Liz Johnson (bowler)

Born in Cheektowaga, New York, Johnson was a standout youth softball player, playing the sport from age eight through her high school graduation at Niagara-Wheatfield High School in Sanborn, New York. Primarily a pitcher, she won 60 games during her high school years. Shortly after high school, she won the 1992 Coca-Cola Youth Bowling Championships in the Girls' Scratch division.[5]

Johnson then bowled at Morehead State University, earning both Rookie of the Year and Collegiate Bowler of the Year honors in 1993, but stayed in college only one year, as she was determined to make bowling her career. She claims that bowling is the only job she's ever had. She worked in her local bowling center early on, and has held various pro shop and pro staff positions in addition to earning a living on the lanes.[5]

In 2018, she married her girlfriend Kasia Kaufman.[6] She has resided in Palatine, Illinois, and now lives in Niagara Falls, New York.

Johnson qualified for Team USA and joined the PWBA Tour shortly after leaving college. On the pro circuit, she started strong, capturing Rookie of the Year honors and a major tour victory at the U.S. Women's Open in 1996. She won a second PWBA major at the 2001 Hammer PWBA Players Championship.[4]

Another PWBA career highlight came in 2001, shortly after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. In an emotional event held on September 14 — the first professional sporting event to resume after the attacks — Johnson bowled the third televised perfect 300 game in PWBA history to defeat Carolyn Dorin-Ballard in the final match of the Paula Carter Classic.[7]

Not to be denied the opportunity to bowl in professional competition, Johnson became a member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) — generally regarded as the "men's tour" — in 2004.[8]

Early in the 2004–05 season, she made history by becoming the first woman to qualify for a standard PBA tour event, making the Round of 64 at the 2004 Uniroyal Tire Classic. Later that season, she raised the bar even higher by becoming the first woman to make the televised finals of a PBA event (2005 Banquet Open). In this event, she also became the first woman to ever defeat a man in a PBA Tour broadcast, winning her semifinal match over Wes Malott by a score of 235–228. She was unable to complete the quest for a title, falling 219–192 to eventual PBA Player of the Year Tommy Jones in the final match.[8]

Johnson posted another "first" in the summer of 2005 — becoming the first woman to win a PBA event, as she captured the title in a PBA Regional Tour stop (2005 East Region Kingpin Lanes Open). To win that tournament, she had to defeat four-time PBA titlist Ryan Shafer in the semifinal, and PBA tour veteran Mike Fagan in the finals.[8]

On November 18, 2017, Johnson won the PBA Chameleon Championship at the 2017 World Series of Bowling in Reno, Nevada, her first win on the national PBA Tour and the second victory ever recorded by a female on the Tour, following Kelly Kulick in 2010. Johnson is also the third woman to defeat a man in a televised bowling championship match. Lynda Barnes was the first woman to do so by defeating Sean Rash in the 2008 USBC Clash of Champions, but this event was not part of the PBA Tour. Kulick became the second woman to defeat a man in a televised title bowling match, but the first to do so in a PBA Tour event, that being the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions invitational. Johnson became the first woman to win an open, non-major PBA Tour title.[3]

Johnson won the 2007 U.S. Women's Open over close friend and tour roommate Shannon O'Keefe at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nevada. The event returned in 2007 from a three-year hiatus when its rights were acquired by the United States Bowling Congress (USBC).[9] Johnson also won the 2007 PBA Ladies and Legends tournament (with partner Roger Kossert), which was part of that season's PBA Senior Tour.[8]

Johnson's first PBA Women's Series title came in the Don and Paula Carter Mixed Doubles event, where she partnered with Norm Duke for the victory on January 6, 2009. In the Baker Doubles format, Johnson threw five of the ten frames in the final match, and had a strike in every frame.[10] She won her first and only singles title in the PBA Women's Series on September 5, 2009, at the PBA Viper Championship. The PBA Women's Series would only last for three seasons, ending in April, 2010, again leaving Johnson and other female professionals without a national tour.[11]

Johnson won another major title at the 2009 USBC Queens tournament, which was not part of the PBA Women's Series, at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nevada.[12]

Johnson qualified as the top seed in the May 2010 U.S. Women's Open, but lost in the final match to Kelly Kulick.[13] She avenged her loss in the 2013 U.S. Women's Open, with a convincing 257–195 win over Kulick in the final match to earn her third U.S. Open crown.[14]

With the victory, Johnson joined Marion Ladewig, Patty Costello and Kulick as the only players to win the U.S. Women's Open at least three times. Following the 2013 event, Johnson cashed an additional $10,000 by winning the "Battle of the Sexes" over men's U.S. Open champion Wes Malott, whom she had previously beaten on television in 2005.

The PWBA has since credited Johnson's three major championships during the PWBA Tour's hiatus as PWBA titles, giving her 14 PWBA titles through the 2013 U.S. Women's Open victory.

Johnson was part of Team USA in 2011. At the WTBA World Women's Championships in Hong Kong, this team took home gold for the United States in the team event for the first time since 1987.[15] In 2014, the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame awarded its NPASHF Excellence in Sports Award to Liz Johnson.

Johnson's bowling style is considered to be mechanically sound and consistent, not flashy. A 2005 bowling.com article stated, "If you were to compare Major League Baseball superstar Roger Clemens and his 95 mile-per-hour fastball to Tommy Jones' mega-hook power game in bowling, you could compare Johnson's game to another 300-game winner: Chicago Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux, who throws an 85 mph fastball but almost never walks enemy batters because of his pin-point accuracy."[33]

Johnson has won a total of 29 professional titles, including ten major championships, broken down as follows:

• 15 PWBA Tour standard titles
• 10 PWBA major titles (7 earned on the PWBA Tour, 3 earned during the Tour's 2004 through 2014 hiatus)
• 2 PBA Women's Series titles
• 1 PBA Ladies and Legends title (w/partner Roger Kossert; 2007 PBA Senior Tour event)
• 1 PBA Tour title

• 1992 Girls Scratch Champion, Coca-Cola Youth Bowling Championships
• 1993 Collegiate Rookie of the Year and Collegiate Bowler of the Year
• U.S. Amateur Champion in back-to-back years (1993–94)
• 11-time member of Team USA (1994–96, 2008–15); part of the 1994 Team USA which won the gold medal at the World Tenpin Team Cup in Malaysia
• 1996 PWBA Rookie of the Year
• Two-time USBC National Women's All-Events champion (1998, 2008)
• USBC National Women's Doubles champion, with partner Susan Jeziorski-Smith (2007)
• Six-time U.S. Women's Open champion (1996, 2007, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), the most of any player in the PWBA era (since 1960) and second only to Marion Ladewig (8) for the most all-time
• Two-time USBC Queens Champion (2009, 2015)
• Named "Female Bowler of the Year" in 2005, 2007 and 2009 by the Bowling Writers Association of America.
• Named "Female Bowler of the Decade" (2000–2009) in the Winter, 2010 issue of U.S. Bowler.[35]
• 2014 "Excellence in Sports" Award recipient from the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.
• Inducted into the USBC Hall of Fame on April 29, 2015.
• Three-time PWBA Player of the Year (2015, 2016, 2017)
• Holds the all-time record for women's major championships (10)
• One of two women (with Kelly Kulick) to have won a title on the national PBA Tour.
• Only bowler with multiple televised 300 games in PWBA title events (2001, 2021)