With only three events left this season, the PBA50 Player of the Year race has tightened up a little bit heading into the PBA50 Dave Small’s Championship Lanes Classic.

The event, which starts Sunday in Anderson, Indiana, live on FloBowling, will help to clear the picture a little more, especially if Walter Ray Williams Jr. produces another strong finish.

Here are a few key points to get you ready for the PBA50 Dave Small’s Championship Lanes Classic:

Williams leads POY race but others closing the gap

The 2019 PBA50 Player of the Year race seemed like it was going to be over before it barely started after Williams won the first three events of the season.

Combine that with the fact that Williams has finished in the top 10 in the eight PBA50 events in which he has competed and he should have locked up PBA50 Player of the Year honors by now, right? Not quite.

Williams skipped the PBA50 South Shore Open to compete in the PBA League in Portland, Maine, and while he was gone his points lead on the field shrunk.

He still holds the top spot with 26,230 points, but with back-to-back victories, Brian LeClair is suddenly in second place with 19,500. Amleto Monacelli is third with 18,555.

Since the PBA50 Player of the Year race is decided strictly on points, it’s fairly easy to keep track of throughout the season. But is there enough time for either LeClair or Monacelli to catch Williams? Yes, but it will be tough.

A win nets 5,000 points in each of the last three events. That means a couple of wins in the last three events by LeClair or Monacelli could make things very interesting if Williams struggles a little.

Complicating matters is that Williams is not currently on the roster for the final event of the season. It’s unclear whether he is skipping the event or simply hasn’t signed up yet.

Marsala looks to capture magic again

In just his fifth appearance in a PBA50 Tour event, John Marsala defeated Michael Haugen Jr., 224-218, to win the Dave Small’s Championship Lanes Classic last year.

Marsala went undefeated in match play and then took down the man who would eventually be the 2018 PBA50 Player of the Year in the final.

Marsala will be back again this year to try to successfully defend his title. Haugen will also return as will two of the other three players who made the stepladder last year.

Willams and Parker Bohn III also made that finals along with Steve Jaros, who is not scheduled to compete this year.

The format and lane conditions

The tournament begins with two rounds of qualifying on Sunday and Monday. Each round is eight games and all bowlers compete on one squad.

After 16 games of qualifying, all cashers will advance, though not all into the same round.

Based on 96 or more entries, the top eight qualifiers after 16 games will be seeded directly into the second round of match play, while qualifiers ranked No. 9 through No. 24 will be seeded into the first round of match play.

The remaining cashers after qualifying, those ranked 25^th or lower, will bowl a five-game cashers qualifying round with the top eight players from that round advancing into the first round of match play.

All pins are dropped before the cashers round and each round of match play. The first round of match play is five games with the eight cashers round advancers joining qualifiers ranked ninth through 24^th. The top eight bowlers from this round will advance.

The second round of match play is six games with the top eight from the first round of match play joining the top eight qualifiers.

When all that is said and done, the final five will bowl in the stepladder finals on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern.

This week, the players will bowl on the PBA Mark Roth pattern, which is 42 feet long.

How to watch

The only place to watch the PBA50 Dave Small’s Championship Lanes Classic is live on FloBowling. Every round of the event from qualifying through the stepladder finals will be broadcast live with archives available immediately after each round ends.

What the schedule looks like

Here’s the schedule for this event, all times listed are Eastern:

Sunday, July 21
11 a.m. – Qualifying Round 1 (eight games)

Monday, July 22
11 a.m. – Qualifying Round 2 (eight games)

Tuesday, July 23
8:30 a.m. – Cashers Round (five games)
Noon – Match Play Round 1 (five games)
3:15 p.m. – Match Play Round 2 (six games)
7 p.m. – Stepladder Finals (top five)