Aren't you excited when you bowl at least one strike in a game? On April 5, a man not only bowled one strike, but 12 consecutive strikes. The fascinating thing is that he did it all in less than 90 seconds. Ben Ketola from New York bowled 12 strikes in a row in 86.9 seconds. The 23-year-old two-handed bowler has plans to set more records.
12 strikes in less than 90 seconds
Ketola works at a bowling alley, and after it closed to the public, he used all 10 lanes. After releasing the ball, he did not wait to see if he had gotten a strike or not. Instead, he quickly went to the next lane and bowled in all 10 empty lanes.
Then, he ran back to re-use the first two lanes. Fortunately, he did break a record and got a strike every single time. It helped that Kertola had a lot of practice. He bowls at least 50 games a week. The bowler said that this wasn't the last bowling record he intends to set. He wants to see how fast he can get all spares.
Other perfect games
What the New York bowler did was nothing new. He joins a long list of others who have been successful bowlers. For instance, Tom Daugherty did it in 110.99 seconds. The 42-year-old right-handed bowler became the inspiration for Ketola. Daugherty has bowled 13 perfect games.
Hannah Diem of Seminole, Florida was just nine and a half when she bowled 12 consecutive strikes back in 2013 at Liberty Lanes in Largo, Florida.
Needless to say, she set the record for the youngest bowler with a score of 300.
Speaking of age, the oldest person to bowl a perfect game was Arthur Ulmer of Melbourne, Florida. He was 89 and a half when he bowled a perfect game on December 7, 2010, for the second time. He rolled his first 300 game in 2000 and came close two other times.
He bowled a 299 game in 2001 and a 298 game in 2005.
How to bowl a perfect game
A perfect game in bowling is getting a score of 300. In order to get a score of 300, a bowler must roll a strike every time. A person must bowl 12 strikes in a row in a single game. Before the 1980s, it was harder to bowl a perfect game. However, perfect games are more common these days because of technology with the lanes.
Before then, perfect games were rare.
Since the late 1980s, many people have bowled perfect games. In fact, bowlers are trying for multiple perfect games. This happened on February 2, 1997, at Sun Valley Lanes, when Jeremy Sonnenfeld bowled 36 games using three separate sets of lanes. At the time, he was a sophomore at the University of Nebraska. Sonnenfeld made it into the record books for his bowling success. Since then, it has reportedly been done 31 times.
