Australian tenpin bowler Jason Belmonte has further cemented his place in the record books after becoming the first PBA Tour player to roll three perfect 300 games on live TV.
A 300 game is achieved by scoring a strike in every frame – the highest score possible in tenpin bowling – and having one aired live is a goal for most professional bowlers.
Belmonte has 25 300 games in his PBA Tour career, with his first televised in 2012 and second 10 years later in 2022.
The 29-year-old hails from the New South Wales town of Orange, where his parents built a tenpin bowling alley just weeks after he was born. He rolled his first ball when he was 18 months old.
Belmonte’s third televised 300 game came at the PBA Tour finals in Washington on Sunday.
‼️ BELMO DOES IT AGAIN ‼️
— PBA Tour (@PBATour) June 25, 2023
Jason Belmonte becomes the first player to record THREE televised 300 games!
📺 CBS Sports Network pic.twitter.com/jqFmz4kAmx
However, Belmonte, the defending champion, was knocked out by American Kris Prather in a two-frame roll off to miss the final. Prather eventually lost to fellow American Kyle Troup in the championship match.
On Twitter Belmonte said he was “annoyed with the issues I’m having with spares”, after missing two against Prather, but was happy to have made history.
Belmonte’s mum, Marisa Belmonte, who owns Orange Tenpin Bowl, said she was proud to watch her son break yet another record.
“I was so excited, we were watching it live and my heart was pounding,” she said. “He has just dominated in the last 10 years and he gave it his best go, he had to come back hard and he did that with a 300 game.”
Marisa said scoring a perfect game on live TV is significant because of the added pressure of lights, cameras and many more viewers than normal.
“You’ve got to have have everything go right, the lane conditions, you have to constantly adjust,” she said.
“It’s a very different atmosphere when you’re bowling at an event like that, you’ve got TV cameras there, you’ve got millions of people watching because its televised live. So it’s added pressure… with the heat of the lights, the temperature is actually a bit different.
“It’s quite phenomenal really, can you imagine someone in golf getting a whole in one three times in three events?”
Belmonte’s skill and distinctive two-handed bowling style has helped make him a highly marketable star in professional tenpin bowling – he has his own merchandise line and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
He holds the record for the most majors at 15, with the nearest behind him holding 10, and is one of the few non-Americans to have ever been ranked No 1.
