The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - What the World's Greatest (Two-Handed) Bowler Can Teach You About Daring to Look Stupid

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

It's easy to shot-shame a player at the free-throw line and athletes who throw funny. From the depths of that bullying and loneliness, though, a revolution is brewing, with adaptations so innovative that they may shame sports themselves. Pablo goes bowling with Jason Belmonte — the two-handed Tiger Woods of the lanes — and learns how to succeed in life while looking kinda stupid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre, finds out I am Pablo Torre, and today we're gonna find out what this sound is. Because I have a condition. Singular chirophobia, the fear of using one hand. Right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network. You just said that you need a sense of yourself for this because I want to talk about Ben Simmons For all you know how I feel about Ben Simmons I've said some things off the record about Ben Simmons that I think are actually yeah beyond the pale like too too much that are

actually true potentially. So Ben Simmons, for people who don't know, Ben Simmons, we're no one overall pig. Former Philadelphia 76er, now Brooklyn net, is back playing basketball. He came back just weeks ago after being away and you and many people are already shitting all over his existence.

He's an embarrassment and I don't know why he's still doing this to himself. Have never stopped shitting all over his existence. He's an embarrassment and I don't know why he's still doing this to himself. Have never stopped shitting all over his existence, I should say. Just go enjoy your millions of dollars and watch Love is Blind. Like, why are you continuing to embarrass yourself? You want him to just give up. Bro, just enjoy the rich, like the spoils that you created. I'm not here to say that Ben Simmons should be free from criticism.

I call him specifically, I call him a flying car without a stereo. Yeah, which sounds awesome until he like, I shoot the ball, bro. And then what does he look like? That's the stereo. A fucking camera or something like that. Enough. That's the stereo.

So look, I actually agree with you on this level. He needs to do something different about his shot. And many people have been saying this to him and he does refuse to change. And that part has been very frustrating for me, the guy who's trying to carve out the lonely job of being Ben Simmons' political strategist. I've been trying to send him these messages around like, do something different about your shot because there have been many people who have struggled at the free throw line specifically where

Ben Simmons is abysmal. He's abysmal to the point where he's afraid even to like really drive to the hoop in the same way because he's afraid he'll get fouled. This was the whole thing with the Hawks, you know, where he passed the ball in game seven with the Sixers and it was traumatic for me. And I just can point to many examples where like, Hey, Rick Barry became a over 80% free throw shooter 89% because he did what he shot granny style with two hands.

Like, and Rick Barry's been saying this forever. With my two-handed underhanded free throw, it's a lot easier, I feel, to get in a relaxed situation. I like to bounce the ball. Arms hang down, my knees are bent. Relax, top of the wrist, bottle through. So do that. The thing is, is embarrassing is that looks?

It's not as embarrassing as what Ben Simmons is doing because the ball's going in the net, like 89% of the time. I do want to be fair to Ben Simmons, his free throw stats here, because career, yeah, he's, I thought this is bad. What's the number, go ahead. Yeah, sub 60%, 59% career.

Bro, I'm not even kidding you, I could do better than that. Sub 50% this season. No one's guarding him at the free throw line, you understand that, right? And in fact, he's taking fewer free throws than ever so far this year. Pathetic. Less than one a game because he doesn't want to even try. No, no, it's pathetic.

The other thing that's just crazy about this to me, if he will listen to me for a second, Ben will listen to me, is that in Korea, in the Korean basketball league, they're doing something completely different from Rick Berry. That's also working, because watch this, Cortez, look at this. So this is Korean basketball, and these guys are deliberately shooting bank shots. Oh, interesting.

At the free throw line. Huh. And so all of these, yes, they look stupid as hell, deliberately trying to shoot it off the glass, but these guys are collectively shooting, like Rick Berry, over 80% doing this. It's working! Clearly.

It's ironic, right? You don't wanna be humiliated. And so you do something repeatedly over and over again that results in more humiliation when the real solution, I would argue, is to embrace a technique that everybody does and has for a very long time laughed at. No, of 100%. That's well said. And so if he started doing this and looked like an imbecile in his eyes, he'd look less like an imbecile in my eyes because the ball would be going in the net. And he's trying something different, right? And so to me, sports history is full of these things.

