TAMPA, Fla. – Two of the greatest legends in the history of professional bowling decided Wednesday to end their full-time careers on the PBA Tour.

Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Pete Weber made the decision independently that their last event on the tour would be the 2021 PBA World Series of Bowling XII at AMF University Lanes.

Both advanced through qualifying last week to compete in the best-of-five match play of the 2021 PBA Scorpion Championship on Wednesday and each had their send off after being eliminated from the competition.

Williams won his first match of the day against Packy Hanrahan but then lost to Tom Daugherty, 3-2, in a tough match to close out his run. Weber, meanwhile, lost in his opening match of the day, also to Daugherty, in a 3-2 match.

The two legends each said while they are done with full-time or regular competition on the PBA Tour there’s still a chance we could see them in an occasional event with Weber specifically mentioning the PBA Tournament of Champions.

Nevertheless, Wednesday’s final bow was an emotional one as the sport formally moves out of one era and into the next. Williams, 61, and Weber, 58, will now focus their efforts on competing in regional PBA events and against their older peers on the PBA50 Tour.

The resumes both players built over the years is staggering as they both spent nearly 40 years often competing against each other on the PBA Tour. Their successes led them to become the faces of bowling’s biggest stage for decades.

No one in the history of professional bowling has won more titles than Williams, who holds the record with 47 victories. He won 39 standard titles, the first coming in 1986, and eight major titles.

Williams won his first major title in 1994 at the Touring Players Championship in Indianapolis and his final major win came in 2010 when he won the USBC Masters in Reno, Nevada.

Over his career, Weber won a total of 37 titles, including 27 standard events and 10 majors. His first win on tour came in 1982 at the age of 19.

Weber would go on to win the U.S. Open five times and his last win came at the Tournament of Champions in Indianapolis during the 2012-13 season.