GOLFTEC style billiards training - who will do it

Cleveland_Rocks

Cleveland_Rocks

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I'm currently training with GOLFTEC for my golf game. They have a standard curriculum for what makes a good golf swing.

www.golftec.com

Golf Lessons & Club Fitting Near Me | GOLFTEC - Book Game Evaluation for $99 ⛳ |

Better golf starts with data. GOLFTEC's OPTIMOTION 3D swing analysis, 4,000+ data points, certified coaches, 250+ locations. Expert lessons & club fitting from $95. 🏌️‍♀️
www.golftec.com www.golftec.com

The lessons at GOLFTEC use video equipment and monitors. The teacher can then show me in real time my hand position in relation to the ball, and he can draw the angles of my arms and the arc of my swing on screen while describing things to me about how my golf swing could be improved. The lessons are recorded and I can access them, with the monitor based assessments that are the videos of my swing and the teacher's lessons from my videos, including his drawings of angles, arc, hand position, grip, etc, on an app.

Given that good pool is to a good degree based on alignment and consistent, high quality mechanics, it would seem to me that there should be at least one place in the United States with a similar setup for billiards. So players could visit for a weekend or otherwise 2-5 days or so and get real feedback on their mechanics, and thus improve their game.

Has anyone done something like this yet? If not, who will be the first to step up?

The pool stroke is a lot simpler than a golf swing.
 
Both have one thing in common, learn to hit thru the ball straight. Putter included. If I ever take a golf lesson all I want be able to do is hit it Straight down the middle.
 
Island Drive said:
Both have one thing in common, learn to hit thru the ball straight. Putter included. If I ever take a golf lesson all I want be able to do is hit it Straight down the middle.
Click to expand...
in truth, VERY few good players hit straight full shots. they curve it one way or another on to the target. putting sure but not full shots.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Couldn't hurt...

pj
chgo
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm not so sure.

Players have innumerable idiosyncrasies and what looks bad on one end can produce a good result at the final stroke.

As a wise player once said: every man must find his own salvation. And what counts, other than picture perfect form, is whether de ball goes into de pocket and de CB does what you expect.

Not much else matters.

Lou Figueroa
 
I had a putter fitting at golftec but haven’t tried their lessons. I have a question and I guess concern about their teaching. And not having done it I can’t say for sure how they teach it. I also haven’t hit a ball this year and might not take another lesson if my golf ends up being just golf with my wife who is a beginner and some rounds with old guys. But hope springs eternal and maybe I decide to try to improve in my advanced years. Anyway…. The series of positions strikes me as a difficult teaching philosophy especially for adults and older people. Yes, tour players get so much rotation of shoulders vs hips, degrees of lag etc…. But can the student achieve those positions with their given mobility/ flexibility and if they can, will they learn the swing by hitting those positions at different points in the movement. This is an old debate in a way, Ernest Jones with the swing the club head idea spoke of it in the ‘20’s. He didn’t think you could dissect a cat and have a live cat at the end was his analogy IIRC. Likewise a golf swing couldn’t be reduced to positions. Other instructors agreed with him. We also see new philosophies of teaching athletic movements incorporating simple visual imagery to convey the technique as opposed to breaking down positions during an uninterrupted athletic motion. So will their system translate into actual improvement of your motion. It might. Depends on various things. But let us know.
 
I wonder with all the millionaires playing golf, especially in retirement with nothing else to do each day... I assume more of them get lessons than pool players do. Do they ever jump speeds? I've personally never seen it in pool in 30 years around the game. Does it happen in golf?
 
iusedtoberich said:
I wonder with all the millionaires playing golf, especially in retirement with nothing else to do each day... I assume more of them get lessons than pool players do. Do they ever jump speeds? I've personally never seen it in pool in 30 years around the game. Does it happen in golf?
Click to expand...
I think you can improve. Depends what you mean by jumping speeds. 10 hcp to scratch as a senior pretty unlikely. 10 to 5 maybe. 18 to 10 doable.
 
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lfigueroa said:
Actually, I'm not so sure.