Sports is such a great case study in the ways in which people's desire to not look stupid make them worse at their jobs. Right? Like, so for instance, I've been thinking a lot about Dick Fosbury. Who? Dick Fosbury is the guy who changed the high jump. He was an Olympian 1968 Mexico City summer games. He changed his the high jump because as he explains it, he did this. When I was in grade school at Roosevelt, I learned the scissors style, which was an old style. Got

into high school where my coach tried to convert me to the classic style. I was a complete failure, went back to the scissors, and I changed it. I moved my body position in order to jump higher and make it easier. He does my whole thing facing backwards the way he came. It was so radically different that it garnered a lot of attention and everywhere I went, the crowd was going nuts.

It took a generation for all of the high jumpers to adopt it, but today it's universal. I saw you. I saw you. I saw me what? Very, very obviously grinning as soon as he said I was scissoring. But he changed it to the point where he now moves to center of gravity because he's going backwards headfirst over the bar and he inspired literally everybody else in the sport to do the same thing. And it looked stupid at first. And so I wanted to do an episode today. Did you just burp?

I cleared my throat. If you wanted me to burp, I'll burp into the microphone. I don't want you to. OK, very good. What I wanted to do, speaking of looking stupid, is find the foremost example as an to, okay, very good. What I wanted to do, speaking of looking stupid, is find the foremost example, as an inspiration potentially for Ben Simmons, for a guy who did exactly this, right?

A more modern example, because they decided to look dumb, got better and changed everything. And so I had to go bowling. Really? That's right. You probably suck at bowling. Really? That's right. You probably suck at bowling. Not anymore. We are sitting here at a bowling alley. I don't think I've bowled in maybe a dozen years.

So this is not my comfort zone. Leaving the studio and sitting here across from you. Do I call you Jayson? I call you Belma. What should I be doing here? I don't matter. I'm good with it. So I just want to even further simplify it. You're the two-hander. I'm the two-hander. I bow with two hands. When you mentioned two-handedness, you sort of imagine Rick Berry in my mind, like granny style, like underhand. Doesn't quite look like that. So I should just explain what Jason Belmonti's iconoclasm

actually looks like here, because Belmo and I have just finished lacing up our bowling shoes here at Bolero, this place in Times Square. And what I can tell you is that the dude's like 5'10", 40 years old, dark hair, light beard, we talked about our kids for a little bit, he's just this deeply unthreatening and unassuming looking dad. Unless, of course, you are a professional bowler.

In which case, the man is a revolutionary. Because as every instructional bowling VHS tape throughout time will teach you, real bowlers roll the ball with one hand, with their thumb in the thumb hole. This is basically the first law of bowling biomechanics. Fred, you know, through the years I've had a chance to watch the greatest players in our game. It went out of question. They all have a master plan to greatness. That's what we'd like to share with our players today is one, the biomechanical movements to the foul line, the movements of the body.

But the movements of Belmo's body are extremely different. This isn't Granny's style. He's actually grasping the ball with two hands at the same time, and he refuses to stick his thumb in the thumb hole at all. And so then he rolls the ball with both hands from his right side, having swung it backwards and then forwards, generating this truly impressive amount of velocity.

Here's the top seat. His first ball. Looks good. Not sure I expected anything different. And so what I wanted to find out here first is just how Belmo wound up resembling and really epitomizing by conventional bowling standards. A completely idiotic technique. The action is from the side of the body.

It's not from between the legs. Yes. So you've got this athletic kind of approach. I want people who are not watching on YouTube and the Draftings Network to know that Jason just put athletic in scare quotes with his fingers. Well, because I think the traditional sense of the word athleticism is high energy or, you know, huge exertion of power where bowling is more like golf, right? Where you can see an athletic swing.

And so the game has changed. It is more athletic now than it ever was. And so my parents built a bowling center when I was born. In Australia. In Australia, a small little country town. They'd never bowled a ball in their life. Purely a business idea that came to them through a family conversation. And so they weren't coaches, they weren't experienced players themselves.

