The 2021 PBA Tour season featured a record-breaking year in earnings by Kyle Troup and had five players earn their first PBA Tour titles. Now, it’s time for a new season, and it begins with a major challenge.

The 2022 PBA Players Championship kicks off the new PBA season this weekend and will feature the same regional qualifying format it used for the first time last year.

Kyle Troup is the defending champion, and the players are all aiming to start off the year with a major championship along with the $100,000 pay day. Regional winners also making the finals last year were Dick Allen, Francois Lavoie, Tom Smallwood and Anthony Simonsen.

The qualifying rounds begin at 10 a.m. local time Saturday in each region live on FloBowling with bowlers rolling seven games on the Chameleon 39-feet oil pattern followed by seven more games from 4:30-9 p.m. On Sunday, the final two qualifying rounds will continue from 10 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. and 4:30-9 p.m. with 14 more games this time on the Dragon 45 pattern.

After the completion of 28 games of qualifying, the top five players in each region will advance to regional finals held at Bowlero Euless in Texas. Seeding will be based on total pinfall.

Troup will be competing in the East region at Bowlero West End in Richmond, Virginia. This region also features Parker Bohn III, Bill O’Neill and 2021 PBA Player of the Year nominee Chris Via.

“There are many obstacles with the event starting with 28 games over two days,” Troup said. “So that is a challenge upon itself. Several players came into their own in 2020. Chris Via winning his first major and making several shows. Francois Lavoie. The talent just continues to get better as well so that is going to make it a difficult tournament. It is a long road to that title.”

The Midwest region will play out at AMF West Lanes in Wisconsin with a field that includes 2021 PBA50 Bowler of the Year and PBA50 Rookie of the Year Tom Hess, Kris Prather, Sean Rash and EJ Tackett. The South region will take place at AMF University Lanes in Florida where Tom Daugherty dominated in last year’s World Series of Bowling XII. Daugherty will be competing against Norm Duke, Jesper Svensson and Tommy Jones, among others.

AMF Garland Lanes in Texas will be the host for the Southwest region which will include Chris Barnes, Shawn Maldonado, Dom Barrett and Lavoie. And Jason Belmonte makes his return to the PBA Tour after 10 months at home in Australia in the West region at Bowlero Cerritos in California. This region includes Jakob Butturff, Sam Cooley, Simonsen, Darren Tang and Los Angeles Dodgers star Mookie Betts.

After the completion of the regional qualifiers, the regional finals will be broadcast live over three straight nights from Bowlero Euless on FS1 (U.S.) and FloBowling (international). It starts with the East and South regions on Jan. 22. The east will take place at 4 p.m. Eastern followed by the south at 6 p.m. EST. The Midwest region finals is scheduled for 4 p.m. Jan. 23 followed by the Southwest at 6 p.m. The West region finals will play out at 7 p.m. Jan. 24.

The event’s championship round where the final five players will bowl for the title will take place at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 29 live on FS1 (U.S.) and FloBowling (international).