This interview was first published on Golf Newspapera quarterly print publication exclusively for USGA members. Be among the first to receive Golf Newspaper and to learn how you can ensure a strong future for the game, become a member of the USGA today.
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Only six men – Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy – have won the Grand Slam in a career in golf. EJ Tackett became just the ninth to win the Professional Bowlers Association’s equivalent of the Triple Crown at the 2023 US Open in his home state of Indiana. Needing one stroke and eight pins in the final frame to defeat his rival, friend and fellow golfer Kyle Troup, Tackett “got up and got up,” as they say on the lane, pocketing twice for strokes to fulfill his childhood dream.
Well, A of his childhood dreams – might as well have been a US Open golf triumph.
Tackett, now 33 and starring alongside Troup in HBO Max’s new documentary series, “Born to Bowl,” was an elite junior golfer as well as a soccer player, competing against the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Jordan SpiethXander Schauffele and Justin Thomas in the 2010 US Amateur and Junior PGA Championships and later playing Division I golf before turning his attention to knocking down pins with a bowling ball. The four-time and reigning PBA Player of the Year has since won 27 tournament titles, including seven majors, and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Tackett’s career numbers put him at least in line with what Scheffler, Spieth and Rory McIlroy have accomplished in professional golf, aside from his Q rating and bank account — bowling popularity and prize money, while on the rise again, still lags by a mile and a half in golf’s country. The highly entertaining Born to Bowl has the potential to change that, at least slightly. Regardless, if Tackett only recently stopped sharing hotel rooms on the road, he has not only left his mark on bowling, but also still finds time to maintain a golf game better than scratch. Which begs the question: Can JT muster a 300? Color us suspicious.
;)
courtesy EJ Tackett
How did you get started in golf?
I was 3 or 4 years old when I started dating my dad. He played a skin game on Saturday and Sunday mornings, small town stuff with maybe 30 guys. Dad would let me untie, take my ball, take it to his ball and let me hit from there, then chip and putt around the green. The nephew of the guy who owned the course was the same age as me – he actually owns the course now. As I got a little older, he and I would play chip and putt games and hit balls on the range. So I had someone challenging me to get better.
When you did START playing junior tournaments?
When I was about 12 years old. In Indiana, there was a tour sponsored by Pepsi, and it was divided into age groups named after pop brands – Pepsi Tour, Mountain Dew Tour. It was a summer that I won every event I played in, and that was the year (2010) that I qualified for it US Junior Am and the Junior PGA.
What were those experiences like?
The Junior PGA was at Sycamore Hills in Fort Wayne, 30 minutes from where I lived. The first round I was nervous and played absolutely terrible – I think I shot an 85. Justin Thomas set the course record that day with a 65. The next day it rained, and my dad and I went to the driving range and fixed my swing. I shot an even-par 72 the second round, which wasn’t good enough to make the cut, but at least I redeemed myself. At the Junior Am at Egypt Valley in Michigan, I shot in the mid-upper 70s in both rounds and missed the final cut for match play by a few shots.
;)
And you’re doing it while becoming one of the best bowlers in the country. In 2011, you made Junior Team USA — and as a teenager you qualified for the US Open of bowling, finishing 20th. When did you finally decide to choose bowling over golf?
When I decided I wasn’t good enough to play golf. I played golf at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (now Purdue Fort Wayne), a D1 school. I went for three semesters. I wasn’t seeing the results I thought I should be seeing. I hated school and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. My parents have owned a bowling center my whole life, and they haven’t been doing well, so I’ve always worked hard at the center. I wasn’t living on campus, commuting an hour back and forth to school, trying to work every day – maybe it was a little too much for me. I decided to try a different route. I knew I was always very good at bowling. I got my PBA card in October of 2012, and here we are.
Do you think there is a lot of overlap between the sports in terms of technique?
There are a ton of parallels. I’m not a big guy – 5-foot-8, 150 pounds – but I’m very powerful in every sport. My swing path goes outside-in on the backswing on each one. If you look closely at my bowling footwork, when I get to the (foul) line, sometimes you’ll see my heel come off the ground. This is using the ground as leverage, just like a golfer. They load the left knee and it straightens as they roll through the ball, and sometimes that left heel comes off the ground. Then there’s the old term: “Cut it out.” If you’re trying to make things happen too early in your move, it eats away at your time and you’re weird.
What about the mental side? Many “perfect” bowling shots do not produce strikes. It seems that dealing with bad holidays, or what feels like bad holidays, is critical.
In golf, at least play kicksyou are really playing against the odds. In bowling, you are playing against the conditions of the lane. Guys who can skip, who don’t overthink things and play what’s in front of them, are the ones you see on TV week in and week out. In golf and bowling, it’s one shot at a time. Because you cannot change what has already happened, and you can only control what will happen. And that’s it.
;)
getty images
Bowling and golf are both side-play sports – you’re competing alongside someone, but you can’t influence what they do. How do you handle it?
I’m just out there trying to do the best I can. I pay attention to what the other guys are doing because we’re always moving lanes, changing bowling balls because of the conditions. If someone is playing really well, I can look at what kind of ball they’re using, where they’re standing to start, the line they’re playing, trying to get a better view that can help me. It’s not like I’m sitting on the bottom rooting for someone else or screaming for them to get a breakup. If someone does a split, yeah, I’ll give them a high five, or if they hit a 300 game, it’s like, “Good job – happy for you.” It’s probably the same way on the PGA Tour. You are out there doing your job. If someone does something nice, you give them a thumbs up. Throughout normal play, though, it’s very much business.
One difference, unfortunately, is the amount of money in pro golf versus pro bowling. Do you ever think about that?
All the time because I played golf and I still watch it all the time. I won five times (including two majors) in 2023. I bowled extremely well – and I was $40,000 from winning half a million dollars. So if you reach a high level, you can be, not rich, but definitely not poor. But would it be good to make those million dollar payments? Absolutely. If bowling did what golf did, I would have made $15 or $20 million before the FedEx Cup. It’s, like, dangif we were bowling for, you know, half a million or even a million dollars in major championships, that revolutionizes the sport and takes it to another level. I know the bowling officials are doing their best. It is always a work in progress.
Not to romanticize it, but PBA pros often bounce from event to event, share hotel rooms — sounds like the PGA Tour in the 40s and 50s. Does this create more camaraderie than today’s players’ private jets and five-star hotels?
