No. 3 Bill O’Neill

Career Titles: 11 (1 major)
Age: 38
2019 Earnings: $192,448 (rank: 3)
2019 Points: 22,420 (rank: 7)
2019 Peak Ranking: 2
2019 Low Ranking: Unranked

2019 Season

As noted above, O’Neill was unranked at one point last season: preseason. He promptly won the season-opening Hall of Fame Classic, jumped to fourth in the rankings and remained mostly in the top 10, never falling below 14^th for the rest of the year. Last year was arguably the best season of O’Neill’s career. He never went through a debilitating slump (impressive in a streaky sport), won two titles for the third time in his career, earned $45,000 more than he ever had, finished second in the PBA Playoffs and also claimed the non-title ATX Invite championship. One of O’Neill’s goals heading into the season was to bowl well at the U.S. Open, an event he won in 2009 and hadn’t enjoyed much since. He finished fifth, which definitely qualifies as bowling well.

2020 Outlook

Going into 2019, O’Neill worked hard on re-changing the way he plays. That is, he went back to embracing his strengths and playing the way he plays rather than trying to play the way he’s “supposed” to play. The results are undeniable and, because of his consistent quality performances, there’s no reason to believe he won’t sustain his prominence into 2020. Plus, he gets to open the season as the defending champion.

Preseason PBA Power Rankings

1. Revealed Jan. 8
2. Revealed Jan. 7
3. Bill O'Neill
4. Anthony Simonsen
5. EJ Tackett
6. Jakob Butturff
7. Dom Barrett
8. Kyle Sherman
9. Kris Prather
10. AJ Johnson
11. Kyle Troup
12. Marshall Kent
13. Tom Daugherty
14. Chris Barnes
15. Dick Allen
16. Jesper Svensson
17. Tommy Jones
18. Norm Duke
19. Francois Lavoie
20. Jason Sterner