They didn't inherit the traditions of bowling. And to be truthful, I don't think they cared about how I bowled. I was 18 months old when I rolled my very first bowling ball. Today we have really light bowling balls, but in the 80s they hadn't developed super light balls yet. They were quite heavy. And so as an 18 month old toddler I would kind of like grab the ball and roll it off the ball, return it, hit the floor and I would push it and try and lift it up and then just kind of roll it down the lane as best as I could. And so until I was old enough where that ball was light enough for me to throw it traditionally,

I had too many years of me bowling in this way to just enable me to bowl, which was with two hands, that bowling traditionally didn't feel like me. And so it was probably from the ages of like five through 10 where you hear the, come on, you're a big boy now, right? Like you can bowl like everyone else. And I was like, but this is just how I've always done it. There is one moment in particular that I will never forget. There was this huge coaching clinic

ran by the Australian team, the national team coaches, selectors, it was this huge event. And so we get there, I sign up, it's my turn now to perform in front of the coaches. And so I bowl my style and the coaches are looking at me that don't say anything. And I bowl another shot and the coaches say, okay, now that you've done mucking around here, can you throw one properly please? So I'm thinking like maybe they want more strikes. So like I got to get strikes, I have to throw a ball, I get a strike.

I'm quite proud of myself and they time me out they go okay listen we don't know what you're doing here if you ever want to be a great ball if you ever want to represent your country if you ever want to win championships you're gonna have to bowl the way that we're gonna teach it so we need you to put your thumb in the ball and we need have to bowl the way that we're gonna teach you. So we need you to put your thumb in the bowl and we need you to bowl traditionally. And so I humid them for that moment and it killed me. Cause here was the very first time

a true bowling authority. Right, the actual institution of the game. The actual institution of the game ripped me apart. They wouldn't help me. The kids wouldn't bowl with everyone. And it was just this very alone feeling. So the very last session is a tournament where we play three games and all the kids bowl. And I won the tournament. And the prize was a free entry into next year's clinic. I declined the prize. Long story short, I was stubborn enough to

continue on my own little path and I just found a way that works for me. Jason Belmonti. One, two, three, four, five, seven in a row. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And that's how you do it. I'm just marveling at the specific random chance that leads to this specific laboratory of innovation and bowling technique, because you said your parents

didn't give a shit about bowling the institution as it's like folk ways and best practices were concerned. And then you pop out and you're like this stubborn kid who's always been that way it sounds like and you're like kind of this weirdly accidentally perfect messenger for this this larger idea that you don't need to do it this way. You can look at it from that lens when you when you look back at it but when you're in the middle of it during the moment, you're not thinking about what this is going to turn into

or you don't think about my decisions today are going to have this kind of an impact down the road. This was just one little boy who wanted to do it his own way. And at the time, that's all I cared about. Now that I've had a career and I look back at it, the thing that I think I sometimes marvel at it is that, yeah, I mean, if I didn't start bowling at the age that I wanted to start bowling,

would I have developed the style or would I be traditional? I don't know. And so there are so many things which is the sliding doors, right? It's the butterfly effect. have developed the style or would I be traditional? Right. I don't know. Right. And so there are so many things which is the sliding doors, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the butterfly effect. It's like, I couldn't have written this script any better than how it happened actually. Well, that's what's so funny to me about this is that, yes, there's an altered timeline where you're a one-handed bowler. I don't know, would you suck in that world? Probably suck.

Ha ha ha ha. Some other kid would invent two-handed bowling and I'd probably be like, oh that's what I am supposed to do it. It's supposed to bowl like me, traditionally. You'd be the bully. You'd be one of the bullies. I'd be the traditionalist that's upset at this new wave coming through. Jason, catch your take on two-handed bowling.

I think it's the travesty that it's in this sport. I'm old school. If you couldn't do it with one hand, you didn't try and do it with two. You just tried to make yourself better. I'm gonna start this conversation off with, I love my time here in America. Okay, so. This is like anytime someone begins to say that.

Hold on, all right. I'm gonna start off with America, I Love You. And this is the home of Bolin. This is, you know, the American idea of Bolin is rooted in pop culture. Yes. It is important to America. I get it. The Big Lebowski. I get it. Bolin ties the whole room that is America together. That rug really tied the room together, did it not? F*** it, eh. This guy peed on it. Donnie, please. So when I came onto the scene, I'm Australian, I bowl differently. I knew I was going to ruffle feathers, but I didn't realize it was going to be that much.

They have said, you are now here. This is the USA. The big leagues. You are starting from the bottom again. And so I had to like accept, right, I'm gonna have to do this all over again. The biggest difference is Americans are loud. I would come back after a tournament going like, fuck, this is a hard day.

