March 22, 2022 Nolan Hughes

No player on the tour this season owns multiple titles… except Jason Belmonte, who now owns four in 2022. The 38-year-old Australian’s dominant season has him in prime position to secure a record-tying seventh Player of the Year award.

Belmonte said after his victory at the Scorpion Championship—which, for those keeping track at home, is now two wins ago—that he didn’t want to discuss the Player of the Year race until May. Barring a near-perfect finish from one of the other candidates, Belmonte is going to win the award. He must have a lavish speech in the works.

As expected, Belmonte leads the points race by a significant margin. However, the grand prize for winning the points race is merely a battle with the 16th place finisher at the Kia PBA Playoffs in April.

1. Jason Belmonte - 30,655
Is the points race over? It might be over.

2. EJ Tackett - 21,655
Tackett led qualifying in Lubbock, and a brutal 9-pin in the 10th frame of the championship match cost him a second title of 2022. Though he may hold just one title thus far in 2022, don’t let that overshadow his sensational season. Tackett leads the tour in average this season; his 226.41 average over 295 games exceeds Belmonte’s 225.98 average across 315 games.

Tackett also leads the tour in gutters this season, which is mostly a humorous anecdote—but imagine what he’d be averaging without an addiction to cleaning the gray boards!

3. Anthony Simonsen - 18,695
Simonsen lost significant ground on Tackett after withdrawing from the tournament in Lubbock; he is not on the roster for the Colorado Springs Open either. But Simonsen is essentially locked into a playoff spot where seeding is all but irrelevant, so Simonsen will look to rest up for a run at another Masters title.

4. Kris Prather - 17,900
Likewise, Prather did not make the trip to the Lone Star State, nor will venture out to Colorado. Dom Barrett made up ground on Prather in Lubbock, but Prather has almost double the points of Shawn Maldonado, who sits 16th overall.

5. Dom Barrett - 17,655
Barrett found himself in position to make the show in Lubbock with two games to go—then Sean Lavery-Spahr went nuclear. Barrett could not outduel Lavery-Spahr, who fired 269 and 300 down the stretch, and slipped into sixth place, missing the show by 21 pins. He did, however, create further separation between himself and the field in the playoff standings.

6. Tommy Jones - 15,040
Another week, another top-10 performance for Jones. He took eighth place in Lubbock to continue a spectacular, albeit winless, 2022 campaign. The fact that he sits within striking distance of a pair of major champions without a single title exemplifies his prowess this season.

7. Sean Rash 13,610
Instead of lacing up a pair of cowboy boots, Rash opted to rest up an ailing back. Based on the posted roster, he’ll pass on the Colorado excursion as well.

8. Kyle Troup 12,283
After being the first man off the show twice in Milwaukee, Troup found himself in familiar territory in Lubbock, finishing in fifth place and missing the show by seven pins. He may not be replicating his Player of the Year campaign, but he still sits ahead of a pair of 2022 titleists in the points race.

9. Kyle Sherman - 12,140
Sherman led the opening six-game block in Lubbock and sat in second after 12 games. But a dismal block in the first advancers round dropped Sherman into 17th place and below the cut. The distance between himself and the playoff cut shrunk a little, but Sherman is in a strong position as the season winds down.

10. Jesper Svensson - 11,190
Svensson has found the majority of his success this season in the Storm Cup events. After winning the PBA David Small's Best Of The Best Championship in Jackon, Mich. earlier this season, Svensson earned another top-four finish this past weekend in Lubbock. He fell to Belmonte in the opening match of the stepladder finals, but put some distance between himself and the playoff cut.

11. Patrick Hanrahan - 11,178
Hanrahan, the man Svensson defeated for the title in Jackson, continued his stellar play from the Guaranteed Rate PBA World Series of Bowling. Hanrahan earned a 13th-place finish, marking his sixth consecutive top-15 performance. If he keeps up that consistency, he’ll cruise into the PBA Playoffs.

12. Jakob Butturff - 11,120
Like Hanrahan, Butturff has been riding a hot streak of late, as he logged his seventh straight top-20 performance in Lubbock. Though the seven-time PBA Tour champion has higher aspirations than 14th place at this point in his career, any top-16 finish at this point in the season bolsters his playoff hopes.

13. Jason Sterner - 10,590
Sterner could not carry over his Milwaukee success to Texas, missing the cut in 31st place. He slipped from 10th to 13th place in the points rankings, holding onto a playoff spot by about 1,200 points.

14. AJ Johnson - 10,235
Johnson rekindled his early season play in Lubbock with a seventh place finish. He remains in 14th place overall, but increased his cushion over the cut by about 200 points. That may not seem like a huge difference, but it could prove pivotal late in the season.

15. Tom Daugherty - 9,345
Daugherty found himself outside the playoff cut following the World Series of Bowling, but climbed back into the top 16 with a 10th-place finish in Lubbock. Perhaps the Floridian just needed some warm weather to find his form again.

16. Shawn Maldonado - 9,333
Similarly, Maldonado held onto the final playoff spot after returning to his home state. The Texan finished 11th last weekend, and barely staved off Bill O’Neill for the last spot in the current playoff picture.

17. Bill O'Neill - 9,310
O’Neill took 15th in Lubbock, four and five spots behind Maldonado and Daugherty, respectively. Had O’Neill finished just one spot higher (or knocked over 37 more pins), he would have surpassed both Maldonado and Daugherty in season points. The race is that close.

18. Jake Peters - 8,820
Despite a 19th place performance in Lubbock, Peters’ deficit from the playoff cut swelled from 55 points to 513, as he finished behind each of the four players ahead of him in points. That deficit is far from insurmountable, but he’ll have to outbowl some top talents down the stretch. The Masters, near his home city of Henderson, NV, will be his best chance to make a leap.

19. Nick Pate - 7,980
After a brief hiatus outside this list, in which he sat in 21st place and 40 points behind Tom Smallwood, Pate returned to the top 20. Interestingly, he missed the cut in Lubbock with a 30th-place finish, but that was 25 spots better than Smallwood. Pate would most likely be in the playoff cut had he bowled the U.S. Open, let alone been eligible for the Tournament of Champions, but you can only earn points when you compete.

20. Chris Via - 7,870
Via finished second with 19,061 points in 2021, but finds himself outside the top 16 late in the 2022 season. He’ll need a strong finish, particularly at the Masters, to sneak into the playoffs again.

Dropped outside the top 20: Tom Smallwood