2023 Super Senior Classic and USBC Senior Masters set for Las Vegas
May 31, 2023
LAS VEGAS – The top senior and super senior competitors have their eyes set on Las Vegas for the start of the 2023 Professional Bowlers Association 50 Tour season, and the Sam’s Town Bowling Center will host the first two events on the schedule with the Super Senior Classic and United States Bowling Congress Senior Masters heading back to the 56-lane venue starting this week.
Both events have been annually held at Sam’s Town since 2016, and both will feature sold-out fields in 2023.
The Super Senior Classic, celebrating its 10th edition this year, welcomes the top players age 60 and older from May 31-June 4. The USBC Senior Masters, a major on the PBA50 Tour schedule, is open to bowlers age 50 and older and will continue the excitement at Sam’s Town from June 5-11.
Both events, along with the entire PBA50 national tour schedule, will be livestreamed at BowlTV.com.
2017 and 2022 Super Senior Classic champion Ron Mohr
Competitors at the Super Senior Classic will have their official practice session Wednesday before the action kicks off with two six-game qualifying blocks Thursday and Friday. Each of the two squads will have one block on the fresh oil pattern and one on the burn.
After 12 games, the top 25% of the field will advance to a six-game cashers’ round Saturday, and the top 12 players through 18 games will move on to a split match-play round.
The match-play finalists will be split into two groups for six games of round-robin competition Saturday, with the top finisher in each group earning an automatic spot in Sunday’s stepladder based on their 24-game pinfall total, which includes 30 bonus pins for each win. The final seeding will be determined by total pinfall.
The second, third and fourth seeds from each group will face off in simultaneous group stepladders starting Sunday at noon Eastern, before the field is set for the championship stepladder at 2 p.m. Eastern. The winners of each group stepladder will claim the No. 3 and No. 4 spots for the stepladder and have their seeding determined based on their average for the event.
The champion of the 2023 Super Senior Classic will earn $8,000 for the victory.
USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Ron Mohr of Las Vegas enters the 2023 event as the defending champion at the Super Senior Classic and is the tournament’s only two-time winner. Mohr collected his first win at the event in 2017.
In last year’s exciting championship match, Mohr delivered the two strikes he needed in the 10th frame, plus nine pins on his fill shot, to defeat fellow USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Lennie Boresch Jr. of Kenosha, Wisconsin, 222-213.
Since turning 60 in 2016, Mohr has been the dominant player at the Super Senior Classic. In addition to his two victories, he also has a pair of runner-up finishes (2016, 2021) and finished tied for fifth place in 2018 and 2019.
2022 USBC Senior Masters champion Dino Castillo
The 2023 Senior Masters will get underway with the official practice sessions June 5, before three five-game rounds of qualifying will take place from June 6-8.
Each day of qualifying will feature three squads (11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern). The early squad will be on the fresh lane condition, while the second squad will be on the burn. The final squad of each day will be on the double-burn.
Competitors will bowl one round of qualifying on each squad to determine their 15-game totals.
The top 63 players after qualifying, along with defending champion Dino Castillo of Highland Village, Texas, will advance to the tournament’s double-elimination bracket. All bracket matches leading up to the five-player stepladder finals will be three-game total-pinfall contests.
Castillo will bowl all 15 games of qualifying for the opportunity to improve his seeding in the bracket, but if he finishes outside of the top 63 spots, he’ll enter the bracket as the No. 64 seed.
The bracket matches will take place throughout the day June 9-10, and the stepladder finals will air June 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern on BowlTV.
With the tournament’s true double-elimination format, the top seed for the stepladder will have to be defeated twice to be denied the title and $20,000 top prize.
Castillo put together an incredible performance to win five matches in last year’s stepladder to collect his first PBA50 Tour title as the No. 5 seed, averaging more than 256 along the way.
He started with a 300-222 win over USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Chris Barnes of Denton, Texas, before eliminating two-time PBA Tour champion Jack Jurek of Lackawanna, New York, in the next match, 257-196. In the semifinals, he defeated another USBC and PBA Hall of Famer – Parker Bohn III of Jackson, New Jersey – 255-219 to advance to face 2018 Senior Masters champion and top seed Chris Warren of Plano, Texas.