Cause you know, I'm getting heckled. No one else is getting heckled. I'm getting heckled from the crowd. And I haven't experienced that type of heckling. You know, it is go back to your country. Right. It is, you're in our country, bold the way we do. And again, I'm like, it's just a game of bowling.

And I was like, why are we doing this? And I had to fight through that. And that was hard. I apologize for smiling through your trauma. I do too. It's a weird thing because I look back and there were so many sad days because you're in this little environment and for me bowling was like my second home. It was a place I loved to be and I loved the game so much and so when you have that passion

and love for something you want to share it with the people around you and when the people around you are like, we don't want to bowl with you, like, or you got to change, or you got to do something different. Yeah, it was like, I don't get it. The biggest, I think, switch in that, which when it came from feeling a sadness to a feeling of joy was when I would start beating them.

Because now when they would say something, my return was always, look at the scores. I just beat you. So whatever you're saying right now, it's even harder to convince me you're right because I'm not just beating you by one or two pins. Like I am smashing you guys. Now what?

And so it's always nice to have that ace up your sleeve when your scores tell a bigger picture. So not only was I stubborn, now I had the arrogance. ["Bubble Boy"] ["Bubble Boy"] And he does it! Jason Belmonti earns his first PBA major. Sports often feels like it has antibodies

that are rejecting foreign invaders. And you were a foreign invader, and maybe the way that was just expressed, if I'm getting your story right, is that looks f***ing stupid. Yeah. And that's the antibody. And it's not how the game was meant to play. Okay. So that's the traditional, that's fucking stupid. Yeah. And that's the antibody. And it's not how the game was meant to play.

Okay. So that's the traditional, that's any sport. Yes. That's not how I grew up with it. This is not how I was taught it. And therefore this new way of doing it doesn't compute. I would like to read you, Jason, a quote, because it was the players championship, it was 2012.

There's a TV interview before the final and your opponent, a gentleman named Mike Devaney, he said this. Not watching VOMO and all that, doesn't impress me, not interested, don't care. I throw it the right way, I put my thumb in there, the way I was taught and everybody should throw it. So I'm gonna show it once up, what's up right now.

Thanks Mike, good luck. I remember the day and I was so focused about winning that I heard the quote, but I didn't let it necessarily affect me in the moment. Mike Devaney needs a double and seven. Anything less, Jason Belmonti wins for the third time at this year's World Series of Bowling. And Belmont wins it!

It was until the moment where I had won and then I could reflect on what had just happened that that quote, yeah, cut a little deeper. But when I hear it, the one thing that always kind of rings in my ear about it is like, why do they care? That's the thing that always, I always go, why do you care so much? Right. And so if my score was worse than theirs,

they probably wouldn't care. So this is what a Hall of Famer in your sport, in the PBA, here in America, once called you. He called you, quote, a cancer to an already diseased sport. Yeah, that one hurt. End quote. Brian Boss, Mr. Brian Boss. Why? What made you cancerous to Brian Boss?

I'm going to defend him a little bit. Okay. answer us to Brian Voss. I'm going to defend him a little bit. OK. I don't think he was referencing me as a human, as an individual. I think he was referencing what I do my craft. And you can't deny that Brian had a an extreme passion for the game and he wanted to protect it. How he thought was best. He thought something that was challenging its fabric was this new technique. It was the two-handed

backhand in tennis. It was the Frosby flop in high jump. Yeah, yeah, big fast very. Yep. This was his version of all of those things and he didn't like it. He was scared for the game that he grew up with, the game that he loved. I think what saddened me at the time was this was one of the greatest players in our history. Someone who I revered, and someone who I competed against, someone who I had drinks with.

He's actively trying to say that we cannot let this technique, your craft, your approach, destroy the game. And this is coming back around to the whole cheating aspect. And that allegation, though, on the level of the rule of law. So what does that mean? The word cheat hits me hardest because my understanding of the word cheat is you know the boundary of the rules and you are choosing to purposely step outside of them to break them.

You are cheating the game. I am within the rules. There is no rule to say that what I do, I am breaking. And therefore, because I'm within the square of the rules, to call me a cheat, now you're attacking my character. You're suggesting that I will purposely go beyond the rules. So what I'm doing, it breaks that mold.

