Legally Blind Bowler Rolls Perfect Game

They say that bowling is a game of finesse and feel.

That couldn't be more true for Morris, Ill., resident Ron Gooch. For while most bowlers rely on their vision to see where their ball is going, Gooch envisions the ball, alley and pins in his head before he relies upon well-honed finesse and feel skills.

Gooch has no other choice. He's legally blind -- has been since childhood. Yet that didn't stop the 52-year-old kegler from achieving every bowler's dream of a perfect game.

Gooch, who has been bowling since he was six-years-old, accomplished the rare feat of a perfect 300 score on Sept. 15. Finally, after 46 years, Gooch earned bowling's equivalent of a no-hitter on that memorable day on Lane 17 at Echo Lanes in Morris.

And like a baseball pitcher on the verge of a no-no, Gooch tried to be as non-chalant about what he might achieve, not to mention how he went about accomplishing it in the 10th and final frame.

"When it left my hand, it felt pretty good," Gooch told the Chicago Tribune. "And it (expletive) creamed (the pins). I said, 'Oh my God, I did it, I did it!'"

Not only is it rare for a sighted person to bowl 300, there have only been 10 other legally blind bowlers that have achieved the feat, according to a news database search and Wally Burmeister of Chicago, a records expert and chairman of the rules committee for the America Blind Bowlers Association, the Tribune said.

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