They've studied putting strokes and came to exact same conclusion: really good putters 'coast' the clubhead into the ball. The full swing is much the same also, max accel occurs waay before the ball is ever struck.
The catch to not trying to accelerate through the cue ball, which I know is impossible with a typical cue, is that the arm has many muscles, not just the major ones we usually consider. If the arm relaxes the muscles will not relax evenly and nobody has perfectly balanced arm musculature anyway. They are all working together nicely while we are trying to accelerate or maintain speed. The moment we let muscles in the arm start to relax we entire the realm of unintended consequences.
Scott Lee was passing through. Never took a lesson but we played around on tables a handful of times and I fed him a meal or three. I forget why, I was shooting a table length very thin cut shot on a nine foot Diamond. I deliberately extended my stroke all the way to the joint when I drilled the shot first try. Scott asked me what that huge follow through did for me. I told him not a thing. It wasn't what it did, it was what it made sure didn't happen. The shot didn't need but maybe ten inches of stroke before hitting the cue ball and an inch after initial contact. Anybody want to attempt it with eleven inches total of cue travel, ten and one as described, I'll bet twenty a try. A nice robot could do it all day long, a human can't. That is the reason for a good transition, a smooth acceleration, and a gentle follow through. This protects us from our human weaknesses.
Hu
