The PBA Players Championship is one of five major tournaments on the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour. It is one of three PBA Tour major events that are open only to PBA members. (The U.S. Open and USBC Masters allow qualifying amateurs to enter.)
The tournament began as the PBA Touring Players Championship in 1983 and ran every PBA Tour season through 2000. PBA Hall of Famer Steve Cook won the inaugural event. There were no Players Championship events under any name from 2001 to 2010. After the tournament returned to major status in the 2016 season, the PBA voted to retroactively award major titles to the winners of the three previous Players Championship events that decade (2011, 2013, 2015), stating the tournament "is a members-only event, and includes all of the elements of a major."[1]
Through 2020, the tournament included a maximum starting field of 92 PBA players. The top PBA members in earnings from the previous season had entry priority over the general membership, and could fill up to 82 spots. The remaining 10 spots in the starting field were filled from a ten-game pre-tournament qualifier (PTQ). The tournament format has changed over the years. The format through 2020 included 42 games of qualifying: three rounds of six games each to determine the top 24 for match play, followed by three match play rounds of eight games each. All pins from the initial 18 games carry over into the match play round, with the match play rounds adding 30 bonus pins per victory to the total pinfall in the round. The field was then cut to the top five for the televised stepladder finals.[2]
There is no set oil pattern. The 2018 Players Championship used the 44-foot Carmen Salvino oil pattern,[3] while the 2019 event used the 45-foot Dragon pattern.[4] The 2020 event featured the 38-foot Wayne Webb oil pattern, named after the PBA Hall of Famer whose bowling center in Columbus, Ohio hosted this tournament from 2016 through 2020.[5] The 2023 event featured a dual oil pattern, with the 45-foot Dick Weber pattern on the left lane and the 39-foot Don Carter pattern on the right lane.
The PBA announced a revamped Players Championship for the 2021 season that opened up the event to the broader PBA membership. Five Regional events were hosted first. After 28 qualifying games (7 games on each of four oil patterns), each Region held its own stepladder finals broadcast. The five Regional winners then competed in the televised tournament finals.[6] The five finals participants bowled a three-game set the day before the broadcast to determine seeding for the stepladder.
The Regional concept was introduced, in part, due to travel restrictions that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, and allowed most PBA professionals to compete in safe events closer to home.
The 2021 PBA Players Championship featured a $1 million prize fund, with a PBA record-tying $250,000 first place prize.[6]
The regional qualifying/national finals format was retained for the 2022 season.
In 2023, the tournament returned to a one-site format, taking place in North Brunswick, New Jersey. This season's event had 48 games of qualifying, with the top 12 qualifiers earning spots in the bracketed match play. The 5 through 12 seeds competed in head-to-head, single-game elimination matches (5 vs. 12, 6, vs, 11, etc.) on May 6, while the 1 through 4 seeds earned byes into the quarterfinal round. The quarterfinals on May 7 featured head-to-head, double-elimination matches in a "race to two points" format. In this format, any player winning both games advances to the semifinals; if the games are split one win each, a ninth-tenth frame roll-off determines who advances.[7]
The semifinals on May 13 also used the race to two points format, while the final head-to-head match on May 14 was a best-three-of-five format. The Players Championship was the only 2023 PBA major that did not use a stepladder final round.
The standard stepladder finals returned for the 2024 PBA Players Championship.
The 2024 PBA Players Championship was held at Bowlero Northrock in Wichita, Kansas on January 10–15, with a pre-tournament qualifier (PTQ) on January 9. The tournament had a starting field of 88 players (after PTQ qualifiers were added) and a total prize fund of $474,900, with a $100,000 top prize.[8] Second-seeded Bill O'Neill defeated top seed Tom Smallwood in the championship match to earn his 14th PBA Tour title and third major title. O'Neill previously won the PBA Players Championship in 2020. The tournament was also notable for the debut of Ryan Barnes, son of PBA Hall of Famer Chris Barnes and USBC Hall of Famer Lynda Barnes. Ryan, a Wichita State University senior, bowled on a Commissioner's exemption and finished in third place.[9]
| Match #1 | Match #2 | Match #3 | Title match | |||||||||||||||
| 1 | Tom Smallwood | 178 | ||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Bill O'Neill | 215 | 2 | Bill O'Neill | 209 | |||||||||||||
| 3 | Nate Stubler | 220 | 4 | Ryan Barnes | 205 | |||||||||||||
| 4 | Ryan Barnes | 267 | 4 | Ryan Barnes | 224 | |||||||||||||
| 5 | Chris Via | 223 | ||||||||||||||||
Prize Pool:
Listing of all champions dating back to the inaugural 1983 Touring Players Championship.