Unquestionably considered one of the all-time greats. Like the old great muscle
cars, Dick Westlake's bowling career is another of the gems introduced in the decade
of the 1960s. Westlake possessed one of the most devastating armswings in the history
of bowling. Significant advances were made to aid in better scoring for duckpins,
primarily in the fall of 1976, but prior to this, Westlake was actually rolling '500'
sets back in the early to mid 1970s when few people were doing it. In the early
1980s, Dick rolled one of the best single game efforts in the history of duckpins
at Wheaton Triangle Lanes. After posting 2 magnificent games of 164 and 181, he
started the 3rd game with a stunning 8 strikes in a row. 2/3rds of the way to the
only perfect game opportunity ever for duckpins at the time, Westlake rolled his
9th frame. Another pocket hit, but this time he left the 5-7 split. As if the
8-bagger weren't enough to highlight an already monumental escalating effort for
the night, Dick slid the split for the conversion. In the 10th frame, he broke 9,
made it, and counted 9 on his final ball for a 266 game as part of a landmark 611
set.
During the 1970s, Westlake won a pro tour in Richmond, VA, defeating the legendary
Jimmy Wolfensberger. But he was also renown at the time for winning a much publicized
TV match against long-time, top-ranked bowler, Jimmy Dietsch, in which Dick, needing
a mark to win the tournament, left the dreaded 7-8 split in the final frame. With
defeat imminent, Dick beat the odds, hitting the 8 pin flush, and bounced it out
of the pit to knock over the 7. After the unlikely spare conversion, Westlake then
counted the necessary amount to win the match. Given the fact that the lanes were
geared for TV for Washington DC's old Channel 7 studio telecast, they were less than
optimum scoring, even for the tougher conditions of the early 1970s, which makes
the split conversion even more phenomenal.
In the early to mid 1990s, I bowled rubberband duckpins with Westlake at Zips
Lanes in Johnstown, PA. Although, the scoring in this variation of duckpins is higher
than conventional duckpins, it was still amazing to watch as Dick averaged 181 for
12 games.
Shown in this photo from an early DPBA program book, you almost need to do a
doubletake when examining Westlake's armswing. This is not a retouched or edited
photo—this is his actual arc with the ball. Back then, he should have been known
as "The Scorpion".
