Meet the Gen Z Hothead Burning Up Pro Bowling (from Rolling Stone Magazine)
January 19, 2024
BY ZACH HARRIS
Photograph by Mikayla
Whitmore
JAN 19, 2024 9:01 AM
“Simo’s in this?”
“Pfft. Fuck.”
It’s 3 p.m. on a Friday in late July, and it’s 114 degrees outside. I’m 15 minutes off the Las Vegas Strip at South Point Casino, eavesdropping as I follow two twentysomethings up an escalator — I’m here to meet the guy they’re scared of.
South Point is what you would call old Vegas. There are no celebrity chefs or pop-star residencies here, the blackjack odds are better than they are on the Strip, the buffet line is long, and the ornate red and gold carpet will make you dizzy if you look at it for longer than a second.
Up the escalator, past the seniors choking down cigarettes in the hallway outside of the cavernous bingo hall is the South Point Bowling Plaza, a 60-lane center with stadium seating and a wall of massive scoreboards. The Plaza routinely hosts Professional Bowlers Association and Professional Women’s Bowlers Association title events.
The PBA schedule winds down over the summer though, so today is not one of those days. Today’s tournament is the Vegas Valley Open Team Challenge hosted by the Amateur Bowling Tour, and tucked away at the far end of the center on lane 54, Anthony Simonson is Steph Curry in a slide sole pulling up to a pickup run at the park, asking who’s got next. “This is like the fourth time I’ve bowled in two months,” he says with a smirk. “You like Korean barbeque? I’ve got a great spot.”
Simonsen, a.k.a. Simo, is a 27-year-old high school dropout and, depending on who you ask, currently the best bowler alive. Raised in Mesquite, Texas, and now living here in Vegas, Simonsen is coming off one of the most successful years in PBA Tour history, the first bowler ever to finish in the top 10 in every tournament and crack the top four in every major. Simonsen took home three tournament wins in 2023, including a back-to-back victory at the Masters, one of bowling’s five annual major tournaments, outside Detroit, culminating in a viral celebration that saw Simonsen flex a pair of Buffs — Cartier Buffalo Horn sunglasses, the holy grail of Motor City fashion — on live TV. The $100,000 Masters title added to Simonsen’s seven-figure PBA winnings total, and made him the youngest bowler ever to win one, two, three, four, and now five majors.
The PBA’s most polarizing pro, Simonsen has a well-deserved reputation as a hothead. In addition to his accomplishments this season, Simonsen also led the tour in fines, a distinction he’s held for the past few years. Over his career, Simonsen has punched himself in the head midgame; separated scoring computers from their stanchions; kicked ball returns; been turned in to tournament officials by friends on tour for slamming balls on the return, swearing, and generally “acting like an asshole”; told Fox producers that if they wanted him to stop cussing on live TV they should take his mic off; and routinely complained about the quality of bowling-center equipment and the competition format.
As bowling pushes closer to its next high point on the roller coaster of cultural relevance, with a 15 percent bump in PBA TV ratings this year, ink drying on a two-year extension with Fox, a new trading-card deal, a growing parasocial presence online, and wait lists for social and competitive leagues across the country, Simonsen’s combination of brash attitude, youth, and dynamic personality built from equal parts intensity and apathy, paired with his record-shattering talent and explosive creativity is tailor-made to take pro bowling to the next level. Love him or hate him — and there’s plenty of hate, just check the comment sections — Simonsen is the new face of the PBA whether he likes it or not.
SIMONSEN WASN’T PLANNING on bowling today, never mind in an amateur tournament, but his friends Ari, Jessica, and JP need a fourth for their squad, so here he is, waiting until the last five minutes of practice to change out of his Air Max 97s into his Dexters and throw a couple of practice shots to test the lanes. They’re hooking more than he expected, but a Social Media: