About Brian Mounts & MountsBowling.com

Where to start?

I’m going to assume if you’re reading this page right now you probably already know a little about me.

Even still I’ll go into a bit of detail here; hopefully you’ll learn something new about me that you may not have know before.

Brian Mounts BowlingMy name is Brian Mounts and I am a lifelong bowler. I started bowling regularly around 1995 back in my early days of high school.

Way back then I was a really little guy and I wasn’t big enough to play football with the high schoolers, they were almost twice my size and even though I was awesome back in middle school I couldn’t get a spot playing in high school because I just wasn’t big enough.

At that same time I also played a bit of first base for my local kids baseball league – our team was terrible.

We lost every game and by season’s end I was awarded MVP of the team. I was happy to receive the award and terribly annoyed that I was the best on my team because deep down I never really thought I was that great.

I had a terrible arm, which is why I was on first base, I couldn’t hit for power, which is why I frequently worked the walk, and I wasn’t really the big kid on the team either so I didn’t feel like the leader.

Somewhere between 9th and 10th grade my dad started sending me to the bowling alley on the weekend with a few bucks from his pocket. He told me he didn’t want me sitting around the house watching TV and playing video games all day.

It was my dads weekly bowling alley dollars that got me started in this sport and I couldn’t be more thankful after all of these years.

How Did I become a Bowler Though?

So lots of kids spend time at the bowling alley and I was no different. What set me apart though was my competitive nature and my small stature.

In the bowling alley though I could compete just fine so I started teaching myself how to throw a curve so that I could consistently be better than all of my closest friends.

Not knowing how to do it though I began to figure it out all by myself without the aid of a coach and before you knew it I became one of the first two-handed bowlers. I was so different from everybody else that bowling proprietors threatened to kick me out of bowling alleys because of my style and the parents at various YABA events complained about me.

This was well before the era of the 2-handed bowler, I was teaching myself this style as far back as 1995 back when I was 14 and 15 years old.

I averaged around 130 in ’95, roughly 150 in ’96, 165 in ’97 and 185 in ’98.

Around that time I went off to college and took a few years off of bowling but when I came back I was finally sitting at around a 200-205 average in the 2001 time frame.

This was also right around the time that Osku Palermaa became a bowling celebrity making the televised finals at the US Open. He was the first person I had ever seen throw the ball like me and it was him that made my style seem palatable to other bowlers. I was justified because he achieved what he did with my style of bowling.

Over the years between 2001 and 2010 I slowly improved from a 200 bowler to a 210 average bowler and people flocked behind me at every tournament to watch the craziness of the two-handed release.

People loved to just stand behind me and watch how crazy the technique was.

Obviously somewhere in that decade Jason Belmonte came onto the scene as a premier bowler and eventually my spectators started whispering behind me how I was bowling like Belmonte. Little did they know that I had been doing it for so long.

I’m not going to lie, it was a little annoying for a few years there knowing that almost everybody that watched me bowl thought I was imitating Jason but I dealt with that slight annoyance and continued improving.

Since 2010 my league average has jumped up into the 220’s and I have learn so much more about the game than ever before.

Sport averages for me are well into the 200’s and my spare shooting has improved dramatically over the years.

These days I pride myself on my spare shooting accuracy possibly even more than my strike percentage. For 10-pin spares alone I have a conversion rate around 95% and I’m always looking to improve.

My Bowling Past

Back around 2005 I attempted to bowl on the Western regional PBA Tour. I was really jumping the gun on that because I really wasn’t good enough to compete.

You can see my sad performance on the Western regional tour here.

I only made a couple cuts in a few years(!) so I was solidly donating my time and money for experience – very expensive experience.

That time did however get me some conversations one on one with various PBA Pros like Michael Haugen Jr., Robert Smith, and various others. Although they weren’t coaching me I learned a lot watching them bowl and listening to them talk about bowling on professional lane conditions.

Some of those conversations I still remember in great detail today!

After grinding out a bunch of big losses on the Regional Tour for a couple years I took a step back from PBA events and focused on league and small local amateur events. I even took a couple years largely off from tournament bowling when my wife and I had our first son.

Overall the years between 2008 and 2016 were great for my growth as a bowler because I stopped forcing myself to compete against people significantly better than I was. I actually allowed myself to improve naturally over time.

These days (2018 and beyond) I am the best bowler I’ve ever been and even now bowling on the local SOBA Tour here in southern Oregon I clearly see that there are still tons of people out there who are better bowlers than I.

Bowling truly is a sport that can humble you because, as I have demonstrated, you can actually improve every year for more than two decades straight and still have lots of room for growth.

Brian Mounts the Bowler Today

These days I am the primary caregiver to my three kids while my wife works out of the house.

I shuttle them around, do the shopping and errands, and generally run the home from dawn until dusk.

In addition to all of that I typically bowl at least 10 games a week in league and practice and I try to hit at least one nearby amateur bowling tournament every month.

It’s hard fitting a lot of bowling when it’s not your day job and when you’ve got a family to take care of.

In addition to the bowling, fathering, and spousing I have also built a small digital publishing business on the side. I work predominantly in content marketing and affiliate sales which is why I decided to start MountsBowling.com.

I have a life-long passion for bowling and although I’m no touring pro I probably know more about this game then 99% of the other bowlers out there.

For now this site is going to mostly cover Oregon bowling news mostly as it relates to amateur and recreational bowling. I also intend on personally blogging about bowling a little bit while publishing comprehensive articles on the sport of bowling that will be applicable worldwide to both the beginning and experienced amateur bowler.

So that’s that for now, that’s quite a lot of information for an about page so if you read this far then maybe you’ll be interested in reading more stuff on the site.

You can start by checking out the following page on my personal two-handed bowling technique.

Since I was self-taught years prior to the dominance of Palermma and Belmonte you’ll probably find my two-handed approach is quite a bit different from what is taught today to aspiring 2-handers. 🙂

Curious what balls and brands I throw?

Take a look into my bag right here.

You can also see my USBC sanctioned composite annual averages for the years listed below:

2017-2018 – 201 Games – 220 Average
2016-2017 – 93 Games – 223 Average
2015-2016 – 154 Games – 215 Average
2014-2015 – 156 Games – 215 Average
2013-2014 – 171 Games – 217 Average
2012-2013 – 128 Games – 212 Average
2011-2012 – 69 Games – 213 Average
2010-2011 – 70 Games – 212 Average
2009-2010 – 177 Games – 198 Average
2008-2009 – 120 Games – 195 Average
2007-2008 – 72 Games – 213 Average
2006-2007 – 189 Games – 211 Average
2005-2006 – 120 Games – 216 Average
2004-2005 – 96 Games – 202 Average
2003-2004 – 156 Games – 212 Average
2002-2003 – Did Not Bowl
2001-2002 – 32 Games – 181 Average
2000-2001 – 115 Games – 198 Average