PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIE CURTIS

Fife’s Tristan Curtis enjoys the moment after winning the Northwest Junior Masters Tournament in Oregon earlier this summer.

A trip to the bowling alley turned into a journey

By Rick Walter

It was about four years ago that Tristan Curtis, a 16-year-old Fife High School student, took up the sport of bowling. His mother Julie remembers it well.

“We were on a brief vacation in Portland and we visited a local bowling alley just for fun entertainment. Somehow between the time we went bowling and our arrival home from vacation, Tristan decided he was going to breathe, eat and sleep everything bowling. He was determined from that point on to sign up for every league and every bowling tournament he could get his hands on,” she said recently, after Tristan had won the Northwest Junior Masters Tournament in Milwaukie, Ore.

How did he get from a raw beginner at the age of 12 to junior master? The same way anyone reaches an advanced level of proficiency: practice, practice, practice.

On his way to the title, Tristan had been improving quite rapidly:

• 2004-2005 Daffodil Bowl – 98 average (fall), 138 average (summer)

• 2005-2006 Daffodil Bowl – 182 average (fall), 183 average (summer)

• 2006-2007 Pacific Lanes, Daffodil Bowl, Paradise Village, High School Travel League, Puget Sound Travel League – 202 high average (fall), 207 high average (summer)

• 2007-2008 Chalet Bowl, Daffodil Bowl, Pacific Lanes, High School Travel League, Puget Sound Travel League – 204 high average (fall)

• Current – Daffodil Bowl, Chalet Bowl – 217 high average (summer)

His highest sanctioned game is a 289 (bowled during Fife High School’s fourth-place finish during the 2008 Washington state high school championship), although he has bowled a perfect 300 game three times now in open bowling. Tristan’s highest sanctioned series (three consecutive games total score) is a 797 series, which included games of 236, 286 and a 275.

Tristan has won several team and adult and junior events in the three and a half years. Under the United States Bowling Congress, he has accumulated just under $2,000 in college scholarship funds from his winnings of tournament bowling in just the last two years.

In beating Matthew Kemper at the Northwest Junior Masters for a $500 scholarship prize, Tristan realized a big goal: winning his favorite tournament under the pressure of good competition.

“My goal for this next year is to shoot a sanctioned 300 and 800. Also, earn a $1,000 scholarship, win a JBT Title (Junior Bowlers Tour), and repeat The Northwest Junior Masters. My long-term goal would be to bowl in college and eventually try to bowl in the PBA (Professional Bowlers Tour),” he said.

He cannot keep count of his tournaments, and he cannot find enough of them.

“Oh man, too many, it’s really too many for me to actually count. I usually bowl on an average of four to six tournaments each month from September to June each year. During the summer I bowl two to three tournaments, but a majority of them being national tournaments, such as ones in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix,” he said.

Tristan played baseball for seven years in the Fife-Milton Little League, mostly catching, and some basketball before becoming nearly obsessed with the sport he now aims to master at the next level.

“With bowling, there’s no one to depend on but yourself. You are the only one to blame and get mad at if anything goes wrong. Baseball and basketball were team sports where you had to depend on other people and I depended on them. Where if someone were to do bad enough, they could be replaced, ” he said.

“Bowling is a way to get away from everything. It definitely relieves stress, and you are having fun at the same time. Just being able to only worry about what’s going on in front of you in the alley and nothing else.”

Story Tools