BOWLING / DANA HADDAD : Grant Classic Still Alluring at the Age of 42

The odds in favor of hitting the big prize are a little long. In fact, they were 1,709-to-1 last year. But the prospects are still very tempting for an amateur bowler.

Pay $70 to enter. Bowl eight games. Winner collects $10,000.

Maybe that’s why the Grant Classic has thrived in the Valley for 42 consecutive years.

“Dollar for dollar, it’s the best deal in town,” said Harry Grant, who started this tournament for men and women, scratch and handicap players in 1953 and continues to run it at age 81.

It is by far the most-popular tournament in the area, thriving despite having moved seven times and having survived the closure of three facilities--Victory Bowl, Encino Bowl and, most recently, Brunswick Granada Lanes, which was destroyed in the Jan. 17 earthquake.

With Grant and his tournament rendered homeless, AMF Bowling, Inc., stepped forward with a three-year contract and moved the tournament to Rocket Bowl in Chatsworth. The 1994 Grant Classic kicked off July 1 and will continue each weekend and on holidays until Dec. 11. A bowler can enter at any time.

More than 200 players (roughly one in eight) won prizes of $25 or more last year. Five scratch division winners took home $1,600 last year, including Billy Bumacop of Oxnard, who had an eight-game total of 1,610 in Class D, 165 average-and-under.

The big cash went to the top three scorers in the handicap division: $17,500 divided three ways. Dennis Bowman of Los Angeles hit the $10,000 jackpot (he actually pocketed $10,450 after winning some bonus prizes) with a 1,926 series. He produced games of 238, 267, 241, 216, 214, 215, 184 and 247.

Bowman’s success should provide incentive for any good league bowler. He carries a 190 average and doesn’t play many tournaments. His scratch score was 1,822. His 104 handicap put him over the top.

In terms of handicap, Bowman, 24, is only one pin better than the venerable Grant, who carries a 189 average. But Grant has never bowled in his own tournament, nor have any employees of the center at which it was staged.

Approximately 100 bowlers came from San Diego to play the Grant Classic last year, 80 from San Francisco and 60 from Las Vegas. Yet bowling in Southern California is not nearly as popular as it is back East or in the Midwest because, said Grant, “There’s too much action here.”

The Grant Classic has nonetheless secured a position as one of the longest-running bowling events in the country.

“We’re the oldest on the West Coast,” Grant said. “I would venture to say the Peterson Classic in Chicago, which is 75 years old, and the Hoinke Classic in Cincinnati are the only ones older. The Hoinke is about 52 years old. I bowled in it. That house in one year will run easily 40,000 to 60,000 entries.

“When you throw a pebble in Cincinnati, you’ll hit a thousand bowlers. Out here, you’ll hit 10. We’re miles from everybody.”

A core of local bowlers each year enter the Grant Classic as squad leaders. They recruit sometimes as many as 100 players for their squads. For 30 years, Felix Mejewski of Hollywood has received bonus cash for being a squad leader.

Grant jokes about how Mejewski will never win his tournament because he’s not good enough--and he doesn’t need the bonus money, either.

“(Mejewski) won the lottery three years ago,” Grant said. “Six million. We tell him this ain’t the lottery.”

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Matador to reopen: Matador Lanes, one of four Valley area centers owned and operated by the Brunswick Corp., is being rebuilt. It was one of three Brunswick houses damaged in the Northridge earthquake.

“It will have a completely different look, it’ll be completely redesigned,” said Warren Flanigan, Brunswick regional vice president. “It’ll be a state-of-the art place for a small bowling center. We’ve made quite an investment.”

Flanigan said Matador will have 28 lanes, four more than before, new color automatic scoring machines, bumper bowling for young children and a play area for toddlers resembling those at McDonald’s restaurants.

The project will cost an estimated $2.5 million, but Flanigan plans to have the center up and running on Oct. 1, which is about three weeks after the start of fall leagues. Before the earthquake, Matador featured more than 25 leagues.

Flanigan said Brunswick will not reopen its Granada Lanes, in part, because its lease expires at the end of the year.

That leaves three Brunswick centers still running. Flanigan said his company has not been successful in finding a location to replace Granada Lanes. The space is either too expensive or the property owner doesn’t want bowling.

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Hobo is No. 1: Hobo Boothe of Canoga Park currently leads the PBA Senior Tour in earnings at $42,323, most of it coming when he won the $225,000 American Bowling Congress Senior Masters tournament in Greenacres, Fla. March 30. It was his first title.