The Voter's Guide To The Best Bowler ESPY Award
The Voter's Guide To The Best Bowler ESPY Award
To help you vote, here's each nominated bowler’s recent accomplishments, along with our prediction of who will win the Best Bowler ESPY.

Voting for ESPN’s annual Best Bowler ESPY award is now underway and bowling fans have four PBA stars to choose from on the ballot.
The nominees include Jason Belmonte, Rhino Page, Tom Smallwood and Jesper Svensson. Fans can vote online for all of the ESPY categories, including bowling, and watch the awards show on ABC on Wednesday, July 18 at 8 p.m. Eastern to find out who won.
To help you decide who to vote for, we’ve put together a recap of each bowler’s recent accomplishments along with our prediction of who will win.
Jason Belmonte

Since Belmonte won the ESPY last July, he has continued to shine on the PBA Tour. The Australian two-hander was named the 2017 Chris Schenkel Player of the Year and has nine Top 5 finishes since last summer.
In the back half of 2017, Belmonte won the PBA World Championship while finishing second at the PBA Scorpion Championship and fourth at the PBA Cheetah Championship during the World Series of Bowling.
So far in 2018, he’s continued to rack up titles, joining with Bill O’Neill to win the Mark Roth-Marshall Holman PBA Doubles Championship while also claiming the 2018 PBA Tour Finals title. He also finished second at the PBA Players Championship and fourth at the PBA Tournament of Champions.
Rhino Page

Page, a left-hander, burst back onto the scene in a big way in the second half of 2017. After an eight-year drought, Page finally won another singles title and went on to also win a major.
At the PBA Xtra Frame Kenn-Feld Group Classic, Page defeated Chris Via, 190-173, to bust out of his slump. Just two months later, who could forget Page striking on eight of his first nine shots in the championship match of the 2017 U.S. Open en route to a 256-222 win over top seed Jakob Butturff. The victory was Page’s first major title.
Page has continued his success in 2018, making the stepladder finals at the United States Bowling Congress Masters ultimately finishing fifth.
Tom Smallwood

Earlier this year, Smallwood did what many have had trouble doing – he defeated Belmonte to win a major title.
At the 2018 PBA Players Championship, Smallwood climbed the ladder, winning four stepladder finals matches to take his second major title. Along the way, he took down Patrick Girard, Kris Prather, Marshall Kent and finally Belmonte to secure the title.
Smallwood also had a solid showing at the 2017 World Series of Bowling, taking fourth in the PBA Chameleon Championship, fifth in the PBA Shark Championship and ninth in the PBA World Championship.
Jesper Svensson

A two-handed lefty from Sweden, Svensson had perhaps the best overall showing at the 2017 World Series of Bowling of anyone in the field besides Belmonte though he claimed just one title.
Svensson won the PBA Cheetah Championship but had solid finishes in the other events as well. He took second in the PBA World Championship, fifth in the PBA Chameleon Championship, seventh in the PBA Shark Championship and 24th in the PBA Scorpion Championship.
To kick off 2018, Svensson was the top seed at the PBA Tournament of Champions but fell in the final match to Matt O’Grady to finish second. He also finished third at the PBA Tour Finals.
Our Prediction
All of these players have had great successes over the past 12 months, however, there’s an obvious front-runner and that’s Belmonte.
Belmonte has won the Best Bowler ESPY three years in a row and it would be shocking if he doesn’t make it four in a row in 2018.
Not only are his stats on the lanes extremely strong, Belmonte also has the most name recognition among the four and easily has the biggest social media reach. That will weigh heavily in his favor once again.
Winner: Belmonte.
