The PWBA was formed in 1960 by a group of professional women bowlers. After the organization struggled, some of the players left the PWBA in 1974 to form the
Ladies' Professional Bowlers Association (LPBA). The two merged again in 1978, forming the
Women's Professional Bowlers Association (WPBA). When the WPBA dissolved in 1981, bowling center proprietor
John Sommer of Rockford, Illinois, started the
Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour (LPBT), a private company, to continue the women's tour. The LPBT adopted the PWBA name and a new logo in 1998. In the fall of 2003, the PWBA Tour ceased operations before the completion of its 2003 season, primarily due to dwindling interest in sponsoring women's bowling. The
Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) then acquired the rights and assets of the PWBA. This gave the WIBC control of the PWBA name, trademark, logo, website domain (pwba.com), as well as the PWBA's historical records. The
United States Bowling Congress (USBC) acquired the PWBA when the WIBC merged with the
American Bowling Congress (ABC),
Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA) and
USA Bowling in 2005. Without a PWBA Tour, women either retired from professional bowling, competed in the remaining women-only tournaments in the United States, or moved on to other bowling tournaments outside of the United States.
Wendy Macpherson started competing in the
Japan Professional Bowling Association (JPBA) in 2004, going on to earn ten JPBA titles. In 2007, the
Japan Bowling Congress (JBC) started the
DHC Cup Girls Bowling International - at the time the third largest women's tournament in the world in prize money, just behind the
U.S. Women's Open (bowling) and the
USBC Queens. Some women chose to bowl in professional men's tournaments. The
Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) opened its membership to women in April 2004. PWBA members such as
Kim Adler,
Carolyn Dorin-Ballard,
Liz Johnson, and
Kelly Kulick became members of the PBA, with Kulick becoming the first female to earn an exemption on the PBA Tour (
2005–06 season). Women have had limited success in PBA events.
Missy Parkin was the first female PBA member and now holds three PBA Regional Titles. Johnson was the first woman to make a televised appearance on the PBA Tour, at the
2005 PBA Banquet Open, and the first to defeat a male bowler in a PBA Tour event when she beat
Wes Malott in the semifinal match. She would lose to
Tommy Jones in the championship final to finish runner-up. Kulick became the first woman to win a national PBA tournament major with her defeat of
Chris Barnes in the
2010 Tournament of Champions. Johnson became the second woman to win a national PBA tournament with her defeat of
Anthony Pepe in the
PBA Chameleon Championship at the 2017 World Series of Bowling. The USBC sponsored the
PBA Women's Series starting with the 2007–08 season, allowing women PBA members to compete in a small number of events without their male counterparts. The final head-to-head match for that week's women's tournament would air in the same telecast as the PBA men's final round. The PBA Women's Series was discontinued after the 2009–10 season. The PBA created the PBA Women's Regional Tour program in 2014, in which women bowl with and against their male counterparts, but there are specific prizes and benefits for women only. ==In the media before 2015==