Ron Mohr of Eagle River, Alaska, the Professional Bowlers Association Senior Tour’s only three-time winner in 2009, was selected as PBA Senior Tour Player of the Year by a panel of veteran bowling writers and his fellow competitors.
Mohr, a 53-year-old second-year Senior Tour member, won the PBA Jackson (Mich.) Senior Open and PBA Dayton (Ohio) Senior Open, kicking off the 2009 season with his first two titles in back-to-back weeks. He won his third title in the Senior Dick Weber Open in Lansing, Mich., where he defeated four-time defending Senior Player of the Year Tom Baker, 232-175, in the title match.
In 12 Senior Tour events, Mohr cashed in all 12, advanced to match play 11 times and he had five top-five finishes. He was runner-up in the Senior Tour earnings race to Wayne Webb by only $250 with his $41,600 total, and he led the full-time touring seniors in average at 223.14.
“I don’t know if it’s a surprise to get the news, but it’s still a shock,” Mohr said. “You hope things will turn out this way, but you never know. After my first year, I realized I could be competitive, but it’s a major step to win a title and then to win more than once is surreal. To go on to win Player of the Year is beyond anything a guy living in Alaska could ever imagine.
“I think it would be easy to accept this, say it has been a great year, and move on,” he added. “But I’m looking for ways to get better. Tom Baker won this honor four years in a row. I’m going to try to get better if I have any hope of doing something like that. And with Walter Ray (Williams Jr.) coming out on the Senior Tour, even for a few events, we’ll all have our work cut out for us next year.”
