A letter from Phillip & Amy
Why we built North of the Cut, in our own words.
Welcome to North of the Cut. We are Phillip and Amy Barry from Decatur, IL. We have been directing bowling tournaments since January 2017.
Our tournament series has included Friday Night Tourneys (FNTs), Central Illinois Bowler's Tour (CIBT), and now Really Good Tournaments (RGTs). We enjoy the sport of bowling, and we wanted to give back to the area bowlers. What better way than giving them something to compete in.
When we hosted our first FNT, I felt that bowlers wanted to bowl on Friday evenings, though the leagues on Friday nights went away at Pla Mor Lanes. Our first event had a roster of 63 bowlers. The second event had a roster of 72 bowlers. Just like that we knew that area bowlers wanted to bowl.
Our tournaments have been sponsored by Storm Products Inc. (SPI) for several years now. We can't thank our sponsors enough.
After the completion of our tournaments for the 2025-26 season, we thought about how we could improve our tournament directing process. The biggest thing we needed to revamp was the registration process. This is why North of the Cut was created.
The thing that occupied most of our time preparing for an event was taking registrations. We were getting comments across multiple Facebook posts, people asking us to add them to the roster (in person), and others were calling or sending text messages through our phones. We were constantly updating the roster, re-posting on Facebook, and the cycle would continue until the day before the event.
Thus, during the summer of 2026, we began working on a website that will allow bowlers to register for events and allow tournament directors to create events that bowlers can register for. All the while it will generate a registration list that we do not have to maintain offline. This registration list can then be exported the day before the event.
We hope bowlers and/or tournament directors from around the US can use this website for their events. The first version of the site going live is suited for registration. We are working towards the site, being functional for scoring events as well.
Enjoy the site, and we hope if you are bowling in an event, that you finish North of the Cut!