Wayne County native is one of the greatest professional bowlers of all time
When Doug Kent joined the Professional Bowlers Association Tour in 1988, there was just one thing that surprised the Macedon native.
“I thought it would be a little tougher,” he told a Rochester reporter that August.
More likely he was just a better bowler than he’d realized.
Kent was holding his own with the world’s top bowlers right from the get-go. His first tournament win came at the USBC Masters in Toledo in 1991. It was the first of four majors he would win in a career that spanned more than 20 seasons on the PBA Tour.
Kent was probably at his best during the 2006-07 season, when he captured the USBC Masters and PBA World Championship — becoming just the ninth player in history to win two majors in a season. He established career highs for average (222.43) and earnings ($200,530) and was voted PBA Player of the Year.
Although he had some impressive peaks, the hallmark of his career was his consistency from week-to-week. Over his final seven full seasons, he cashed in an astonishing 130 of 133 events.
"I worked on my game for years and years so I always had a chance to win on different lane conditions," Kent said in a 2013 interview. "I can't say I was a master at any one but very competitive on all of them. I never wanted to be one dimensional, just versatile."
His career totals are undeniably impressive: Kent won 10 tournaments; cashed in 344 out of 455 events (75 percent); made 37 televised finals; rolled 31 perfect games; and earned approximately $1.51 million in prize money.
Those numbers made him worthy of the sport’s highest accolades. Kent was named one of the PBA's 50 greatest players of all-time in 2008, and he was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in 2013.
Although he retired from full-time play in 2010, Kent continued to appear in PBA Tour events occasionally through 2019.
Kent lettered in golf and baseball at Palmyra-Macedon High School, which didn’t have a bowling team. Instead, he competed in men’s leagues, averaging close to 200.
He has been the owner/operator of Doug Kent's Rose Bowl Lanes in Newark since 1999. He lives in Newark with his wife and two children.
Sean Lahman is a former investigative reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle and served as an editor of a number of best-selling sports encyclopedias — including Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball and The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.
This story was originally published in July 2016.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Doug Kent was successful bowler who's in the PBA Hall of Fame
