Bowling for dollars at Showboat

Monday, July 27, 1998 | 10:43 a.m.

The year was 1959 and the Showboat Hotel, Casino and Bowling Center was a modest operation on what then was a dusty, two-lane Boulder Highway.

It also was the year 33 avid bowlers decided to form an organization, called the Professional Bowlers Association, and stage their first "tour." That first three-city swing hit the towns of Albany, N.Y., Paramus, N.J., and Dayton, Ohio, and offered a combined purse of $49,500.

The following year, the PBA got ambitious and added three tournaments west of the Mississippi -- two in California and a stop at the 24-lane Showboat Bowling Center.

The inaugural Showboat Invitational was such a hit that the PBA has been coming to Las Vegas ever since, marking the longest continuous sponsorship of the national tour.

In 1986, the PBA began a national tour for senior bowlers, ages 50 and older. Again, the Showboat was there to welcome the new tour and the two have been inseparable.

This week, the Senior PBA Tour invades the Showboat Bowling Center for the $180,000 Showboat Senior Invitational, the 13th consecutive year the Senior Tour has visited the venue.

In a sense, the Showboat and the PBA have grown up together. While the Showboat was adding casino space, additional rooms and more than quadrupling its number of bowling lanes, the PBA steadily was adding tournaments and increasing its purses.

The Showboat reinforced its longtime partnership with the PBA in 1997, becoming the title sponsor of the Senior Tour and offering a $1 million bonus to any bowler who rolls a perfect game in the title match of a PBA Tour event.

"The Showboat has always been a great partner for us and they came through again by sponsoring the bonus," PBA commissioner Mark Gerberich said.

While both the Showboat and the PBA Tour have gone through radical changes since the tour first visited Las Vegas in 1960, one thing has remained constant, said 1997 PBA Senior Tour Player of the Year Gary Dickinson.

"We always look forward to going to the Showboat," Dickinson said. "I've been going there since 1970 and I've bowled every year since. I think all the bowlers look forward not just to the Showboat, but Vegas itself."

But that isn't the only reason bowlers such as Dickinson enjoy coming to Las Vegas. This year's tournament, which offers a $180,000 purse, is one of the biggest and most prestigious on the PBA Senior Tour.

"It's an enormous tournament for us every year, it's one of our better ones," said Dickinson, who won his first PBA Senior Tour title at the Showboat in 1993. "The Seniors don't bowl for a lot of money overall and we have three or four really good tournaments. Showboat happens to be one of them.

"Most weeks, we shoot for $8,000 (but in Las Vegas) it's $20,000 (to win) -- a lot more than we normally shoot for. It's a lot bigger field, a lot tougher field and all the good bowlers come to that one tournament."

Pete Couture, the 1995 PBA Senior Tour Rookie of the Year and one of the most consistent senior bowlers during the past year, said the Showboat and professional bowling are synonymous.

"The Showboat has been with us since before I started bowling and they've done a lot to help our tour," he said. "They've sponsored the Senior Tour the last two years and that's really helped us get extra television exposure, so the Senior Tour owes a lot to the Showboat.

"It's a wonderful facility to bowl in and we enjoy it there every year."

The partnership between the hotel/casino and the PBA has been beneficial to the Showboat, as well.

Celine Vogler, public relations manager for the Showboat, said guests constantly stop by the bowling center and want to bowl on the lanes where the televised finals of PBA Tour and PBA Senior Tour tournaments are held.

"Visitors from all over the world come to bowl where the pros bowl," Vogler said.

"Requests for lanes 51 and 52 (the TV lanes) are unending because public bowlers want the complete experience in their quest to bowl like the pros."