Hunter’s Green resident and local dentist Jim Bowles won a Big 8 doubles championship while playing for the University of Oklahoma (in Norman) in 1972, but 45 years later, he says it is his latest tennis quest that gives him the most pleasure.
One of Hunter’s Green Country Club’s best players, Bowles, 64, recently teamed up with his 28-year-old son Clint to finish second at the USTA National Father-Son clay court championships at The Landings Racquet Club in Sarasota.
For Jim and Clint, it was another tantalizingly close finish in their fifth attempt to win a Golden Ball together.
In 2012, their first year playing in national championship tournaments together, the duo finished second and won a Silver Ball. That was followed by consecutive consolation round wins and a Bronze Ball in 2015 after a third-place finish.
On Nov. 20, Jim and Clint made the final again before falling to Jerry and Brett Morse-Karzen of Wilmette, IL by a 6-4, 7-6 score. Jim says he and Clint didn’t convert on a couple of crucial break points in the second set, dooming their upset bid.
“Clint said, ‘Dad, we’re going to win one one of these days,’” Jim said, chuckling. “I said, ‘Well, let’s hurry up. The sun is setting.’”
It won’t be easy. The Morse-Karzens are the all-time leaders in USTA National Father-Son championships, have beaten the Bowles duo all four times they have met, and their win was their fourth straight national title on clay.
Oh, and there’s this: Jerry Morse-Karzen is 6 feet, 5 inches tall, and his son Brett is 6’10”.
Meanwhile, both Jim and Clint are around 5’9”.
“We call them the twin towers,’’ Jim said of the Morse-Karzen duo. “The son can just stand at the end and stretch out his arms and cover the whole court. It’s tough when you’re giving away that much height.”
But, the Bowles duo will keep on trying. It’s in the family’s blood — Jim’s wife Joy is also an accomplished tennis player, and younger son Spencer was a baseball standout at Wiregrass Ranch High before playing at Saint Leo University near Dade City.
Jim grew up in Shawnee, OK, playing football, baseball and basketball. A knee injury in junior high put him on the sidelines for awhile, and one of his substitute teachers talked him into giving tennis a try.
“He was like the pied piper of tennis,’’ Jim recalled. “He was the type of guy who stayed after you. If you didn’t show up for a while, he would call and ask you where you’ve been and tell you he had a kid there he thought could beat you.”
Jim says he never looked back after taking up tennis. While earning a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Oklahoma, he also played on the Sooners’ tennis team, where his serve-and-volley style helped win a Big 8 (now Big 12) championship in doubles.
When Clint was born, Jim started him on tennis almost immediately. However, because they were living in Wyoming at the time, the tennis competition was subpar, and Clint gravitated to his other favorite sport, hockey.
It wasn’t until the Bowles family moved to Hunter’s Green 21 years ago that Clint’s tennis talent fully emerged.
After spending some time at the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy, Clint ended up training under renowned coach Nick Saviano, a former Stanford University All-American who has coached Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) stars Sloane Stephens and Eugenie Bouchard and other top players.
Within four months of training with Saviano, Clint, a lefty with what Jim proudly calls “world-class baseline strokes,” captured his first Gold Ball, winning the national clay court title in the 14-year-old division in 2003.
In 2005, Clint was 16 years old when he captured his second Gold Ball, winning the 18s on the hard courts. In 2007, he won another national clay court title in the 18s before attending Florida State University in Tallahassee.
As a Seminole, Clint was named to the All-Atlantic Coast Conference team twice while finishing third on FSU’s all-time singles wins list with 92.
With Jim — who also earned his D.D.S. degree from the University of Oklahoma Dental School — working as a dentist at Family, Implant & Cosmetic Dentistry in The Walk at Highwoods Preserve, and Clint teaching at Saviano High Performance Tennis in Fort Lauderdale, tennis time together is sparse.
The times they get to play together at nationals, Jim says, are special.
“It’s a chance to spend some quality time with him and re-connect,’’ Jim says. “We have a great time. We laugh on the court…we’ll look at each other funny if one of us hits a weird shot. I really enjoy it.”
Jim pauses for a second, and then smiles, adding, “Then again, when you win something, it’s even more fun.”
“We really, really look forward to it every year,’’ Clint says. “We get to play in a super national tournament against the best in our age group, it’s really close to home and it’s my birthday week. That makes it a great trip.”
Having won three Silver Balls together, Jim says that Clint is working hard at getting him his first gold one.
“Quite honestly, in the middle years (at the USTA Nationals where the tandem won the consolation bracket and finished third) Clint wasn’t really playing that much and wasn’t all that fired up to play,’’ Jim says. “But this year, he was highly motivated. He practiced, he’d call me and ask, “Hey dad, how are you doing? You practicing? How’s your serve?’”
Jim admits that his best chance to win a Gold Ball probably was the first year he and Clint competed together. They lost 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. They also finished second that year at the hard court finals in California.
After this year’s narrow loss in the final, Clint texted his dad and promised he’d get him a championship.
“The father-son doubles, it just creates a special bond between the father and son,’’ Clint says. “It’s really fun to go out and play with him. It makes it that much more enjoyable to play for him, try to win it (with) him.”
He adds, “I promised him we’re going to win at least one Gold Ball. Now I have to live up to that promise and follow through on it.”
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