PWBA Bowling Tour: 2018 season

The 2018 Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour retains a similar schedule to the 2017 season, with nine standard tournaments and four majors, but includes two changes. First, the final round of each standard tournament will now be contested in the bowling center where the qualifying rounds occurred. (In the three previous seasons, these final rounds took place in the center where the next major tournament came up on the schedule.) Second, the final three standard events of the year will feature an “Elite Field” of 24 bowlers, based on season-to-date points list, that are automatically placed into the top 32 for match play. The remaining players will bowl a qualifying round for the other eight spots in match play.^[1]

The final rounds of the first six standard tournaments will air live on a PBA Xtra Frame Webcast. CBS Sports Network will air the final round of the three Elite Field standard tournaments and all major tournaments live.^[2]

The season's final event and final major, the PWBA Tour Championship, is an invitational featuring a starting field of only 16 bowlers. Tournament winners from the current season gain automatic entry into the starting field, with the remaining spots given to bowlers with the highest 2018 point totals among non-winners. The championship is set up in a bracketed elimination format, with players seeded 1-16 based on YTD points. The #5 through #16 seeds compete in Round 1, with the six winners joining the #3 and #4 seeds in the eight-player second round. The four winners from Round 2 then compete in Round 3, with the two survivors of those matches joining the #1 and #2 seeds in the four-player televised finals. All rounds leading up to the single-elimination televised finals are best three-of-five match play.^[3]

An additional PWBA title was available at the Striking Against Breast Cancer Mixed Doubles tournament, a cross-over event with the PBA Tour held on July 26-29 in Houston, Texas.