January 17, 2025 Nolan Hughes

After two straight Player of the Year seasons, EJ Tackett's stature as the man to beat is undeniable. Now what?

EJ Tackett’s past two seasons have elevated his status, in the words of PBA Tour Commissioner Tom Clark, into the pantheon.

Seven titles. Four major No. 1 seeds in a single season. Three major titles. Two Player of the Year honors. Two High Average awards, including the second-highest of all time. A Hall of Fame-worthy career in about 18 months.

If you ask him about these past two years — What has been working so well? What changed in your physical or mental game? What do you make of your recent successes? — he will provide some nondescript answer along the lines of “I’m just bowling really well.”

Occasionally, if you pester him with those same questions long enough, his understandable annoyance by your singular focus on his 2023 and 2024 seasons will come to the forefront.

“People are talking about how great I am now,” Tackett said, “but I went on a three-year run (2016-18) where I won 11 titles. This isn’t an accident.”

This is where EJ Tackett always expected to be.

Tackett gazes at his 2023 U.S. Open trophy

This two-year run, not to immediately push aside Tackett’s contention, began with his euphoric victory in the 2023 U.S. Open.

The win marked the proud Hoosier’s first title in Indiana, completed the final leg of the Triple Crown, and closed a redemptive arc after losing the 2022 title match in demoralizing fashion.

The evidence of that trophy’s value is written all over Tackett’s face. The ramifications of such a rewarding success, however, may have been just as valuable.

When you achieve the single goal you’ve dreamed of since childhood, ascending to the pinnacle your younger self so desperately sought to reach, you realize the undiscovered vastness that remains.

“There is no limit,” Tackett said.

EJ Tackett entered rarefied air with his third career POY award

Tackett’s 2023 season was, to date, his magnum opus: A five-title, two-major-title, domineering campaign accentuated by two legacy-altering strikes in perhaps the greatest title bout of all time.

If the 10-pin evaded a 6-pin’s love tap in Tackett’s final frame of the PBA World Championship, allowing Jason Belmonte to embezzle a second major of the season from Tackett’s grasp, you would be reading a very different story right now, though perhaps one you’ve already read before.

In 2017, Tackett and Belmonte each won four titles, but three of Belmonte’s wins were majors, thus relegating Tackett’s then-career year into the shadows of the two-handed titan.

For Tackett to become the era-defining star he long desired to be, regardless of the accolades already under his belt, he had to beat Belmonte head-to-head. The king had to be dethroned personally.

“He was the best in the world, and I wanted to beat him,” Tackett said of Belmonte. “If I took him down, that means more and that gives you more confidence, too. This is where I belong. This is why I should be here. I didn't accidentally win this thing, you know. I beat the best player right now, and arguably of all time.”

Everything came together for Tackett on that April afternoon near Milwaukee. 

The ability? He’s had that his whole life.

The confidence? He's never had more: “I think (the U.S. Open) impacted that a lot" Tackett said. "I've been in this situation and performed, reflecting back on that saying ‘I did it then, I can do it again.’”

The motivation? He let the Tournament of Champions slip away to Belmonte earlier that season — not again.

Tackett buried two strikes to win the PBA World Championship and, once again, his visceral reaction told the world exactly what his latest conquest meant to him.

“It’s my f****** time!” Tackett bellowed towards his father in the crowd.

“BOOM!” his father responded, co-opting Belmonte's signature celebration.

The king had been overthrown, ushering in the reign of Tackett.

Over the past two seasons, Tackett has bowled 34 title events, winning seven titles (a 20.6% rate) and three majors (30%) while collecting 20 top-five (58.9%) and 25 top-10 (73.5%) finishes.

For years, critics fixated on Tackett’s perceived lower win percentage in televised matches, often brushing aside that a 20-something continued to make shows at a rate unmatched by anyone except Belmonte.

Now, fueled by a lifetime of aspiring to become the best and a decade of manifesting that ambition, Tackett is prepared to stockpile his trophy case.

“EJ knows who he is, and what that gets him,” Brett Spangler, Motiv’s tour rep and a close friend of Tackett, said in 2023. “This is a more skilled EJ than the years he won four titles. He's not just doing what he likes to do when he wins. He's being creative. He's using tools that he's had, but probably hadn't developed to a point that he could win a tournament using them.”

Tackett is about to embark on the 13th season of his career. If Tackett is as exactly successful in his next 10 seasons as the previous 10, a bold but perhaps attainable presumption, that positions him to tally:

  • 46 career titles, one shy of Walter Ray Williams Jr.’s all-time record
  • 10 major titles, tied with Pete Weber and Earl Anthony for second all-time
  • 6 Player of the Year awards, tied with Earl Anthony for third all-time

“My body has to stay healthy and I have to continue to work hard and go win — there’s no way around that,” Tackett said. “At this point, it’s a numbers game. I believe in the law of averages. If I keep making shows, eventually I'm going to win. If I win one out of four, I'm going to have a pretty damn good career at the rate I'm going and the amount of shows that I make.”

You think Belmonte’s happy about Tackett snatching his throne?

Tackett’s back-to-back POYs in 2023 and 2024 marked the first two-year stretch since 2012 in which Belmonte did not win at least one Player of the Year award.

You think Belmo’s just going to sit back and let that happen unabated?

If Tackett’s still perturbed about not winning POY in 2017, imagine how Anthony Simonsen feels. Simonsen’s past two seasons are historic in their own right — six total titles with top-10 finishes in every 2023 title event — and he didn’t sniff POY either year.

You think Simonsen’s content with being second fiddle, always the bridesmaid but never the bride?

What about Kyle Troup, who beat Tackett to win two (almost three) titles in Indiana? What about Marshall Kent, or Bill O’Neill, or the other 50 exempt players, or all the past champions competing this season?

“If someone puts a target on my back because they want to take me down, that's sports. I'm there to try to make sure that doesn't happen,” Tackett said. “Every time I show up to an event, I’m not there to finish second. I believe I can win every time I step on the lanes. I know that’s not true and that’s not going to happen, but I've always said:

“Why not? There’s no rule saying I can’t.”