And to them, it hurts them. And I have to accept that. it breaks that mold and to them it hurts them. And I have to accept that. But this is where I now need to officially inform you what the rest of bowling has had to accept about Belmo. Because the guy isn't just a really good two-handed bowler at this point. For the last decade, Jason Belmonti

has been nothing short of this generation's most dominant professional bowler, period. He's won an all-time record 15 major titles. He has a record tying seven player of the year awards and counting, all of which means that that kid in Australia who got bullied who no one wanted to bowl with That kid is now very arguably the greatest bowler

Who ever lived the best bowler on the planet steps up? Jason Belmonti better known in the bowling world as Belmo, is a star of his chosen profession. There's no one else in this planet that can bowl a ball at 10 pins better than me, and that is a really cool thing to say. And I never knew I'd ever be able to say it, so now that I can, I plan to say it as often as I can. And look, yes. As Belmode told me at one point, he would love it if there were another zero at the end of the paychecks that you get for being the greatest of all time in bowling.

You get $100,000 for winning the players' championship, for instance, which just means that Belmode, despite winning that thing three times, is still flying coach from Australia. Just a reminder that the PBA is absolutely not the NBA. But what Belmo does have, somehow, which very few even NBA players have, is a song that someone wrote about him. It's a song that another bowler actually named Kevin Williams wrote and performed about Belmo's life. I don't know what on my side Said it's not worth it But I never listen Do it myself And I get to work it I did it on purpose

You know that I did it on purpose Kev's a great young kid Super talented bowler Also a really talented musician And loves to rap So I'm like hey we should do a song We should write a song Like and maybe I can play it as like my strike song

On the PBA show and so we did we found a beat he thought up for some lyrics and I the only direction I gave him is I said write about me from like your perspective which means that every time you bowl a strike they play the music in the background and it's Kev song yeah but let me ask about why it is that your response like in modern times now we're catching up to the present is and it's Kim Song, yeah. But let me ask about why it is that your response, like in modern times now, we're catching up to the present, is something that a lot of the people

who had been bullied or attempted to innovate and even successfully innovated, I don't see them do what you do, which is you actively lean in and mock the mockers and make fun and make videos that are defiant and unapologetic and you gladly say, I'm the two-handed bowling guy. That's not a thing that a lot of other people in your position in other sports have done to that degree. I don't mind trolling the trolls back.

And so there's so many things that I think about. What would be kind of funny? And one of the videos that I think you might be referencing is I purposely created this fake neurological disease. Because I have a condition. Singular chirophobia. The fear of using one hand. My earliest memories, I remember going to the doctors a lot and seeing one doctor and

another doctor and a specialist and every doctor I just remember saying, you know, there's nothing we can do, there's nothing we can do. And I'm afraid he was born with it. You know, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do. I'm afraid he was born with it. You know, there's no cure. Hey, I bowl with two hands, but don't hate me. I have this problem, everything in my life, I do with two hands. You know, even using, you know, cutlery, I can't just butter bread, you know?

It's a process. You know, going out to restaurants, it's embarrassing. So I'm having a laugh about it. And in my mind, I released this video, it looks obvious. I'm having a laugh. Turns out, not everyone thought I was joking. And so I had this flood of people saying, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I've been hating on you for so long. And now I realize it's not your fault. You were born this way. And there's nothing you can do about it. How you go through your life. So I'm like, okay, now, now I need to address this because- Right. Because you could go two ways. You can come clean or fundraise off of this. And my fear was is these people now, like they're saying, they love me, where they once

hated me. So I'm like, if I tell them that I'm lying, this is all fake. This is actually my favorite of all the sliding door timelines of your life is the one in which you now have to perpetually argue that this is real. I end up shooting another video in which I find this underground doctor that has special pills that will cure me. All I need is one dose, pop it in, chew it up. You gotta chew it up.

Are there side effects that I should know about? There's too many side effects to go into right now, but believe me, it's going to cure all of your ills. Doctor, thank you so much. You have no idea what this is going to do for me. Godspeed. You are such a troll, man. You would think people would know that they

would put two and two together. So this leads to this like fairly stunning phase to me as a bowling outsider, where unlike in these other sports, where again, Rick Berry didn't inspire everybody, or all these people who shoot differently and shoot weirdly, they didn't change their games. And by there, I mean their sport. They didn't change their sports.

