Defending PBA Senior U.S. Open Champion Andres Gomez Leads After Qualifying
Greeley, Colorado – Qualifying is complete at the 2026 PBA Senior U.S. Open and defending champion Andres Gomez has taken over the lead.
After getting off to an encouraging start on day one, he expected he would get most of his score bowling on the burn. Sure enough, he was right as he bowled his best block on Friday. He struck 73% of the time with games of 255, 219, 246, 268, 269 and 238 for 1,495. That was by far the highest block by any bowler in the 105-player field. Add that to his 12 previous games and his total pinfall is 4,148.
“I was in my zone and on autopilot. For me and for my game, I thought from the beginning the easiest squad for me to score was going to be the burn. It doesn’t force me so far left and it doesn’t make me have my mark in front of me. Meaning that I can do my natural swing,” Gomez said, after averaging 249 for the day. “I only moved a total of four boards and used the same ball. The pattern played exactly how I thought it would.”
It was a completely different story for him on Thursday when he shot his lowest block of 1,315. He estimates over three games he had nearly 20 nine-counts as every ball he used was not going through the pins at Highland Park Lanes the right way. He was hitting the pocket, but he played the wrong angle. After watching Robert Lawrence scoring to his left, he realized he had started too far left. He moved back to the right and played where Lawrence was to save his block. Gomez had a different game plan on Friday.
“Today the strategy, the ball choice and the angles were correct and the pins cooperated. Rounds like this don’t come very often but you still have to be careful because when you take it for granted – I have a great reaction. I can throw it anywhere and I can strike - it can change at any given point,” Gomez said. “I was really trying to stay calm, go through my process and taking my time, making sure I threw quality shots. I stayed ahead of the moves, and I think that was the key that allowed me to get the score that I did.”
Last year at this point in the tournament, Gomez had a solid final qualifying block to get to 13th place before match play. He admits it was a grind to climb into third place and ultimately win his first PBA50 title. Being in a better position this time around is a relief.
“It feels really good right now to be in the mix and not be chasing someone as good as these guys are,” Gomez said.
Gomez has a 73-pin lead over Brad Angelo. Third through fifth place are separated by only 11 pins. Lawrence is three pins behind Angelo, while Chris Barnes sits four pins behind Lawrence. Tom Hess is in fifth place at 4,061, just seven pins behind Barnes.
The final player to make the top 24 is David Tolson at 3,836. They will all bowl two six-game blocks of round robin match-play at noon and 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Followed by two more six-game blocks at the same times on Sunday. The top five bowlers will advance to the stepladder finals scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. Enjoy every game only on BowlTV.
Top 10 PBA Senior U.S. Open standings:
- Andres Gomez 4,148 total pinfall (+548)
- Brad Angelo, 4,075 (+475)
- Robert Lawrence, 4,072 (+472)
- Chris Barnes, 4,068 (+468)
- Tom Hess, 4,061 (+461)
- Tom Daugherty, 4,021 (+421)
- Ricky Schissler, 3,989 (+389)
- Mika Koivuniemi, 3,978 (+378)
- Randy Weiss, 3,967 (+367)
- Tom Carter, 3,932 (+332)