eight qualifying games, Walker obtained scores of 212, 227, 201 and 233.
He did so having to bowl on different lanes, with conditions varying on each.
In addition, the lane he bowled the 297 on had a “brutal oil pattern,” as described by one of the announcers. Walker felt he obtained a “good pair of lanes.”
“In competitive bowling, there are two type of oil patterns. The ‘typical house condition’ which is used for league [bowling], tends to be very easy,” Walker said. “Then you have a ‘sport pattern’, used for higher tier tourneys and all professional bowling events.”
At the end of the tournament, Walker and his tournament partner finished 34 out of 84 teams in the field.
Yet all anyone talked about was that one moment.
Since then, TMZ and Fox Sports Southwest have contacted Walker for interviews. The video was ranked at the number two spot in SportsCenter’s Not Top Ten list.
However, Walker felt a large portion of the story was lost. Primarily, the charity he was playing for.
For the past 14 years, the Luci Bonneau Memorial Bowling Tournament honored the late professional bowler, who succumbed to breast cancer. The event raises funds for the Stehlin Foundation for Cancer Research.
Because of this, Walker turned down several interview opportunities. He was concerned certain programs would have cast a negative light on the tournament, the Palace Lanes bowling center, and especially director Donna Conners.
“I did turn down a Fox and Friends interview and the show Tosh.0 on [Comedy Central] for reasons of the high possibility of negativity towards the incident against the bowling center,” he said. “Tournament director Donna Conners received several calls from ‘shock jocks’ asking her how this could have happened on the last shot of a perfect game.”
Walker still is shocked the video has received so much attention.
“To me it has been overwhelming as to how viral the video went”, Walker said. “No one could imagine how far it went.”
Inevitably, Walker missed out on notching the forty-seventh sanctioned perfect game in his career. Yet, the chance to possibly bowl a 300 at such a prestigious tournament meant so much more.
“[Whether] it is your first [300 game] or in my case, my 47th, it would have been special because of the type of tourney it was,” Walker said.
