July 1, 2024 Nolan Hughes

Simonsen is perhaps the most accomplished 27-year-old bowler the world has ever seen — and he hasn’t scratched the surface of his full potential

Ten years into his professional bowling career, Anthony Simonsen has built a résumé on par with any great who has come before him. After winning the PBA Tour Finals earlier this month, the 27-year-old now owns 15 career PBA Tour titles and five major championship crowns.

At the time of their 15th title, only Mark Roth was younger and only Jason Belmonte had won more majors than Simonsen.

Last season, Simonsen won three titles and finished top 10 in all 17 title events, the latter being a feat of near-incomprehensible consistency that grows more impressive as time passes. This season, the two-handed, Texas-born product has won two titles (so far) and led two majors; with three title events left, he ranks top-three in virtually every statistic.

Simonsen’s 2016 USBC Masters title earned him the moniker of “youngest PBA major champion” at just over 19 years old. His 2019 PBA Players Championship victory, which denied Belmonte his record-breaking 11th major title, made Simonsen the youngest player to win two majors. His 2022 U.S. Open title… Well, you get the picture.

It’s fair to say that no one in the history of the sport has been this accomplished, this young.

Simonsen accepts the PBA Pete Weber Missouri Classic trophy from Pete Weber

Simonsen has developed a reputation as a bit of a hot head, as Rolling Stone dubbed him in a January feature. His fiery demeanor is reminiscent of the legend Pete Weber, which Simonsen himself acknowledged after winning the PBA Pete Weber Missouri Classic earlier this season.

“I think me and Pete are alike at times,” Simonsen said. “Sometimes it seems like we need to bowl angry to bowl better. Sometimes it comes out the way it should; sometimes it's a little unprofessional.”

The combination of Simonsen’s occasionally cantankerous personality with his unparalleled bowling prowess and creativity creates another parallel between himself and Weber, best exemplified by a quote from Weber himself during his 2021 retirement:

“Hate me or love me, you watched. That’s all you could do.”

While Weber demanded eyeballs with his showmanship, Simonsen is a magnet for bowling fans obsessed with the nuances of the game, a.k.a. the nerds. On any given shot, you never truly know what Simonsen will do.

He could switch from reactive to urethane on a 46-foot pattern in the deciding frames of a title event; that’s how he won the PBA Tour Finals earlier this month. He might throw normal and back-up balls in the same game; he did that in the PBA Playoffs last month.

Simonsen put his captivating creativity on full display during this year’s World Series of Bowling XV.

After finishing 39th and 36th in the Cheetah and Scorpion Championships, respectively, he ranked 34th in the World Championship through six of nine qualifying rounds. While it’s unreasonable to expect elite players to perform at their best every single week, those placements were a far cry from Simonsen’s 2023 season — and far below Simonsen’s own expectations.

With his back against the wall, and amidst a dominant week from the southpaws, rumblings spread across the iconic Thunderbowl Lanes on the morning of Shark Championship qualifying.

Is he going to throw a back-up ball?

Why yes, yes he would.

Simonsen said at the time that his decision to invade the left side of the lane was not based on what he saw in practice, but based on what he saw during the previous four days of competition. Left-handers averaged 17 pins better than righties during the Scorpion Championship; that difference ballooned toward the end of qualifying blocks.

While there was a tactical element to Simonsen’s decision to throw a back-up ball — he famously won a title doing so in 2018 — Simonsen would be hard pressed to deny the underlying act of defiance.

Again, Simonsen’s performance did not meet his expectations. He shot 192 before reverting back to his side of the lane during the second game. 

After games of 258, 228 and 192 — while watching left-handed Nate Stubler shoot 247, 279, 237 and 246 on his pair — Simonsen flip-flopped to the left side again. He shot his tournament-low 169.

With a round of 1,039 (+39), Simonsen sat in 88th place and 152 pins out of the Shark Championship cut, as well as 48th place and 244 pins out of the World Championship cut.

During the intermission ahead of another five-game qualifying round on tap that night, the curiosity of how Simonsen would regroup rekindled.

Would he try back-up again with new balls and/or a new gameplan? Would he commit to the right side? Would he pick up his ball and go home, so to speak?

Simonsen chose the second option and shot 277, 279, 266 — an 822 start — 238 and 223, rising to within striking distance of both cuts. He went on to make the Shark Championship finals, finishing fifth, and came up 76 pins shy of the World Championship match play cut.

Did those pins he “wasted” in the first round on Shark cost him the World Championship cut? Perhaps. But would he have scored as well without his unsatisfactory scores, possible regrets and definite frustrations culminating in an overflowing level of motivation? Perhaps not.

 

Simonsen’s Tour Finals victory earlier this month made him the fifth player to win multiple titles this season, along with Kyle Troup, Marshall Kent, EJ Tackett and David Krol. With three title events left, including the Storm Striking Against Breast Cancer Mixed Doubles that he won with Danielle McEwan last year, Simonsen sits firmly within a crowded Player of the Year race.

But he has never been one to rest on his laurels.

“It has been a pretty good season, like it’s kind of hard to complain. I won two titles. I led two majors. That alone is a good season I feel like regardless of how the rest of the year went,” he said after his Tour Finals win. “But some people have higher expectations than others.”

As Simonsen reflected on his season, he noted that he did not practice as much prior to this season as he did before his illustrious 2023 campaign. That certainly contributed to his 30th-place performance in the season-opening PBA Players Championship. He said he plans to recommit to practicing more often, adding that even just “30 or 40 shots” will help him be sharper all the time in the long run. 

But the physical game is only part of the battle, the part that Simonsen has largely already won. It’s the mental game that he has yet to conquer, if such a thing is even possible.

Back in 2019, Belmonte described a then-22-year-old Simonsen in the FloBowling’s Simonsen: Leave It Behind:

“The version of Anthony I’m really looking forward to seeing is 35 years old when he’s learned so much more, where he’s able to control his temper. I think, once he learns to control those inner thoughts, those inner demons that just want to explode out of him at times, with his skillset and versatility, he’s gonna be one of the best ever.”

Simonsen, who turned 27 in January, is showing signs of beginning that maturation process. During his Tour Finals victory, he scratched his back on a pole and joked with the crowd.

Whether it’s helping friends with the installation of lanes at their house, or making a cameo when his friend Chris Hunichen won a World Series of Poker gold bracelet, Simonsen said he is discovering how to better decompress from the intense competition of the tour.

“I’ve been bowling well and I think I'm finding more appreciation to life outside of bowling, little things that let me appreciate and enjoy competing a little bit more,” Simonsen said. "I’m getting out of that (survival) mindset and trying to get myself more involved in things off the lanes."

Note Simonsen’s phrasing: He said “off the lanes” not “outside of bowling.” Because the man can’t escape the alley.

He enjoys the mechanical side of the game as much, if not more, than the competitive side. Rather than professional bowler, Simonsen prefers “bowling professional,” a term he picked up in recent weeks and wants to embrace.

As Simonsen lets go of his bowl-to-survive mentality, one he perhaps needed to achieve his current accolades, he gains access to a more sustainable psyche.

Five years ago, Simonsen may not have bounced back like he did in the 2024 WSOB. Five years from now, he might not put himself in that hole to begin with.

Who knows what number title Simonsen will be chasing in 2029, or which direction he will contort his ball in pursuit of it. Here's what we do know: Hate him or love him, we will be watching.