After Jason Belmonte’s 300 game, inevidably a lot of people have that goal fresh in their mind. It was thrillling  to watch but just how elusive is a 300? How and when and how many times has it been accomplished? Jason was amazing and it is not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination, but really how often does that perfect game happen in an alley near you? Is there a club on the board or list at your Bowling Alley? Are you in that club? If you are –  congratulations. If you aren’t yet, then dream the dream and one day..right?

So let’s get down to those brass tacks. What is an official 300 game? It is genereally considered official when the game is recognized by a major bowling organization such as the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA), the United States Bowling Congress, the Amateur Bowling Tour (ABT) or the British Tenpin Bowling Association. That organization will then inspect the lane after the 300 is thrown and call it official.  These organizations all have a  commemorative  game ring. Just like the Superbowl! Most of us don’t end up with a fancy ring but instead are given a trophy or plaque and better than all, bragging rights for a very long time at our local alley.

The 300 game is every bowler’s dream. Every throw a strike. Only twelve times. Why is that hard? We must ask ourselves every Thursday night right? But it is and you need skill, good equipment and a bit of luck. The luck certainly comes in when we consider the bowling technology that we enjoy today. It didn’t used to be that way – ask grandpa, you almost didn’t know what went wrong. One throw, a strike, then the next exactly the same and in the gutter. Modern balls are reactive and have a greater hooking action. The materials have changed, the lane surfaces have changed and those improvements, along with increased skill by the bowler has given each of us a greater opportunity to throw a 300.

This doesn’t mean that everyone does it. But, a lot do.The youngest bowler recorded to bowl a 300 was Chaz Dennis from Ohio at the age of 10. And also from Ohio was Joe Dean age 87 who is the oldest to bowl a 300 game.   By the end of 1969, the US Bowling Congress recorded that there had been bowled 905 perfect games. Jump up to the end of the season in 1999 and the number was so much higher due to throwing technology. There were 34,470 that year  and now that number is around 40,000 each year. Still when you consider that there are about a billion games bowled every year, that is a pretty elusive prize.

So whatever your score each week, you are hopefully enjoying yourself. There are ways to work at getting the 300 and you can train until that day when all the stars align, and you find a four leaf clover and you get to watch in amazement, all the pins fall on the last throw. One day, one day.