Blind Bowler's Perfect Score

78-year-old Dale Davis lost his sight due to macular degeneration 11 years ago. He only has a sliver of peripheral vision left. He fell in love with bowling for a second time after his sister dragged him back to the bowling alley three years ago. Davis once scored as high as 299, before he went blind. This past season, he has averaged a score of 180. IN several games, he had bowled a string of four or five strikes. On May 3rd, Davis found himself with a string of 11 strikes and one frame left.
Century Lanes had pretty much shut down at that point. No one else was bowling. And everyone had left the bar. They all stood behind Lanes 3 and 4, waiting and watching to see whether Davis could bowl the alley's first perfect game in its 24-year history.

A second later, Davis' ball crashed into the pins, unleashing a crackle that echoed through the four-lane alley. He knew all the pins had fallen because of the response of everyone who had been watching.

A perfect 300.

"Everybody starting hugging me, shaking my hand, hitting my hand," Davis said. "It was great."

Link -via J-Walk Blog

(image credit: Dolores Cullen, The Storm Lake Times)

my dad lost his sight at 18, and when my brother and i were little, he would routinely thrash us at snooker. unsurprisingly my friends were a little sceptical of his condition. he also re-plumbed and re-wired the house, before re-building the kitchen, and was chief T.O at Eltham telephone exchange, which was fitted out with braille labels for him on the ends of all the switch-gear rows. his bowling was terrible incidently...
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Makes me think of my grandfather who was a lifelong bowler. I remember he was rolling > 180 into his 80s ... I'd watch him and be terrified he was going to slip and break a hip or something, but he never did. The perfect game always eluded him, but I think he threw a 289 once (missing the final strike and getting a nine instead). Good thoughts and congrats to Mr. Davis -- consistently scoring as well as he does is tough for even much younger players.
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