Your problem now seems to be that everyone else, or at least a lot of these younger bowlers, now want to be specifically like you, and that your once shamed technique has become like clearly in vogue. Yeah. I don't often get like emotional. There are moments where I'm like, I'll get a fan mail

or a kid will come up to me in person and he'll tell me a little bit about his story. And sometimes there's a lot of trauma in this kid's life and he uses bowling as a way to escape it or to bring joy. And then he'll bowl the way that I do. Then you pan out and you see hundreds of thousands of people around the world now. Is it really that many now?

Hundreds of thousands of people. Oh my God. Maybe more. The last, it is more the last Estimated count was somewhere in the 30% mark of bowlers old and young who are either starting off bowling the way that I do or or Dapting and adopting the new style my style and so that number is growing exponentially quicker as well And so hear these stories, then you go to a bowling center

and you see the impact with your own eyes where when I was a kid, there was me. No one else to now as a 40 year old guy walking into a bowling center and it's everywhere. The feeling, the overwhelming feeling of seeing a change of an evolution of just not just through my own personal game, but the sport made that, that's one of those like f***ing me moments. Like that's like whole... F***ing with two hands.

Yes! Need seven! 8-7. Nice try. One big shot for Kyle Troupe. One big event. He wins the 2023 PBA Tour. From Gothenburg, Sweden, Jesper Sensen. Yep. Needs three. Gets all 10.

Give it number nine. Let's meet Anthony Simons. Simo is the baby-faced bad boy of bowling. Dropping out of high school at only 16, become a pro bowler. His scrappy style has gotten him far. When you grow up on the lanes, you grow up fast and tough. He's known for his low-to-the-ground, aggressive, two-hand style and aggressive attitude on the lanes. Some of these kids are really good.

They're super good. And they're coming for you. Like, they're actively coming for the titles, the trophies. I mean, you, is it 15 major titles that you've won? That's more than anyone else in history. Seven player of the awards. That's type of the most all time. There are these young two handers

who want everything that you got and they're using your tools to take it from you. And I just wonder what it feels like to be somebody who's now seen the full circle. And truly, it's such a phenomenal sports story. You've seen the full circle. And truly, it's such a phenomenal sports story.

You've seen the full circle of start by being shamed and laughed at and then try to be destroyed before being too effective. And now suffering potentially because people are going to use it against you. What does that feel like? What's that emotional reaction when you get beaten by a two-hander?

When I lose one-handed, two-handed, I'm equally disappointed. I'm pissed. And so I try not to separate who beats me by, well, he was two-handed, so it's a little bit okay because, you know, we both are same. No, I'm still pissed. The thing that I'm realizing now

and why these kids are so good is because of what I've been able to do and they've been able to put me up as a pin on the pin board to study. And I never had that. My son today can YouTube everything. One of the biggest growing trends in bowling is two-handed bowling. Almost all the young competitors out there to generate that power are bowling two-handed.

And today we're going to attempt, as best as we can with Coach, to talk a little bit about the two-handed style. Yeah, as you mentioned, you were right, Mike. I was walking in blind. How do I fix my swing? I don't know. I guess I'm just going to have to go to the bowl and for a week, every day, I'm going to have to try new things.

Now someone takes my game, pulls it apart and says, are you having problems with this? This is what Belmo does. How about you use this kind of technique in your swing and it fixes them. And then I have to combat watching the kids on tour, go, hey, that looks a little bit like me. Like that rhythm looks a little bit like me. Oh, that role, what you're able to do with the boy. I think I've been doing that for a while.

And it's the ultimate compliment. But it's also like, could you not have come like five years later, like let me have retired. I'm still here. Let me have retired. And then still here. Let me have retired. And then you can all go and break all of my records. It's kind of an amazing concept, the idea that the revolution comes back around

for the revolutionary. Yeah. I liken it to watching Tiger Woods swing a golf club. Like when Tiger first came out, no one was as explosive. He was always the longest driver. He was always hitting the clubs the furthest. He happened to also be a great putter and chipper and he also happened to have touch and skill and creativity.

And so when I watched somebody like that, watch the kids come through, hit it further, and how did Tiger continue to win? Well, Tiger became even more creative. And I think that's something that I've learned from Tiger, is look, I can't rely on certain aspects of my game as I could 10 years ago when I was the only good one doing it.

