First PBA 900 Series Recorded By North Carolina Bowler
From the archive: published Apr 22, 2013, 13 years ago. Details may have changed since.
The first PBA 900 series has been recorded by a 50-year-old contractor from North Carolina.
Joe Scarborough recorded the first 900 series in Professional Bowlers Association history, recording three consecutive perfect games in the opening round of qualifying for the PBA50 Sun Bowl. The feat meant that Scarborough nailed 36 straight strikes, doing so under the increasing pressure of perfection.
After throwing the first PBA 900 series, Scarborough looked as if he might keep it going. He started his fourth game with a strike, but on the next shot he left a split.
Though he recorded the first PBA 900 series, Scarborough isn’t the only bowler to toss three straight perfect games. Norm Duke had three straight 300 games in a PBA Tour event in 1996, but the games were split over the course of two rounds so it didn’t count as a 900 series.
A PBA member from 1999-2001, Scarborough joined again when he turned 50.
”I’m pretty surprised,” Scarborough said. ”I had the shot, I took my time and it worked out. To be honest, no, I wasn’t nervous. I was pretending I was at home practicing, and I blocked out the crowd and focused on executing every shot.”
A last-minute change helped Scarborough roll the 900 series .
“It’s interesting that I used a different ball to start practice, but I switched (to a Storm IQ Tour Pearl) and I threw six strikes in a row to end practice,” he said. “So I decided to start with that ball. I knew I had something good, but not this good.
“I’m proud of what I’ve done so far,” he added, “but I’ve still got work to do.”
Throwing the first PBA 900 series wasn’t enough for Scarborough to win the tournament, however. He followed up the 900 with three sub-200 games and fell into a tie for 12th place, 77 pins behind the leader, PBA Hall of Famer Mark Williams.
“After the first three games, I moved to the other end of the house where the lanes were drier and I just couldn’t get the ball down the lane the same way,” Scarborough said. “It wasn’t the pressure.”
Before recording the first PBA 900 series, Scarborough was no stranger to 300 games. He had been perfect 14 times before, and once recorded a three-game series of 838.