Setting inglorious record can’t slow Daugherty’s roll

The last time Tom Daugherty of Wesley Chapel, Fla., was in town for the PBA Tournament of Champions at Red Rock Lanes, he bowled a 100.

On TV. In the nationally televised semifinals.

To put this in perspective, the last time I took my wife bowling, she rolled a 99. In her second game, she bowled a 116. However, she did not receive a check for $50,000, which Tom Daugherty did.

To put this in even more perspective -- or to show how deep the chasm is between opposite ends of the bowling spectrum -- in the same game that Daughtery rolled a 100, the guy he was competing against in the semifinals rolled a 299.

Because Mika Koivuniemi is from Finland and Finns generally do not show emotion, he didn't get upset when a wobbly 10-pin failed to fall, denying him a perfect game of 300.

Daugherty, on the other hand, led cheers and high-fived crowd members when he picked up two pins of a dastardly 4-6-7-10 split in the 10th frame to reach 100.

This was the Little Lebowski, the lowest score ever rolled in a televised match in the 52-year history of the PBA. It was the lowest score by a bunch, 29 pins lower, in fact, than Steve Jaros' 129 in 1992.

It was more remarkable, considering how good these pros are, than Bill Murray's comb-over in "Kingpin."

And yet Daugherty was able to make light of the ignominy, to laugh it off. He did the math and joked about making $500 for every pin he knocked over, and that had to be some kind of record, too.

He had turned a negative into a positive. And this is why I believe that when his car won't start, Tom Daugherty will just take the bus, and unlike the rest of us, he won't be sweating and cursing under his breath when he drops his fare in the slot.

"It was easy because the person I was bowling with shot a 299," Daugherty said Tuesday, as we chatted in the PBA media cubicle before he went out for another round of qualifying. "What's the difference if you lose by one (pin) or, in this case, 200? The closer the loss, the more it usually hurts."

Daugherty is a six-time PBA regional champion, but this was his first time bowling on TV, and if you are old enough to remember "Bowling for Dollars," you might recall that bowling on television is not always easy for those not accustomed to doing it.

But it wasn't like he was throwing gutter balls. The lane conditions did not favor the guys who bowl east to west with sweeping hooks but the ones who roll north and south with a straighter ball. Daugherty was Gale Sayers to Koivuniemi's Larry Csonka or Jerome Bettis, and it was over quickly.

Daugherty's ball kept sliding out of the pocket and crashing into the headpin. When a bowling ball crashes into the headpin, the other pins generally don't splatter like the graphic on the back of an old bowling shirt. Instead you often get a split, and Daugherty got seven.

"It wasn't not thinking straight; it wasn't bad shots," he said. "It was just not throwing the right ball on the right part of the lane.

"It was bad luck to shoot 100. If I would have bowled the score I deserved, I would have probably still shot 170, 180."

But if he would have shot 170, 180, he wouldn't have been on "SportsCenter" that night, or on "Pardon the Interruption" two days later, and he wouldn't have gone viral on the Internet. And he wouldn't have received hundreds of cards and letters from the parents of junior bowlers about setting a good example -- "about not being a jerk" -- which he never expected and will cherish always.

"I got more attention than the guy who won the tournament," said Daugherty, 37. "I look at it like the best thing that ever happened to me. That's why I have no problem with it, whatsoever."

He's right about that. There were no residual effects, no 100-pin postpartum depression, no roll-up-the-pants, sad-sack buffoonery like Jean van de Velde at Carnoustie after finding the Barry Burn and whacking golf balls off grandstands.

On Monday, Tom Daugherty of Wesley Chapel, Fla., averaged 244.07 over 14 games to lead 21 players who advanced to the Tournament of Champions elite qualifying field.

On Tuesday, he threw a perfect game.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.