Now you have to be creative. How are you gonna separate yourself from the kids that are learning from you? But the one thing they'll never be able to to copy is is how I think And I think that's where I really want to separate myself is that mental game side is just be like You can throw it like me or you want but what's going on between the years and how I'm strategizing I'm not going to tell anyone that

So the title that you get often given is GOAT, is greatest of all time. How does the superlative that you get presented with feel? What do you find more valuable? How do you make sense of those honors? The comparisons to the Tiger Woods of Bolin or Steph Currie of basketball, super flattering. And I think the one parallel to all of that

is Bolin seems to be just next in line of the evolution of its game, right? Like Tiger changed golf. Steph is changing the way we value the three-point shot. I'm changing the way you bowl. There is a part of me about that legacy, right? Is when you get to a certain stature, you start thinking, right, well, how do you,

if I could, how would you like to be remembered? Yes, let's rate, you're Obed. Yeah. Jason. So a huge part of me wants to be remembered as the greatest that has ever laced up the shoes and roll on a ball down the lane. There's a huge motivation for that.

However, I'm really cautious to be labeled the best two-hander of all time. And so my victories in my mind is I'm chalking up more runs on the board that will separate me from just a two-handed player to know we're encompassing everyone that's ever rolled the ball down the lane because he starts approving otherwise. So when I watch Steph play, I watch LeBron score the most points, I ask myself like, I wonder what their legacy that they want to be remembered for. And I promise you, Steph will be, will go down, maybe not as the goat of an all-round

player, but he will be the goat of shooting the ball from the perimeter. And for me, that legacy isn't to be singular. He's the greatest at one thing. It is, I want to be the greatest at it all. And that's not easy. And that's a wild thought. And it's also an arrogant thought to presume I can. I was gonna say, you're like,

you're not pushing Steph Curry away with two heads. You're like, nah, not for me. I've got to let my score do the talking again, and that's a huge motivator. When I step up on the approach and I throw that strike, I'm throwing it for today, but I'm also throwing it for what is going to be said about me and to the future. And I love that pressure and I love that passion and I love being in that position to influence my future based on what I'm doing today. So embrace it, enjoy it, but also know that no one will set an expectation higher than I set for myself. So whatever you're thinking of my capabilities,

I'm thinking beyond it and I'm believing I'm going to get there now. That feels like a real warning to these kids. Maybe it is. I would like you to help me though. I would like to peer inside of your brain because I am, as I said, I am, I'm kind of like an infant when it comes to bowling. Listen, I have no problem helping out an infant.

Okay. I have no problem helping out a total non-threat. If your plan was to secretly take over the game of bowling and you wanted to look at it. I mean, I'm 39, but he's still got some years left. Maybe I'd have second thoughts, but we can definitely fix you up here. Yeah, because we're about to have the public story finds out, like staff bowling tournament later today. What I need to do is show everybody else. You need a trophy. That's what you need.

I cannot let my staff beat me. Yeah. How you're thinking about your staff is how I think about with my family. My son, he's 12 years old, he's a bowler and he always wants to bowl against me. And I will never let him win. He will always throw it in my face and your staff are going to throw the same thing to you. That's right. You're going to yell at them for not being late and you know what they're going to say?

Well, I got the bowl in trophy. What do you say about you. You're gonna yell at them for not being late, and you know what they're gonna say? Well, I got the bowling trophy. What do you say about that? It's gonna be the worst thing in the world for you. Help me! So we're gonna fix that up. Help me, Bilbo. All right, let's get some private tutoring. I can do it.

Okay. Can you show me how it's done? So Jason Belmonte has taken his ball, his Excalibur. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah a bird. The flamingo. I've never seen a flamingo in real bowling life. Turkey. Just showing off. I'm noticing that his shoes have his own image on them. They say Belmo. I don't know what we're going to expect here today. Yeah, typically I'm probably drunk.

The last time I played a scam. The good news is when you're drunk, there's more pins to look at, usually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have 20 of them. Confidence. So it helps the score. Usually the way that I like to work is I ask the player, just throw me your shot so I know.