Castillo won the first match against Warren (253-201) to force the deciding game, and he closed out the victory by a margin of 216-169.
The win also helped Castillo earn 2022 PBA50 Rookie of the Year honors.
Both events have been annually held at Sam’s Town since 2016, and both will feature sold-out fields in 2023.
The Super Senior Classic, celebrating its 10th edition this year, welcomes the top players age 60 and older from May 31-June 4. The USBC Senior Masters, a major on the PBA50 Tour schedule, is open to bowlers age 50 and older and will continue the excitement at Sam’s Town from June 5-11.
Both events, along with the entire PBA50 national tour schedule, will be livestreamed at BowlTV.com.
2017 and 2022 Super Senior Classic champion Ron Mohr
Competitors at the Super Senior Classic will have their official practice session Wednesday before the action kicks off with two six-game qualifying blocks Thursday and Friday. Each of the two squads will have one block on the fresh oil pattern and one on the burn.
After 12 games, the top 25% of the field will advance to a six-game cashers’ round Saturday, and the top 12 players through 18 games will move on to a split match-play round.
The match-play finalists will be split into two groups for six games of round-robin competition Saturday, with the top finisher in each group earning an automatic spot in Sunday’s stepladder based on their 24-game pinfall total, which includes 30 bonus pins for each win. The final seeding will be determined by total pinfall.
The second, third and fourth seeds from each group will face off in simultaneous group stepladders starting Sunday at noon Eastern, before the field is set for the championship stepladder at 2 p.m. Eastern. The winners of each group stepladder will claim the No. 3 and No. 4 spots for the stepladder and have their seeding determined based on their average for the event.
The champion of the 2023 Super Senior Classic will earn $8,000 for the victory.
USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Ron Mohr of Las Vegas enters the 2023 event as the defending champion at the Super Senior Classic and is the tournament’s only two-time winner. Mohr collected his first win at the event in 2017.
In last year’s exciting championship match, Mohr delivered the two strikes he needed in the 10th frame, plus nine pins on his fill shot, to defeat fellow USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Lennie Boresch Jr. of Kenosha, Wisconsin, 222-213.
Since turning 60 in 2016, Mohr has been the dominant player at the Super Senior Classic. In addition to his two victories, he also has a pair of runner-up finishes (2016, 2021) and finished tied for fifth place in 2018 and 2019.
2022 USBC Senior Masters champion Dino Castillo
The 2023 Senior Masters will get underway with the official practice sessions June 5, before three five-game rounds of qualifying will take place from June 6-8.
Each day of qualifying will feature three squads (11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern). The early squad will be on the fresh lane condition, while the second squad will be on the burn. The final squad of each day will be on the double-burn.
Competitors will bowl one round of qualifying on each squad to determine their 15-game totals.
The top 63 players after qualifying, along with defending champion Dino Castillo of Highland Village, Texas, will advance to the tournament’s double-elimination bracket. All bracket matches leading up to the five-player stepladder finals will be three-game total-pinfall contests.
Castillo will bowl all 15 games of qualifying for the opportunity to improve his seeding in the bracket, but if he finishes outside of the top 63 spots, he’ll enter the bracket as the No. 64 seed.
The bracket matches will take place throughout the day June 9-10, and the stepladder finals will air June 11 at 1 p.m. Eastern on BowlTV.
With the tournament’s true double-elimination format, the top seed for the stepladder will have to be defeated twice to be denied the title and $20,000 top prize.
Castillo put together an incredible performance to win five matches in last year’s stepladder to collect his first PBA50 Tour title as the No. 5 seed, averaging more than 256 along the way.
He started with a 300-222 win over USBC and PBA Hall of Famer Chris Barnes of Denton, Texas, before eliminating two-time PBA Tour champion Jack Jurek of Lackawanna, New York, in the next match, 257-196. In the semifinals, he defeated another USBC and PBA Hall of Famer – Parker Bohn III of Jackson, New Jersey – 255-219 to advance to face 2018 Senior Masters champion and top seed Chris Warren of Plano, Texas.
Castillo won the first match against Warren (253-201) to force the deciding game, and he closed out the victory by a margin of 216-169.
The win also helped Castillo earn 2022 PBA50 Rookie of the Year honors.