Friday, November 23, 2001
Bowlers try to hit $50,000 jackpot
'Super Hoinke' tournament marks 20 years at Western Bowl
By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer
As west side as high school football is the Hoinke Classic, whose rich offspring, the $50,000 first-prize “Super Hoinke,” begins today at Western Bowl in Bridgetown.
Russ Hoinke and his father Irv have hosted the Super Hoinke for 20 years.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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It is the 20th anniversary of the tournament, which draws 768 mostly scratch bowlers from 45 states, six foreign countries (this year — Canada, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Japan and Bermuda) and, notably, about 50 of the best Tristate amateur bowlers. About 200 of the 768 come from a 110-mile radius.
“I was hoping the guy from Maine was coming back,” said Erv Hoinke Jr., who founded the Super Hoinke, which the family bills as the richest “pure” single-elimination amateur tournament in the world.
“He brings lobsters down and we have a lobster dinner.”
The $50,000 is the biggest first-prize amateur bowling tournament outside Las Vegas. And not even Las Vegas has the Hoinkes' format: no re-entering for an additional fee once you've lost a game.
The Hoinke tournaments are as Cincinnati as the sculpture on display in one of the windows at the entrance to Western Bowl: a pig wearing bowling shoes and decorated with U.S. flags.
A big reason for the Hoinkes' sustained success?
“In a 600-mile radius, there are two-thirds of all the bowlers in the country,” Erv Jr. said. “They can drive here.”
Most of the out-of-town bowlers began arriving here Tuesday.
It's been happening that way every year since 1982. For example, on Thanksgiving Day last year, the Cheyenne Social Club restaurant, located inside Western Bowl, sold 350 adult-portion turkey dinners to bowlers.
“There's one thing I'll guarantee you: the person who comes into this tournament with the highest average — whoever that is — won't win in it,” said Russ Hoinke, son of Erv Jr.
“The beauty of it is the single match-game elimination,” said Erv Jr. “Anybody can beat anybody.”
Typical of west-side traditions, the Super Hoinke sticks to a tried-and-true formula: tough lane conditions, in which 230 averages are unheard of and 300 games are as rare as steak on the fourth Thursday in November.
“The person who wins is the person who makes the most spares,” Russ said. “I call it "the guy who stays the cleanest.'”
“It also helps to be lucky,” Erv Jr. said. “For you to win 10 games in a row, you have to be lucky.”
“With this single-game elimination format, you have to be able to bowl under pressure,” Russ said. “Of the 10 games you have to win, one by one, you're going to have at least three or four games where you're up in the 10th frame (and) you have to make a spare, a strike or a double. The hardest thing to do to win a game is to stand up there knowing you need (at least) a spare in the 10th.”
Today begins with the field of 768 getting broken into six-person groups, drawn at random. They bowl one game; the top four scores advance into the single-game elimination tournament. The $50,000 championship game will be bowled at about 4 p.m. Sunday. There's also a second-chance tournament for first-day losers: an extra $60 to win $6,000.
The entry fee for the Super Hoinke is $495 per person, which drops to $295 if you get another bowler to enter. A few years ago, when the field got up to 1,280 bowlers for a several-year stretch, first prize was $100,000.
But no matter how big the stakes are, the Hoinke challenges even the best bowlers.
“We've probably had only three 300 games in the 19-year history of the Super Hoinke,” Erv Jr. said. “The first was four or five years ago.”
His father, Erv Sr. — and Erv Sr.'s friend, Clarence Stegner (of chili fame) — founded the regular Hoinke Classic that began in 1943 on the second-floor bowling alleys above the former Schueler Building that Erv Sr. built in 1941 (he was a structural engineer). The tournament began as a way to help finance World War II. First prize was a $1,000 war bond.
Also involved in running the Hoinke tournaments in the new era: Erv Jr.'s sons, Tracy and Christopher, and Erv's daughter, Jennifer Klekamp.
For proof of how difficult it is to roll a 300 at the Super Hoinke, check out the black Z-06 Corvette from Glenway Chevrolet on the main floor at Western Bowl.
The 'Vette — 405 horsepower — goes to anybody who can roll a 300 in the round of 16, which means there are 15 games in which there is a chance it could happen. (Erv's been known to make a bet, but not with a $50,710 sticker price; he's got it insured.) Closest anybody's come: eight strikes in a row in 1991.
The Hoinkes believe in bowling as it used to be, in which rolling a three-game 600 series was a solid night, rolling a 700 series was monumental and a 300 game was scaling Mt. Everest.