This is the most humiliating part potentially. Is I reveal what it is that I'm here to do. So we're standing in front of, I think the bowling rack. Sure, ball return. Very confident in all of these terms. So I'm gonna select the ball, if you're a big... Small, medium, large, extra large.

So what we're gonna do is I believe you could probably take the green ball. Okay, that's a large. You could even take mine if you wanted to. Whoa. Okay, all right. I think you can handle it. This is not a thing that I expected to be given the privilege. Touch my ball, mate.

You can touch my ball. Okay, so this is very, very heavy. It says absolute power. That's the name of the ball. With various lightning iconography on it. Yeah. So that this is my sponsor's equipment. And I'm noticing that there are two holes.

Two holes, no thumb hole. No thumb. Right. And we're going to use our two middle fingers. Yeah, like this. Perfect, stick them in. Ring and middle in there. Now this hand is going to essentially cradle the ball.

So hold it by your waist with your hand underneath it. Yep, cradling balls. That's it. I kind of want you to stand on the side a little bit. And then just kind of rock it. Just kind of rock it. And so that natural rock that you're doing right now is going to generate rotation. When you let it go,

you're actually going to hook the ball if you do it like that. Go and throw a shot. Let me just see what we're working with and then we'll figure stuff out. Okay, here we go. All right. There you go. It's not bad. It's okay. It's not bad. Now, it's very clear it went into the gutter. Yeah, okay, it's bad. It was not bad for like, until it was bad. I'm getting flashbacks to various things in my life

that have involved a lot of this vocabulary, but yeah. When was the last time that specific ball has ever touched a gutter? It's been a while. Yeah. It's been a little while. How deep should my fingers be in these holes? Well, your fingers and my fingers are different size.

So the holes, this is designed for me. Yeah. I can't remember the last time someone stuck their fingers in my ball. So. This is a privilege? Yeah. And it's very uncomfortable for me.

I'm going to be gentle. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Please. Yeah. Okay. So stick them in gently. Okay, thank you. Please. Yeah. Okay, so stick them in gently.

They're in there for the podcast audience. No. They're in there. All right, try it again. Don't have to throw it too hard. Just kind of roll it through there. Be gentle with it. Okay.

Little outside, a little, but we have an improvement. There's always a moment where it just like, I get it. side a little, but we have an improvement. There's always a moment where it just like, I get it. Oh, that's what I'm supposed to do. That's how it's supposed to feel. And when you hit that moment, there's usually a euphoric feeling of, let me do it again. Let me do it again. So I don't know when that moment's gonna happen for you.

I just wanna hear. We may not have enough tape in the cameras. For that reason, I told them to bring more tape. More tape, and when that day happened, you better text me and you better say. When that year comes to pass, call me in Australia, in Orange, Australia. I'll be on my death bed 60 years from now,

and my phone will vibrate, and it'll be like, Pab, oh, he did it. And it's just gonna be me rapping your strike song All right, try it again. Here we go. Here we go. Oh My god, that's gonna be really close to like seven All right, look at that three Three, now seven. Our increments are going above expectation. I just want to be clear for the audio audience that what I'm feeling right now is a power unlike any I've ever felt.

What have I created? I've been emboldened. That's really, really close. Hold on, hold on, hold on hold on hold on That's the second best thing you can get when I tell you that I'm going to fucking destroy the public Torrey finds out staff tonight I mean it. Oh, I have I have no doubt I have no doubt. Anything is possible! So I should just check back in here with a quick post-crypt about what it is that I found out today at the

Publatory Finds Out bowling tournament. I didn't win. My staff's good somehow bowling. Cortez is somehow good at bowling. How is he good at any of this? Nuch is like a pro basically. I went to-handed the whole time as per my tutelage from the greatest bowler of all time and I Was not part of the revolution You don't need to check the scores like just though I you know don't don't need to dwell on it

I I didn't win didn't go didn't scores, like just though I don't need to dwell on it, I didn't win, didn't go well. Like what the f***? What I found out today is actually that I find myself relating at the end here to Belmose fellow Australian in a cruel bit of irony. Ben Simmons didn't come through in the clutch. I should just be a man enough to admit that. Look, this is hard. It's supposed to be hard, right?

Like maybe the real bowling title is The Friends. The Friends we made along the way. Now, the journalism we did. But no more questions. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Art Media production. And I'll talk to you next time. Thanks for watching guys!