Steve Cook (born January 13, 1957) is an American retired left-handed
ten-pin bowler
Tenpin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The goal is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll of the ...
and member of the
Professional Bowlers Association
The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and currently owned by the Lucky Strike Entertainment Corpor ...
(PBA). He was known as the largest physical specimen on the PBA Tour, standing at 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 meters) tall, and weighing in around 260 pounds (~120 kilograms). He was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in 1993, and was ranked #25 on the PBA's 2008 list of "50 Greatest Players of the Last 50 Years." In 2014, Steve was elected to the
USBC Hall of Fame for Superior Performance.
Cook won his first
PBA Tour
The PBA Tour is the major professional tour for tenpin bowling, operated by the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). Headquartered in Mechanicsville, Virginia, over 3,000 members worldwide make up the PBA. While most of the PBA members are Reg ...
title at the age of 22 in the 1979 Ford Open, and finished with 15 titles in his career. Among the titles were major championships at the 1981
Firestone Tournament of Champions, the 1983
Touring Players Championship, and the 1986
U.S. Open (one of four total titles he earned in 1986 alone). Cook's final PBA Tour title was earned at the 1992 Cleveland Open. He cashed more than $800,000 during his PBA career.
[Hall of Fame player bios at www.pba.com]
PBA Tour titles
Major championships are in bold text.
# 1979 Ford Open (
Alameda, California
Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for "Avenue (landscape), tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, United States, located in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is built on an informal archipe ...
)
# 1980 US Polychemical Open (
Fresno, California
Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...
)
# 1981 Firestone Tournament of Champions (
Akron, Ohio
Akron () is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, fifth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 190,469 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Akron metr ...
)
# 1981 Kessler Classic (
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
,
Indiana
Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
)
# 1982 Long Island Open (
Garden City, New York
Garden City is a village located in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 23,272 at the time of the 2020 census.
The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within the Town of Hempstead ...
)
# 1982 Kessler Open (
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...
)
# 1983 Touring Players Championship (
Limerick, Pennsylvania
Limerick Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States.
History
The township was named for the hometown of early settler William Evans, whose family arrived in the area from Limerick, Ireland in 1698. The township is ...
)
# 1985 Showboat Doubles Classic w/Mike Aulby (
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
,
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
)
# 1986 BPAA U.S. Open (
Venice, Florida
Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in ...
)
# 1986 Greater Hartford Open (
Windsor Locks, Connecticut
Windsor Locks is a New England town, town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was ...
)
# 1986 Showboat Doubles Classic w/Mike Aulby (Las Vegas, Nevada)
# 1986 Austin Open (
Austin, Texas
Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...
)
# 1988 A&W Pro Bowlers Classic (
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
)
# 1989 Showboat Doubles Classic w/Mike Aulby (Las Vegas, Nevada)
# 1992 Cleveland Open (
Parma Heights, Ohio
Parma Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The city's population was 20,863 as of the 2020 census. A suburb of Cleveland, it is a part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Parma Heights is surrounded on the north, east and so ...
)
Personal
Cook is the brother-in-law of fellow PBA Hall of Fame bowler
Mike Aulby
Mike Aulby (born March 25, 1960, in Indianapolis, Indiana) is a left-handed bowler and former member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). He is one of only five PBA bowlers to win both a Rookie and Player of the Year award. ( Tommy Jone ...
.
Cook and Aulby were three-time winners of the PBA's Showboat Doubles Classic. After retiring from competition, Steve developed his own eponymous bowling supply business.
Since 2016, he became the owner/proprietor of Steve Cook's Fireside Lanes, a 32-lane bowling center in Citrus Heights, CA located just outside Sacramento, CA
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Steve
American ten-pin bowling players
1957 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Granite Bay, California