Tony Lanning Leads Day One at 2024 Senior U.S. Open
Greeley, Colorado – What a 2024 it has been for Tony Lanning. He was named the tournament director for the PBA Tour and in his first tournament stop on the PBA50 Tour he is leading qualifying on Day 1 at the 2024 Senior U.S. Open.
The Oklahoma native consistently hit the mark inside Highland Park Lanes Thursday evening with games of 210, 248, 236, 226, 226 and 226 for 1,372, a 228.67 average. He is seven pins ahead of Clint Dacy who sits in second place. Behind them is Michael Pollard, John Janawicz and Mike Dias in the top five.
With the PBA Tour having just concluded, Lanning hasn’t had much opportunity to prepare for competition. He believes having bowled this tournament last year and getting the chance to glean some insight watching some of the greatest bowlers every week might have played a role in getting him to the top of the leaderboard. Last year, he felt the lanes played pretty tight down lane. He had to get left and make sure he got his ball right early.
“Those things were in my head from last year, so I felt like I had a little bit of a better road map going into this event,” Lanning said. “When I saw the front start to hook, I knew I could get in and go to the right. The key for me is getting the ball going the right direction, because down lane can be pretty unpredictable.”
“I just dropped weight from 16 to 15 a few weeks ago,” Lanning added. “I have bowled a couple of times and got some good practice sessions in, but I think really not overdoing was probably helpful, so I didn’t have so much in my thought process. Just kind of went and bowled.”
Last year, Lanning was able to compete in the PBA50 World Series of Bowling, the Senior Masters and the Senior U.S. Open only, and this is the first time he has ever led a PBA50 tournament. He admits his goal was to chase down Janawicz and if he could catch him, he knew he was in pretty good shape.
“I knew he bowled good on B-squad and that is always a great target, if you are anywhere near him,” Lanning said. “With the scoring pace on A-squad, my goal was to get as much as I could on C and B, because they were really challenging on A.”
Janawicz did lead the B-squad at 1,352. He felt like he hit two good pairs then hung on for dear life the other four games.
“It is always great to start off strong. When you get to the other squads, they are going to continue to be pretty hard,” Janawicz said. “If you have the opportunity to hit them pretty good, you take advantage of it because you might need those pins later down the road.”
James “Jim” Storts was the leader from A-squad at 1,302. Seeing his name toward the top was a sight he was thrilled to witness.
“This is probably one of the greatest events. You are bowling against the best bowlers and to compete with them is thrilling for me,” Storts said. “I always grew up wanting to be out here and now that I am, I am living out a dream as a kid being able to lead a squad at the U.S. Open. It is something you always dreamed about doing.”
The only perfect game came from Dino Castillo in game three bowling on B-squad. Castillo is in 10th place at +127. The 114-player field will be back on the lanes Friday for six more games of qualifying. The B-squad will get things started at noon Eastern followed by the C-squad at 3:30 p.m. ET and finally the A-squad beginning at 7 p.m. ET. Watch the action only on BowlTV.
Top 10 PBA Senior U.S. Open standings:
- Tony Lanning, 1,372 (+172)
- Clint Dacy, 1,365 (+165)
- Michael Pollard, 1,360 (+160)
- John Janawicz, 1,352 (+152)
- Mike Dias, 1,341 (+141)
- Tom Adcock, 1,339 (+139)
- John Verbich, 1,336 (+136)
- Pete Weber, 1,331 (+131)
- David Leverage, 1,328 (+128)
- Dino Castillo, 1,327 (+127)