Kelly Kulick wins the PBA Tournament of Champions
Kelly Kulick wins the PBA Tournament of Champions
January 28, 2010
By Jeff Chaney, Grand Rapids Press
The 32-year-old Union, N.J., native won the 45th PBA Tournament of Champions at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas when she beat 2007-08 PBA Player of the Year Chris Barnes in the championship match, 265-195.
“It’s been a dream of mine to win a PBA Tour event, but I couldn’t have imagined it would have come in the Tournament of Champions,” Kulick told PBA.com. “It may have looked easy, but my legs were like jelly — it got to a point where I couldn’t feel them. Believe me, I was nervous and I was just letting adrenaline take over.”
The win was shown Sunday on ESPN, but one of Kulick’s biggest fans needed to watch it online.
Robin Orlikowski, wife of former Grand Rapids PBA professional Billy Orlikowski, is a close friend and former teammate of Kulick and was in Montreal last weekend for a training camp for Team Canada’s women’s bowling team.
Kelly Kulick struck to help Morehead State win the 1998 Intercollegiate Bowling Championships.
Kulick and Robin Orlikowski of Walker were teammates on the Morehead State (Ky.) women’s bowling team in 1997-99 and won a Intercollegiate Bowling Championship title together in 1998.
“I absolutely watched,” Orlikowski said. “I was nervous for her, and we were cheering hard for her the whole time. I knew she could do it! I was so happy for her because I know how hard she works on her game and she has been taking her physical body to the next level as well.”
Kulick is not the first woman to make a PBA finals event. That honor goes to Liz Johnson, who did it at Spectrum Lanes in Grand Rapids in the 2005 Banquet Open.
But Orlikowski, who has not spoken to Kulick but sent her a text to congratulate her, said getting that win, especially in a major, might help expand women’s bowling.
“The PBA brought back the women’s series and have been expanding it,” Orlikowski said. “I hope it opens the eyes to the sports world that the women need a fully funded series — not just seven events.”
Seven is the number of events on this year’s women’s series.
Kulick, who became the first woman to earn an exemption on the PBA Tour by finishing sixth in during the PBA Trials in 2006, told PBA.com she hopes her win can promote any sport for women everywhere.
“I believe this can only mean bigger and better things for the sport,” she said. “If in any way this can be a boost for women’s sports and bowling, I’m willing to do my part.”
Orlikowski hopes to talk with Kulick this week and maybe see her in the future.
“Sometimes, she comes to Grand Rapids to work with my husband,” Orlikowski said. “She has been here two times the last two years.”