Players have innumerable idiosyncrasies and what looks bad on one end can produce a good result at the final stroke.

As a wise player once said: every man must find his own salvation. And what counts, other than picture perfect form, is whether de ball goes into de pocket and de CB does what you expect.

Not much else matters.

Lou Figueroa
Click to expand...
Hi Lou,

I respect your opinion about this, but I need to disagree. In the long term, proper mechanics that minimize friction and effort will outdo bad mechanics. Yes, there are tricks that players can do to compensate for the fact that they always aim slightly left of the impact point, etc., but those tricks take extra effort and therefore fail more often in the long term. All else equal, the player with better mechanics is the better player.

One cannot fight the laws of nature.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I wonder with all the millionaires playing golf, especially in retirement with nothing else to do each day... I assume more of them get lessons than pool players do. Do they ever jump speeds? I've personally never seen it in pool in 30 years around the game. Does it happen in golf?
Click to expand...
Yes, it happens in golf, even in the adult age group. I'm primarily a pool player though.
 
My son started golf late in life. As some may know, I had a industrial accident in 2009 that ended my golfing, tennis, ping pong and altered my ability to play pool. But I still play pool and hoped my son and daughters would have become
devotees of the game which was one of my reasons for building a small collection. Alas, none of them seems to have
much interest in pool recreationally. Since my son wants to become really good at golf, I just set him up with the best
custom fitting and top name brands in golf clubs 2 months ago. The transition is shocking. His instructors are in awe.

The compliments he gets on how he instantly adjusts to coaching in minutes and the distance he is able to gets from
his clubs is shocking. His driver speed is 116 mph and boy, with the woods and irons he has, the course is now shorter.

Unlike pool, when it comes to golf, equipment does make a difference and when supported with good coaching, the
results can be immediately realized. He was previously playing with my Ping golf clubs that was a misfit because of.
his swing speed. He played for months with those clubs and struggled. Now he is becoming a very talented golfer
almost overnight. If I shared his launch monitor info on how he’s hits his irons and woods, it is almost breath taking.

I wonder if pool cues are like golf equipment? Earlier I wrote that my son struggled playing good golf using my old Pings.
But my highest swing speed was 92 mph and mostly 88-90. His is 116-118” mph. Could someone be playing with a cue they were gifted or inherited but maybe it’s too light or heavy but how could they ever know or be sure?

How does a pool player get fitted for a pool cue? There probably is no such thing. But I found that switching from a 20.3 oz. piloted steel joint Runde Schon to a 18.5 oz. Tim Scruggs flat ivory joint to be like an ephipany. My game immediately became better and my stroke became so more consistent in speed control and delivery.

The Schon cue had too much weight momentum so I had to slow my stroke on soft, severe cut shots whereas with the Scruggs I could stroke easily with follow through & below center. It just became an extension of my arm & feels solid.

I think that is what happened with my son. It just so happens the price of new golf clubs among the top brand names are in the same price vicinity. Pool cues offer a much larger offering and a variety of lower prices than golf clubs. As I posed earlier, where do you go to get fitted for a custom pool cue? I already know where to go for golf equipment.
 
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Cleveland_Rocks said:
I'm currently training with GOLFTEC for my golf game. They have a standard curriculum for what makes a good golf swing.

www.golftec.com

Golf Lessons & Club Fitting Near Me | GOLFTEC - Book Game Evaluation for $99 ⛳ |

Better golf starts with data. GOLFTEC's OPTIMOTION 3D swing analysis, 4,000+ data points, certified coaches, 250+ locations. Expert lessons & club fitting from $95. 🏌️‍♀️
www.golftec.com www.golftec.com

The lessons at GOLFTEC use video equipment and monitors. The teacher can then show me in real time my hand position in relation to the ball, and he can draw the angles of my arms and the arc of my swing on screen while describing things to me about how my golf swing could be improved. The lessons are recorded and I can access them, with the monitor based assessments that are the videos of my swing and the teacher's lessons from my videos, including his drawings of angles, arc, hand position, grip, etc, on an app.

