That result got lost Sunday but it was my favorite sporting outcome of the week. Duke is a great bowler, 44-year-old veteran with a terrific basic style among all the crankers, but he had never won the U.S. Open despite several close calls including a 1 pin loss in 2000. On Sunday he swept 3 matches in a row on ESPN, with high totals despite tough lane conditions that made 200 a good score all week.
In the final match Duke led top seed Mika Koivuniemi going into the 10th frame and needed only a spare to win, but nearly choked it away by coming in light, leaving a bucket (4 pins) 2-4-5-8 on the left side. That spare was the biggest shot of his career and he hammered it decisively by smacking the 2 pin dead center from a left side approach, splattering all 4 pins, to defeat Koivuniemi, 224-216.
Bowling obviously has nose dived in popularity but the U.S. Open remains the premier event. Duke won his second major of the year, 28th PBA title, and became just the second bowler in history to win the four Grand Slam events - the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) Masters, Tournament of Champions, World Championship and the U.S. Open.
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=bowling/news/news.aspx?id=4141775"Fueled by the desire to win the most coveted event on Tour and the one he has had several close calls in, Duke was a man on a mission all week. Though he lost the top seed for the finals by going just 3-5 in the final round of match play Saturday, he salvaged the No. 3 seed which meant he had to win three matches on Sunday for the title.
After looking unstoppable in defeating No. 4 Doug Kent, 234-160, and No. 2 Chris Loschetter, 267-245, to reach the title match, Duke faced the top-seed Koivuniemi, who was looking for his second U.S. Open title.
Koivuniemi held the lead until a spare in the eighth frame after which Duke struck in the eighth and ninth to take the lead. Koivuniemi had a chance to put some pressure on Duke by striking out, but he left a 2-pin with his first shot in the 10th, converting the spare and finishing with a strike to force Duke to mark.
With everything on the line, Duke re-racked but left the 2-4-5-8, one of the few bad shots he threw all day.
"I was protecting against going high because you can make the bucket but you can't make the 4-6," Duke (Clermont, Fla.) said. "But I wanted to strike, too, so it had to be somewhere in between. I didn't throw it awful, I just missed it enough. When I left that I thought, 'It's over. I've done it again.'"
Duke was referring to the 2000 U.S. Open title match against Robert Smith where he needed a strike with his first ball in the 10th frame to win, but he left the 8-pin to lose, 202-201.
"That was the longest 10th frame today," Duke, the first No. 3 seed since Dave Husted in 1996 to win the U.S. Open, said. "Under those circumstances, I was a lot calmer today than I had been on Friday and Saturday. Fatigue really plays a role in this event. If you watched last night, guys were dying and I was one of those guys. Not dying mentally, but physically. But I threw some warm-ups this morning and had the game I wanted to have and that really calmed me down."
After Duke picked up the "bucket," the diminutive crowd favorite who is one of the most emotional players the Tour has ever seen, pumped his fist and jumped wildly, showing just how much this event meant to him.
"I cannot put into words how special this is to me," Duke said. "Five years after I missed that shot against Robert I would still cry about it. It was the one thing I would constantly think about that I hadn't done. I could just never cap it off. Now, I'm the reigning champion of the U.S. Open."
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