On the night of October 8, 2014, Tim Waters laced up his shoes for a normal night of bowling but what he
didn’t’ know was what he was about to experience for the next three hours, breaking a new record that will go
down in the history books with an 868 series on games of 289, 300, and 279.
First, a little background on Tim. He is a very quiet and shy man but you know when he is around by hearing
some of his pins smashing or the crack of his bat. You most likely will see him in a bowling center during the
winter months or on the softball field in the summer months. He loves to brag about his daughter on Facebook,
as most of us love to do, who is usually cheering him on somewhere nearby. Tim started bowling at the age of
18. Not wanting to stay home on a weekend, he decided to go try bowling with his four friends, Chip O’Hora,
Randy Stanton, Dan McNeilly and Ryan Guerrette. Once they introduced him to bowling, Tim never turned
back. He now has earned three series of 800 or better and nine 300 games. He could be a Hall of Fame
prospect in 12 years.
Tim has a unique bowling style. Before the two handed trend started, the “no thumb” style was the big
advantage that came out. Tim has neither of these. Instead, he will put his fingers in the ball and twist the ball
while in his hand so the palm of his hand is off to the side of where a regular grip might be. That allows him to
then insert about ¼ of his thumb into the thumb hole for gripping. If you looked at the drilling and span, you
would realize that there isn’t any way that his hand would fit in this ball until you watched how he does it. This
style has allowed him a place in history.
Starting in game one, Tim fired strikes in the first 9 frames. To his left, Greg Spinelli fired off a 300 game just
before him. Then the tenth frame lit up and it was Tim’s turn to bowl. He buried the first one but then left a 7 pin
on ball number 11. He sent a messenger pin over to take it out but it just barely missed in front of the standing
corner pin, wiggling it a bit. He had to settle for a 289 game. While not letting that get him down, he got back on
track and started firing strikes again, this time not stopping until the game was over, 300 game and 589 after
two. Now game three, most everyone was aware and the air thickened every time Tim was up. His focus was
just making sure that he would get the 800. He started firing strikes again and had the first five in a row. At that
point, he figured that he had it but then started to focus on the record. Not knowing exactly what it was, but he
knew he had to keep striking. Next, a stubborn 10 pin stood, again wobbling a bit and you could hear lots of
moans around. Tim picked his spare and started again, strike in the seventh, eighth and ninth frames. He
buried the first one in the tenth, and the second one in the tenth. Still focused but pretty nervous, Tim figured he
had the record and just wanted pin count as he thought it was 857, a record bowled by Bob Kreydatus in 2007.
So he threw it just down the middle and as luck would have it, he crossed over for the final strike of the night.
Lucky for him because the record actually was 867 by Dick Bobbett in 2009. He said that he didn’t sleep much
fo the night as he kept seeing the seven pin and ten pin over and over and how close he actually was to a
perfect night.
Tim Waters bowls at Falcon Lanes on Mondays and Wednesdays, averaging 240 and 254 so far! I asked him
what was next for this year since he accomplished so much already. He still has some personal goals to
achieve some day and replied by wanting to bowl two 300 games in one night, a Masters title, Association High
Average, and Bowler of the year. No one has ever earned the Triple Crown of winning the Masters, earning the
Association High Average and also rolling the highest series in the Association in a single season. If he keeps
this up, in my opinion, that would about seal his fate in entering the Hall of Fame in 2026.