One Game Can Change Everything

When EJ Tackett woke up on the morning of June 13, he knew one thing for certain: at 3 p.m., he would cry.

Tackett had known his fate since the moment he clinched the No. 1 seed for the AMF PBA World Championship finals a month prior in Minneapolis.

For 38 days and 37 nights, Tackett prepared himself to bowl the biggest game of his life.

The World Championship title match would not only determine the final major champion of the season, but determine how the historical record would view Tackett’s 2026 campaign.

Despite leading the tour in nearly every statistical category, Tackett had yet to win a title. He needed at least one to be considered for Player of the Year.

This major title — a fourth straight World Championship title — would all but secure a fourth straight Player of the Year award, each an unprecedented feat in PBA history.

A loss, despite the tremendous rewards that would come with a victory, would represent more of a missed opportunity than a failure.

With three more title events following the World Championship, he would remain in the hunt for Player of the Year. Long-term, Tackett would be content with 27 titles and seven majors — both of which rank top 10 all time — at the age of 33.

Losing yet another time on television, however, and watching a genuine once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip through his grasp would be the cherry on top of a sundae loaded with crushed nuts.

But Tackett does not preemptively rationalize a loss. He does not shy away from the pressures demanded of a player with his talent and aspirations.

Tackett instead carries the immense weight of the World Championship like Atlas, welcoming the opportunity to potentially cement the greatest four-year peak in PBA history and launch a statistical contention as the greatest bowler who ever lived.

"IT'S LIKE EVERYTHING ALIGNED FOR THIS TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR."

As if the historic stakes of a four-peat weren’t enough, the shadow of a demoralizing season also loomed over the World Championship.

Tackett reached the finals in seven of the 13 title events prior to the World Championship. Seven times he left the lanes empty-handed. In those defeats, Tackett averaged 221 while his opponents averaged 255.

No matter how he lost on Sunday, the resilient star would reestablish himself near the top of the standings by Tuesday.

“He is a goldfish like nobody I’ve ever seen before,” said Brett Spangler, Tackett’s close friend and Motiv tour rep. “He’s otherworldly as far as letting (a loss) go. Once the lights are on again, he isn’t going to give anyone else that advantage.”

Win or lose, good fortune or bad luck, perfect execution or poor strategy, Tackett is an expert at putting the past behind him.

“I know I'm bowling well, so I can't let that affect what I'm doing and how I'm performing,” Tackett said. “If I do, then I might be giving up another opportunity to win. I've done a really good job at it over the course of my career. I've had some long stints where I could have gone into a dark place, but I was able to stay positive and put myself in those positions to be able to win championships.”

Spangler said the most impressive display of Tackett’s resoluteness came following the Indiana Classic finals in March.

“I’ve never seen him take a loss as hard as he did in Fort Wayne, and he didn’t even bowl for the title,” Spangler said.

Tackett lost the semifinal match 252-242 to Marshall Kent, but the devastation sunk in after Kent stumbled over Boog Krol in the lowest scoring title match in PBA Tour history.

As Tackett delivered his bags to his truck after the show, a well-meaning fan caught his attention.

“I bet you’re glad you weren’t a part of that disaster, huh?” the fan said.

“Well, no,” said Tackett, whose entire body convulsed at the mere idea of not wanting to bowl for the title. “I would have won.”

The loss, his third in the finals through the season’s first five title events, hurt. Coming up short in front of countless family and friends who made the 40-minute drive north from his home county of Huntington hurt more.

“But he showed up the next week and did EJ things,” Spangler said.

"STROBL ARENA IS A FUN PLACE TO BE."

To say Thunderbowl holds a special place in Tackett’s heart would be akin to saying Babe Ruth enjoyed playing Yankee Stadium.

Thunderbowl has been a foundational setting during each stage of Tackett’s illustrious career.

The Detroit-area bowling center is where Tackett made his professional debut in 2012 and bowled his first Tournament of Champions in 2014.

Strobl Arena, the stadium-style section of Thunderbowl renamed in 2023 to honor the late founder Tom Strobl, is where Tackett won his first title on television in 2016 and his first title as a father in 2024.