The key is in how one oils the lanes. The Hoinkes set the machine to oil them so the bowler has to be closer to his or her mark to drive the ball into the 1-3 pocket. The Hoinkes figure these lanes are about 15 pins a game harder this weekend than the rest of the year.
It's not easy to negate the high-tech balls and multiple-insert shoes. Some bowlers bring 10 balls and will have 10 new ones drilled. They're looking for a ball that begins its turn at about 45 feet out on these lanes — and they have to find it quickly (within three frames on each lane) to make a difference.
The entrants range in average from 180 to 245. Time was when 180 was a heck of an average for a league bowler. About a 205 or 210 average for 10 games will probably win here. The carrier of the lowest average coming into the Super Hoinke to win it carried about a 195. Only one bowler has won the Super Hoinke more than once, and that was Larry Barwick, of Florida, who won it in consecutive years.
“He won 22 straight games,” Erv Jr. said. “You have no idea how hard that is.”
Tiffany Lilze, a 205-average bowler from Anderson Township, and Mark Jones, a 215-average bowler who bowls twice a week (Cherry Grove, and Ringo Lanes in Blue Ash) aren't seeking perfection in the three-day event. They'd just like to be around for most of the weekend, meaning advancing game by game.
“This is my first year,” said Ms. Lilze, who bowls three nights a week. “I didn't have the confidence before. That, and the new rosin bowling balls, (which "explode' into the pocket, knocking down more pins) have leveled the playing field. Women have a better chance now.”
Tish Johnson, now on the women's pro tour, won here. She beat Californian Robert Smith — Mr. Multiple Revolutions on the pro tour.
“You would not believe the pressure on these guys when they're bowling a lady,” said Erv Jr., smiling. “We have about 30 ladies in the field. Watch a guy fall apart when he starts to fall behind a lady.”
“If you're an amateur bowler, this is the place to be this weekend,” said Mr. Jones, the University of Cincinnati and Loveland High School bowling coach, who finished 11th last year.
Among the other bowlers is Steve Fehr, who leases a bowlers' pro shop inside Western Bowl. He won the tournament last year. Just because a bowler is a pro doesn't exclude him or her from the Super Hoinke, but they cannot have won a PBA title for the last five years or bowled in more than eight national pro-tour stops in a given year of the Super Hoinke.
In a good year, Mr. Fehr will sell and drill 150 to 200 balls to Super Hoinke bowlers in the four- or five-day stretch leading up to and including the tournament. Also bowling: Steve's son, Jeff.
Cincinnati is the “14th or 15th” largest bowling city in America, says Gary Crooker, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Bowling Association. The number of league bowlers is down coast-to-coast, including here, but Cincinnati has maintained its rank.
And it's not just the scratch amateurs that the Super Hoinke attracts. Rest assured, there'll be some pro bowlers from a PBA tour event this week in Louisville who'll drive up to bowl in the after-hours pot games that wind up going until 5 a.m. daily.
The great secret of bowling is that it may be the greatest ball-gambling sport ever invented. A lot of money can change hands in the space of only one game that consists of 10 frames, and it might take only 15 minutes for two people to bowl. Even the traditional match — three games — can take less than an hour.
The Hoinke family won't forget one of the more ballyhooed after-hours matches here a few years ago. Pro bowler Pete Weber and a fellow pro, who'd been bowling in a pro tour in Columbus, were challenged to a three-game match by a pair of 18-year-olds, also from out of town, who were bowling in the Super Hoinke.
“Those kids had no business challenging those two pros for a lot of money per game — Pete Weber doesn't bowl for pocket change,” Erv Jr. said. “Here it was, 4 o'clock in the morning and there were a ton of people still in here. Word had gotten around. People were standing on cigarette machines, on tables, trying to get a look. Don't you know those two kids won two of the three games and walked away with a pretty good piece of change.”
The Super Hoinke after-hours also attracts some trick bowlers. Pro bowler Norm Duke had a good schtick. He'd wrap a bowling ball in a towel. He'd hold both ends of the towel — no fingers in the ball — and hurl it down the alley. He'd take gambling action on it and progressively roll higher and higher scores, as people would bet against him making the next high number. When he got to the point where he needed a 196 to win, Russ couldn't resist the action. Once again, 4 o'clock in the morning, 100 people screaming and hollering.
“Norm needed two strikes in the 10th,” Russ said. “Boom! Boom! Double. I walked up to him, handed him the money and said, "Norm, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen.'”
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