The next stop for PBA Tour players who are chasing the top eight places on the 2018 Go Bowling! PBA Tour earnings list for a berth in the end-of-season PBA Clash will be the PBA International-World Bowling Tour Thailand, Sept. 22-28, at Blu-O Rhythm & Bowl Paragon in Bangkok where the tournament’s US$32,250 first prize could play a significant role in the 2018 earnings race.

The WBT Thailand format includes three three-game qualifying blocks with nine-game pinfall totals determining the 42 players who will advance to Round Two which involves qualifiers 25-42 bowling six games (all previous pins are dropped). The top 10 from Round Two will join qualifiers 9-24 for another six-game block in Round Three. The top 12 from Round Three will join qualifiers 1-8 for the six-game Round Four.

Round Four will decide the seven players who will join the highest-qualifying Thai player for the final round on Friday, Sept. 28, that will be a modified stepladder schedule. Match One will include Finalists 6, 7 and 8. The winner moves on to Match Two along with finalists 4 and 5. That winner bowls Finalist 3 in Match Three. The Match Three winner bowls Finalist 2 in the Semifinal Match. The Semifinal winner advances to the championship match where he/she has to beat Finalist 1 twice in order to win the event.

The winner will earn a PBA Tour title if he/she is a PBA member and doesn’t accept handicap pins (like many WBT events, WBT Thailand offers women 8 handicap pins per game.

PBA fans can follow the Thailand tournament online through the Asian Bowling Federation’s website. Thailand’s Jojoe Yannaphon, a PBA member, is the defending champion. In 2017, Yannaphon was high qualifier and defeated Sweden’s two-handed star, Jesper Svensson, 212-202, to earn his first PBA Tour title.

The WBT Thailand is also a WBT points event. The top three men and top three women in WBT points for the 2018 season will compete in the World Bowling Tour Finals presented by the PBA which will be contested at the International Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas, for airing on FS1 on Sunday, March 10, at 10 p.m. EST.

Release courtesy of Bill Vint, PBA media relations