Youthful bowler unfazed

Ryan "Rhino" Page was last year's top rookie in the Professional Bowlers Association, and the 24-year-old still is enjoying the euphoria of competing against the world's best.

Four years after earning the most valuable player honor as a member the national championship University of Kansas bowling team, the left-hander is two games from winning one of the PBA Tour's four major tournaments. It would be his second Tour title this season and first career major.

Being one of four bowlers to advance to today's nationally televised finals of the Tournament of Champions, which will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Red Rock Lanes, doesn't seem to faze him.

Not the $50,000 the winner will receive or, perhaps more important, an exemption into Tour events for the next two seasons.

"I can't tell you what it would be like to win," said Page, of Topeka, Kan. "This is a special year. Everyone who is anyone in the sport is here this week."

Page led the tournament after 32 games, then fell about 200 pins outside the top four with eight match-play games remaining. It wasn't until Friday night's position round and final game that he jumped from fifth to second.

Wes Malott of Pflugerville, Texas, was the leader after 40 games but fell to fifth before moving up one spot to make his fourth consecutive finals.

Malott, the fourth seed, will meet Mike Scroggins of Amarillo, Texas, in the opening match, with the winner facing Page.

Tournament leader Patrick Allen of Wesley Chapel, Fla., is seeded first as he competes in his PBA-record fifth consecutive televised finals in a singles Tour event.

If Malott has an edge beyond winning two of the last five Tour titles, including a week ago in Medford, Ore., it will be as the only right-hander in the finals.

The PBA will condition the lanes for 39 feet from the foul line. Each ball will pick up some of the oil and redistribute it closer to the headpin, which is 60 feet from the line.

That also means the three left-handers will do more to disrupt the oil on their side of the lanes than will happen on the right side.

"Hopefully I'll be able to build my own lane condition and make good shots," Malott said.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247.