The stepladder finalists for the 2026 AMF PBA World Championship, left to right and in order from first to ninth: E.J. Tackett, Chris Via, Bill O’Neill, Kris Prather, Jason Belmonte, Brandon Bonta, Zach Wilkins, Jason Sterner, and Darren Tang. Photo by PBA.
Twice in the 2026 PBA Tour, E.J. Tackett has been top seed of a PBA major. And twice he has lost: to a perfect game by Brandon Bonta in the Players Championship, and to a stubborn 10-pin against Boog Krol in the USBC Masters.
Since Tackett leads the 2026 PBA Tour in points and virtually every other statistical category, a win in either of those matches probably would have set him up to become the first player in PBA Tour history to earn PBA Player of the Year four straight years. (PBA...