One of the most prestigious events in bowling will return after a four-year absence under the banner of the United States Bowling Congress. The announcement was made today at USBC’s Convention in Nashville, Tenn.

The U.S. Women’s Open will feature a unique qualifying and bracket elimination format and a television deal with ESPN that combines taped preliminary elimination rounds and a live championship final.

Scheduled to be conducted Aug. 13-18 at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nev., a U.S. Women’s Open qualifying event will determine 16 finalists who will compete in four separate four-player, tape-delayed televised bracket elimination rounds. The winner of each elimination round earns a spot in the live final bracket elimination event which will determine the tournament champion.

“This is a tremendous and overdue opportunity to both provide elite women bowlers with another major championship to compete in and to support USBC’s vision of growing the sport through greater visibility,” USBC Chief Executive Officer Roger Dalkin said. “Our commitment to creating and sponsoring televised bowling events will be key to achieving our vision.”

The four tape-delayed events and the live final will be aired in the weeks leading up to the start of the 2007-08 Denny’s Professional Bowlers Association Tour. The four preliminary taped bracket events will be telecast Sept. 16, 23, 30 and Oct. 7 and the live show will be telecast Oct. 14.

As part of its growing partnership with the PBA, players entering the U.S. Women’s Open will have the option of paying an additional entry fee to have their qualifying scores count toward the PBA Women’s Tour Trials.

The scores will determine the 16 exempt players for the new USBC-sponsored four-week PBA Women’s Tour, which will be held in conjunction with the regular Denny’s PBA Tour this fall. In addition, both the U.S. Women’s Open and the PBA Women’s Tour will be conducted on PBA Experience lane conditions.

Most recently, the U.S. Open Women’s Championships — which originally began as the Women’s All-Star tournament in 1949 — was sponsored by the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America and was a major event conducted on the Professional Women’s Bowling Association Tour until the organization ceased operations in 2003.

“I am thrilled by the news of a U.S. Women's Open,” said star bowler and USBC High School spokesperson Carolyn Dorin-Ballard. “I think it has been way too long of a wait to have a women's tournament besides the Queens. Hopefully, this will be a step in the right direction in getting women's bowling back on the map and give the high school and collegiate girls something to strive for.”