Cara Honeychurch

Cara Honeychurch of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia is a female world champion tenpin bowler. She won the AMF Bowling World Cup in 1996 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and voted Bowler of the Year by the World Bowling Writers the same year. She was inducted to the World Bowling Writers' International Hall of Fame in 1998.

For 35 years, she was a champion in the sport of tenpin bowling in Australia, from representing Australia as an athlete beginning in 1989, and the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tenpin Bowling Australia (TBA) for a decade, until 2020.

Honeychurch competed on the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour from 1999 to 2003, winning 8 titles. She rolled one of the five televised 300 games in PWBA Tour history, on 7 October 1999. In 2026, she was voted into the PWBA Hall of Fame, Performance category.

Career

Amateur Honeychurch is a left-handed bowler who was known and she went on to become one of the most successful Australian bowlers in history.

Honeychurch has a long list of domestic successes, including three Australian Masters championships, the NSW Open, three VIC150 victories, and five Adelaide Women's Cup winners. Her accomplishments in open events, when she competed against some of the country's best male competitors, stand out. She won her first of three open titles in 1997, the South Australian Cup. World Youth, and World Championships, she won 23 medals: eleven gold medals, nine silver medals, and three bronze medals. In the 1997 World Games she won the silver medal in Mixed Doubles with Andrew Frawley. She won three gold medals at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, in the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles events.

Honeychurch was named Asian Bowler of the Year in 1994 and 1995 and World Bowling Writers Bowler of the Year in 1996 and 1998

Bowling at the Summer Olympics Bowling made appearances at the Olympics in 1988 and 1996, but not as part of the official sports events. It was added as a demonstration sport by the IOC to show off the sport to the rest of the world and to be considered for inclusion in future Games. The Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) Atlanta Bowling Challenge was held on Georgia Institute of Technology's student union lanes during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. Cara Honeychurch took the title in this competition.

Professional She turned professional before the 1999 World Championships and moved to the United States, where the sport is shown on national television. On the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) Tour, Honeychurch made an outstanding debut. In her debut year as a professional, she dominated the season averages and finished second on the money earning rankings. She made two appearances on television right away, one for a title, one for a broadcast 300 game, the second in the Tour's history. She rolled another 300-game in qualifying the following week. She added four titles in 2001, and the final of her eight wins in 2002. After holding only eight events in 2003, the PWBA Tour went on what would be an 11-year hiatus. Honeychurch chose not to return to the Tour when it restarted in 2015.

She won the United States Bowling Congress Women's Challenge in October 2006, defeating Clara Guerrero, the 2005 World Ranking Masters winner, in the final.

Recognition In 2022, she was inducted into Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

In January 2026, she was voted into the PWBA Hall of Fame, Performance category, and was officially inducted on May 14.