The new year on the PBA Tour gets started with the PBA World Championship Johnny Petraglia Division Final, which will air at 1 p.m. ET Sunday on ESPN. It is the third of four eliminator rounds that will eventually trim the PBA World Championship field of 16 finalists down to four for the Sunday, Jan. 15, battle for the $50,000 first prize, the Earl Anthony Trophy and the PBA Tour's first major title of the 2011-12 season.
Four-time Tour winner Sean Rash dominated the 40-game qualifying portion of the World Championship, averaging 234.03 on five different lane conditions to earn top qualifier honors.
As the top qualifier in the Petraglia Division, Rash has selected the PBA's Scorpion lane condition as the scoring environment for Sunday's round. Also making the Division final are PBA Hall of Famer Pete Weber trying for his 36th title; third-year player Ryan Ciminelli trying for his second Tour title and non-titlist Nathan Bohr of Wichita, Kan., who will be making his PBA television debut.
One of these four players will be hoping to join Ryan Shafer and Osku Palermaa who have already won Division finals to qualify for the World Championship finals.
In Sunday's division finals, all four players will bowl a one-game match. The player with the lowest score will be eliminated. The three survivors will bowl another game, with the low man knocked out. The two finalists will bowl a final game, with the survivor advancing to the World Championship finals.
The Johnny Petraglia finals are named after the PBA Hall of Famer, 14-time PBA Tour champion and winner of the 1980 PBA National Championship.
Three easy steps to enhance your PBA World Championship telecast experience:
1. Free Xtra Frame Johnny Petraglia finals preview show (now available on pba.com's Xtra Frame) - Tune into pba.com's Xtra Frame for interviews with the finalists as they give their insight into strategy and equipment selection. All World Championship preview shows on Xtra Frame are available the Wednesday before each Sunday ESPN telecast for free.
2. Sunday, 1 p.m. ET -- ESPN telecast of Johnny Petraglia Division final from South Point in Las Vegas.
3. Sunday 2:30 p.m. ET -- Xtra Frame post-tournament show interviews the winning player and provides in-depth ball rep analysis of the winner's equipment selection and ball preparation. (Xtra subscription information is available on the pba.com Xtra Frame page.)
And of course, bowling fans can provide their feedback on World Championship telecasts through PBA's social networking platforms on Facebook and Twitter.
