John Hinkle Jr. is known for his ability to bowl a good game. In fact, he won the NCAA bowling championship two times, but it was the ball he used in a recent perfect game that really got the attention.
After Hinkle’s father, John Hinkle Sr., passed away, his son was able to bowl a perfect game. He did so using a ball that was custom-made by being filled with the ashes of his father.
With that special ball in his hand, the 39-year-old bowler got one strike after another in a tribute to his father.
Hinkle Sr. passed away in 2016 and John wanted to honor his father in a special way. He had the thumb hole of the bowling ball filled with his father’s ashes and then hit the lanes at Landmark Lanes in Peoria, Illinois.
Hinkle spoke with a local news station to say how he told his brother that he was going to get a perfect game with that ball. His brother, Joe, simply said “Do it!”
As you can imagine, John Hinkle Jr. was very emotional when he was bowling that game. By the time he was in the 11th and 12th frames, tears were filling his eyes and he didn’t even know where the last ball went. He referred to the night as being “epic” and I think everyone would agree.
This isn’t the first time that he bowled a 300 point game but it is the one that meant the most to him. It was his father that introduced him to the sport, and his father had never bowled a perfect score. He said that his dad “shot 298, 299 – never had a 300.”
According to the new station, his brother, Joe, said: “This makes up for so many nights growing up when we slept in a bowling alley while our parents were finishing league night.”