A Whole Lotta Shakin’

Jennifer Palmer celebrates after a successful roll at Shake, Rattle and Bowl.
PGA TOUR

March 2, 2010

By Laury Livsey, PGA TOUR Staff

JUPITER, Fla.—Jason Bohn and his wife, Tewana, just missed shooting a 59 Tuesday. All afternoon, the husband-wife team was knocking down pins, just what you want to do on the golf course.

The problem was, the Bohns were bowling.

Sixty in golf: Phenomenal. Sixty in bowling: Well . . . 

“That wasn’t very good,” Bohn understated, as he gave his wife a hug at the conclusion of Shake, Rattle and Bowl, a PGA TOUR Wives Association event in conjunction with The Honda Classic. In each frame of the two-game event, the wives or girlfriends would roll the first ball, with the husbands or boyfriends trying to pick up the spare.

There weren’t many X’s or slashes on the Bohns’ scorecard, and it hardly mattered. Winning and losing wasn’t the point at the event that saw the men wear blue-and-black shirts and the wives/girlfriends going retro, with pink-and-black shirts and, in some cases, cat eye glasses.

The proceeds from Shake, Rattle and Bowl are all earmarked for charity, with half of the money raised through donations going to the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation and the other half staying with the PGA TOUR Wives Association to be used for various charitable initiatives. The event was sponsored by PGA TOUR Official Marketing Partners Charles Schwab & Co., Tiffany & Co. and Sentient, along with the Heritage Classic Foundation and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, among others.

The Bohns, who competed on the same lane as Nathan and Michelle Green and Ryan and Jennifer Palmer, remained upbeat, with plenty of high fives, hugs and laughs to go around.

“This is something a little different, but everybody enjoys going to a bowling alley,” said Palmer, a winner earlier this season at the Sony Open in Hawaii, his third TOUR title. “You get to get away from the course for a little while and let loose.”

Nobody seemed to have any trouble doing that. After Jennifer left her husband to face the dreaded 7-10 split in the fifth frame of the first game, with the two remaining pins hugging the gutter, Ryan and Jennifer each rolled their balls simultaneously. While Ryan nailed the 7 pin, Jennifer, um, didn’t.

Three lanes away, Will and Alli MacKenzie, Jonathan and Amanda Byrd and John and Heather Rollins were experiencing a bit of frivolity of their own, even if Will and Jonathan weren’t exactly impressed with their bowling abilities.

“I’ve bowled, in all honesty, probably 20 times in my life. I should be better, but I’m not,” MacKenzie said. “Out of five (frames), I’m going to bowl two gutter balls, knock down three pins twice and get a strike. That’s how I bowl. That’s the reality.”

MacKenzie admitted he and Alli are “neck and neck” in how they play. “And that’s not a good thing,” he added. “We’re both awful.”

“I did beat him once, and he’s never taken me bowling since,” Alli said.

Until Tuesday, that is, when the MacKenzies, along with 25 other PGA TOUR players and their significant others, made the 15-minute drive from PGA National, home of The Honda Classic, to Jupiter Lanes.

Like some of his TOUR buddies, Byrd wasn’t having any more success with a 16-pound urethane ball in his hand. “I’m a hit-and-hope bowler. I don’t know what my high game is, and I’m proud I don’t know what my high game is,” Byrd said with a laugh. “My family bowled a lot when I was in middle school, and my dad called me ‘Gutter Ball.’ It kind of left a mark, kind of scarred me. So I’ve stayed away from bowling.”

Not 30 seconds later, Byrd stood and grabbed his ball off the rack and waited at the approach. He positioned his feet, moved toward the foul line and let the ball fly. It started left and stayed there, eventually landing in the gutter.

“See,” Byrd said.

Watching nearby was Executive Director Sara Moores of the PGA TOUR Wives Association. Moores was smiling about the first-year event she said was an unqualified success. “This has been awesome. Everybody came together to have fun, but nobody forgot the whole point of why we held Shake, Rattle and Bowl, which is to raise money for children—something we did,” Moores said.

Wednesday, the players will be back in familiar surroundings, golf clubs in hands as they prepare for Thursday’s first round of The Honda Classic. The golfers will definitely be more proficient at PGA National than they were at Jupiter Lanes. But no way they have any more fun.

To donate to this cause and others supported by the PGA TOUR Wives Association, click here