A 300 game is the Holy Grail of bowling.
Troy Walker was one strike away from achieving perfection at the Luci Bonneau Doubles charity tournament in Houston when his bid was foiled not by a slip or a gutter ball, but by heartbreaking mechanical error. As Walker’s ball rolled down the lane, the bar used to clear out the pins inexplicably lowered a few seconds too early, stopping the ball cold.
Walker was given another chance, but his re-shot knocked down just seven pins, saddling him with a final score of 297. To his credit, though, Walker took the mishap in stride, even saying that the bar coming down early was probably his fault.
As commentators Mike Flanagan and Robert McBride said on their broadcast of the roll (yes, this bowling tournament had commentators), “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Check out Walker’s poor stroke of luck in the video below.