Earlier this season, in the week following the Indiana Classic, Tackett set himself for another chapter in his Thunderbowl fairytale by earning the top seed in the USBC Masters.

He earned the top seed for the finals in the major championship and shattered the match play average record by more than eight pins per game, averaging more than 258 in his 18 games of bracket play.

With World Championship, Tournament of Champions, and U.S. Open titles under his belt, a win would have made Tackett the fourth player to complete the career Grand Slam and solidified the greatest Masters performance in the tournament’s 75-year history.

On the same pair of lanes where he would bowl for the World Championship title in 11 weeks time, Tackett needed two strikes to defeat Krol and claim the title.

This has become familiar territory for the Hoosier. Tackett doubled to win the 2023 U.S. Open. He doubled to win the 2023 World Championship. He doubled to win the 2025 World Championship.

Tackett aced the first strike, but he threw the second shot a hair left and the 10-pin stood.

Krol made a movie. Tackett lived a nightmare.

"AFTER THE MASTERS, I HAD TO COME BACK HERE FOR SOMETHING TO GO MY WAY."

Tackett believes that if he puts himself in position to win, eventually, the pins will fall in his favor. That is the correct answer, the statement expected by every athlete with five minutes of media training.

It is much more difficult to abide by those words in practice.

“For me, it's not that hard,” Tackett contended. “Because I believe it.”

It took just one frame into the World Championship title match against the scoring hot Zach Wilkins for that belief to bear fruit.

Wilkins, the seventh seed who had won six straight matches to meet Tackett, left a pocket 4-9 split in the first frame.

The good fortune was short-lived as Tackett, on the very same lane where left the 10-pin to lose the Masters, left a pocket 7-10 in his first frame.

Tackett, unfazed, responded with a strike and two spares. In the fifth and sixth frames, Tackett fired a massive double to take the lead.

A deafening “EJ! EJ! EJ!” chant serenaded Tackett as he took a seat with momentum, seemingly for the first time all season, on his side.

A decade-plus on the tour, along with an entire season of disappointing results, had trained Tackett to handle emotional highs with poise. But the emotion Tackett’s stoicism concealed wasn’t excitement.

It was concern.

Following a review for a potential foul in the fifth frame, Tackett expressed a subtle discomfort.

Spangler said Tackett was unknowingly taking a longer first step than normal as he tried to walk around the ball return. Spangler could tell the review, which upheld the strike, had shaken the confidence of his star player.

“He threw his next shots scared,” Spangler said after the match.

Tackett missed the pocket on his next three shots following the double. He left a pair of 3-10 splits, then whiffed the head-pin to the right in the ninth frame.

In the past, those lapses likely would have spelled the end of Tackett’s title chances. His improved tenacity, combined with the low-scoring conditions, offered a narrow path to remain in the match.

“I think the difference these last three years has been there is never a moment bigger than him anymore,” Spangler said.

Tackett did what he couldn’t do in the 2023 Tournament of Champions title match — a 246-179 loss to Jason Belmonte — and made both 3-10 splits. He made his spare attempt in the ninth, struck in the 10th and converted another spare to finish with 188.

Those spares, while less glamorous than the strikes he threw to dethrone Belmonte in the 2023 and 2025 World Championship title matches, did the job, forcing Wilkins to mark in the final frame.

Tackett put himself in position to win. The pins, at long last, fell in his favor.

"I CAN'T EVEN PUT INTO WORDS WHAT THIS FEELS LIKE RIGHT NOW."

In the final hour of a season defined by pins defying Tackett’s historic aspirations at every turn, the pins submitted to his will.

He earned the first four-peat in PBA history and all but secured an unprecedented fourth consecutive Player of the Year award.

On the same lanes where Tackett won his first televised title, he won the biggest game of his life.

On the same approach where Tackett first hoisted his son as a champion, he again held Tripp in his arms as he hugged his wife, parents, and friends.

And at 3 p.m. on June 13, as he knew he would for the previous 38 days and 37 nights, Tackett cried.

The tears trickled down his cheek and dripped onto yet another World Championship trophy.