Shawn Maldonado (born 1986) is an American right-handed professional ten-pin bowler from

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, who joined the

Professional Bowlers Association The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the PBA membership consists of over 3,000 members worldwide. Member ...

in 2013. He owns two national

PBA Tour The PBA Tour is the major professional tour for ten-pin bowling, operated by the Professional Bowlers Association. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, over 3,000 members worldwide make up the PBA. While most of the PBA members are Regional profess ...

titles, and has also won 15

PBA Regional Tour The PBA Regional Tour is a series of "mini tours", run by the Professional Bowlers Association, spanning across seven regions within the United States. The Tour allows PBA members and qualifying non-member amateurs to compete in weekend events. The ...

titles. Maldonado uses a two-handed shovel-style delivery. Unusual for this style, he originally put his thumb in the ball. However, he converted to a no-thumb delivery in October 2020. Maldonado is a national pro staff member for

Hammer Bowling Hammer Bowling is a company involved in the manufacture and sale of bowling balls and bowling-related accessories. Faball Enterprises was formed in 1978 by Johnny Wonders and Earl Widman. In 1981, they created the second urethane ball in the market ...

, after previously being sponsored by

Storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmos ...

. He is also sponsored by VISE Grips.

Personal life

Maldonado was born in 1986 in Houston, Texas. He started bowling at the age of two. His parents used to bowl on a league three or more nights a week, so he was introduced to bowling at a very young age. Similar to

Jason Belmonte Jason Belmonte (born 29 July 1983) is an Australian professional ten-pin bowler. He plays on the PBA Tour in the United States and in world events. He is known for being one of the first bowlers to gain media attention for using the two hand ...

's starting story, the bowling balls were too heavy for him to lift with one hand on his own, so he learned to use two hands to bowl, and used a thirteen-step approach. Maldonado is married and has four kids, Dominic, Mia, Shawn Jr (SJ), and Ace. Outside of bowling, he enjoys watching his son play baseball, while Shawn himself likes

exercising Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athleti ...

and playing

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

Billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

Dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

Backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

. Being born in Houston, he is a big fan of all Houston sports teams. His favorite food is Italian.

Professional career

Maldonado joined the PBA in 2013, but did not participate full-time on the PBA Tour until the 2015 season, during which he made his first two televised finals appearances. He broke through with his first national PBA title in the 2021 PBA Chameleon Championship, part of that season's

PBA World Series of Bowling The PBA World Series of Bowling (WSOB) is an annual multi-tournament ten-pin bowling event held by the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) in North America. Formation The inaugural World Series of Bowling event was held by the PBA at the start ...

. He later won the 2021 PBA Lubbock Sports Open. Maldonado had a third-place finish in the 2022

PBA Tournament of Champions The PBA Tournament of Champions is one of the five major PBA (Professional Bowlers Association) Ten-pin bowling, bowling events. It is an invitational event and the only PBA Tour major that does not have any open field. All participants must meet qu ...

. He qualified as the #15 seed for the 2022 PBA Playoffs. After an upset win over #2 seed

Anthony Simonsen Anthony Simonsen (born January 6, 1997) is an American professional ten-pin bowler from Little Elm, Texas, currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has been a member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) since 2014. Simonsen became k ...

in the opening round, he was defeated by tenth-seeded A. J. Johnson in the quarterfinals. At the 2023 PBA Dave Small's Jackson Classic, Maldonado made the stepladder finals (broadcast on BowlTV) and rolled the first 11 strikes in his opening match before leaving two pins with a light hit on his final shot for a 298 game. He would lose the semifinal match to eventual winner

E. J. Tackett Edward Dean Tackett Jr. (born August 7, 1992) is an American professional ten-pin bowler from Huntington, Indiana, now residing in Bluffton, Indiana. A member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) since 2012, Tackett has won 19 PBA Tour ...

to finish in third place. Maldonado has earned over $300,000 in PBA events.

Accomplishments and honors

* 2x Texas Masters champion * 13 PBA Regional titles * 2014 and 2015 PBA Southwest Region Player of the Year * 2016 PBA Elias Cup Champion with the Dallas Strikers (PBA League team) * 2021 PBA Chameleon Championship winner * 2021 PBA Lubbock Sports Open winner

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maldonado, Shawn Living people 1986 births