Given that good pool is to a good degree based on alignment and consistent, high quality mechanics, it would seem to me that there should be at least one place in the United States with a similar setup for billiards. So players could visit for a weekend or otherwise 2-5 days or so and get real feedback on their mechanics, and thus improve their game.

Has anyone done something like this yet? If not, who will be the first to step up?

The pool stroke is a lot simpler than a golf swing.
Click to expand...
Check out Mark Wilson.
 
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Cleveland_Rocks said:
Hi Lou,

I respect your opinion about this, but I need to disagree. In the long term, proper mechanics that minimize friction and effort will outdo bad mechanics. Yes, there are tricks that players can do to compensate for the fact that they always aim slightly left of the impact point, etc., but those tricks take extra effort and therefore fail more often in the long term. All else equal, the player with better mechanics is the better player.

One cannot fight the laws of nature.
Click to expand...

Well, I think one also needs to take into account how much will and time any particular player is going to invest in rewiring his mechanics.

Most guys are once a week, or a few times a week league players. I don't think taking their stance, arm, head position, and movement apart is the right approach. Those guys need a few insights that will lend them immediate improvement without condemning them to a Sisyphean task. There is also the issue that not everyone's body and eyesight are the same.

Anywhos, I have witnessed instructors -- who believe in some idealized set of mechanics -- attempt to twist and jerry-rig a player into their vision of perfection. But as one sage, wizened pool hall aficionado said after observing said instructor in action, "He's trying to sell them a size ten shoe. Not everyone wears a size ten shoe."

Lou Figueroa
 
Last edited:
Bavafongoul said:
My son started golf late in life. As some may know, I had a industrial accident in 2009 that ended my golfing, tennis, ping pong and altered my ability to play pool. But I still play pool and hoped my son and daughters would have become
devotees of the game which was one of my reasons for building a small collection. Alas, none of them seems to have
much interest in pool recreationally. Since my son wants to become really good at golf, I just set him up with the best
custom fitting and top name brands in golf clubs 2 months ago. The transition is shocking. His instructors are in awe.

The compliments he gets on how he instantly adjusts to coaching in minutes and the distance he is able to gets from
his clubs is shocking. His driver speed is 116 mph and boy, with the woods and irons he has, the course is now shorter.

Unlike pool, when it comes to golf, equipment does make a difference and when supported with good coaching, the
results can be immediately realized. He was previously playing with my Ping golf clubs that was a misfit because of.
his swing speed. He played for months with those clubs and struggled. Now he is becoming a very talented golfer
almost overnight. If I shared his launch monitor info on how he’s hits his irons and woods, it is almost breath taking.

I wonder if pool cues are like golf equipment? Earlier I wrote that my son struggled playing good golf using my old Pings.
But my highest swing speed was 92 mph and mostly 88-90. His is 116-118” mph. Could someone be playing with a cue they were gifted or inherited but maybe it’s too light or heavy but how could they ever know or be sure?

How does a pool player get fitted for a pool cue? There probably is no such thing. But I found that switching from a 20.3 oz. piloted steel joint Runde Schon to a 18.5 oz. Tim Scruggs flat ivory joint to be like an ephipany. My game immediately became better and my stroke became so more consistent in speed control and delivery.

The Schon cue had too much weight momentum so I had to slow my stroke on soft, severe cut shots whereas with the Scruggs I could stroke easily with follow through & below center. It just became an extension of my arm & feels solid.

I think that is what happened with my son. It just so happens the price of new golf clubs among the top brand names are in the same price vicinity. Pool cues offer a much larger offering and a variety of lower prices than golf clubs. As I posed earlier, where do you go to get fitted for a custom pool cue? I already know where to go for golf equipment.
Click to expand...
Sounds like your son had a good instructor.
I don't think in the pool world in the US, there are many that are nearly as good as the top PGA instructors.
What's interesting about most games with round objects, some players had No instruction and became the best in the world.
Did Efren, Mosconi, Knoxville bear have teachers.... maybe but likely not.
 
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