For the first time in more than five years, PBA Hall of Famer Danny Wiseman will be on the lanes to bowl for a major championship at the PBA Tournament of Champions next week.

Wiseman, a 12-time PBA champion with more than $1.5 million in career earnings, last appeared in a major at the 2014 PBA Tournament of Championships in January of that year. Now he’s back, and he says he has absolutely nothing to lose.

“I’m not expecting anything when I go out there, but there’s been times when (my game) comes right back,” the 51-year-old Wiseman said. “Physically, I’m nothing like I was, but I can still make myself do things with the ball. It’s more mental things now that I can control better.”

After bowling regularly on the tour for nearly 20 years, Wiseman started to slow things down after the 2008-09 season. The last title he won came during the 2007-08 season when he won the PBA Exempt Doubles Classic with Mike Fagan.

Despite major wrist surgery in 2014, Wiseman has still remained active on the lanes bowling local events, regionals and in the past few years has made an annual appearance at the PBA Xtra Frame Gene Carter’s Pro Shop Classic in Middletown, Delaware.

“I’m not throwing it too bad, but I don’t practice like I used to,” said Wiseman, who added he beat PBA Tour player Matt O’Grady to win the Maryland Masters last year. “This may be the last TOC I get to bowl because I don’t know what’s going to happen with my shoulder.”

Wiseman said his wrist injury was a result of thousands upon thousands of games over the course of his career. The tendon between his thumb and his wrist finally gave out in the middle of a sweeper and required reconstructive surgery.

These days, Wiseman says his wrist is “stronger than ever before” but his shoulder gives him issues, and he doesn’t plan to have surgery to repair the years of wear on that part of his body.

Instead, Wiseman plans to bowl occasionally as long as he can and may add a few PBA50 stops to his schedule in 2019. He also said he realizes today’s bowling game is vastly different than what he faced in his prime 20 years ago.

“The environment has changed, the bowling balls have changed and the physical games have changed,” Wiseman said. “It’s different today with the ball speeds, the steep swing planes or the two-handers and the rev rates. There used to be some guys who twisted it pretty good but nothing like today. It’s just evolved. I rotated around the ball in my heyday and you can’t really do that anymore.”

One thing Wiseman said he’s looking forward to is going out to bowl the Tournament of Champions with no pressures and no expectations.

“It’s not life or death anymore,” Wiseman said. “It’s fun again. It was never fun when I did it for a living because I was trying to make a living. Now, I have nothing to lose.”