Great champion level players who said that they never did any drills?

[9ballscorpion]

I assume that most, if not all Pro pool players do drills, but I do not know.

I wonder if there have been many champion level players who either said that they never did any drills, or who were known to never do any drills.

I only know of 1 player who stated that he never did any drills, and I heard that he said that it was because it was a waste of strokes, or something like that, and his name is Keith McCready.

Do you believe that a player can increase their level of play, just by playing stronger players and tough competition, if they have enough talent and natural ability, or do you think that all players really need to do drills, in order to get better?

 

[philly]

Everybody is different.
Some like drills.
For some, drills just bore them to death which defeats the purpose of the drills.
Keith was probably one of those "natural feel players."
I mean look at his fundamentals.
Nothing textbook about Keith's fundamentals.
There are a lot of feel players out there that are "naturals" and just
go with the flow and just play.

Personally set drills bore me to death.
I play all of the games.
I'll pretty much play whatever game my opponent wants to play and I'm good with it.
I just like playing as long as it is on a 9 footer.
Just go with the flow.

 

[The_JV]

I've won a couple of local tournaments... Does that count...?

I definitively, without question, believe a player can increase their level of play without drills. Talent and natural ability aren't factors in that.

Can a weaker player gain proficiency at a particular style of shot by doing a drill that focuses on it...?..., of course.

In my humble opinion drills have diminishing returns.

 

[9ballscorpion]

I've won a couple of local tournaments... Does that count...?

I definitively, without question, believe a player can increase their level of play without drills. Talent and natural ability aren't factors in that.

Can a weaker player gain proficiency at a particular style of shot by doing a drill that focuses on it...?..., of course.

In my humble opinion drills have diminishing returns.

There was this guy who hung out out my home town pool room, back in the 90's, and for awhile, it did not seem like he took the game seriously, but he just liked to shoot for fun.

This guy had zero natural ability, and was just a banger.

Then he started getting really serious about playing, and started coming in every night, getting a table, and doing drills for like 6 hours a day.

I never personally knew a player who worked so hard on their game.

This guy went from like a level 2, to a pretty strong 7, with a super nice stroke in the end.

It took a lot of work though, but he seemed to love the game so much, and really wanted to become a better player.

All those 6 hour nights of doing drills, every day, really paid off for him.

 

[Buzzard II]

After this past year I wonder if there's any player at any level with home access to a table not doing drills of some sort.

 

[The_JV]

After this past year I wonder if there's any player at any level with home access to a table not doing drills of some sort.

Only repetitive thing I do on a pool table is rack the balls

 

[Texas Carom Club]

You guys were right
This is totally Justin with a different profile, again lol

 

[Jimmorrison]

Only repetitive thing I do on a pool table is rack the balls

Your vids look pretty repetitive. One ball after another, in the hole. Different kind of drill.

 

[garczar]

I assume that most, if not all Pro pool players do drills, but I do not know.

I wonder if there have been many champion level players who either said that they never did any drills, or who were known to never do any drills.

I only know of 1 player who stated that he never did any drills, and I heard that he said that it was because it was a waste of strokes, or something like that, and his name is Keith McCready.

Do you believe that a player can increase their level of play, just by playing stronger players and tough competition, if they have enough talent and natural ability, or do you think that all players really need to do drills, in order to get better?

I've known a bunch of great players that never did a drill in their life. Hell, a few would have been hard-pressed to spell 'drill'.

 

[Cameron Smith]

There are plenty. But among the world's elite, there are fewer and fewer that don't have some structured approach to practice since many of the players in Europe and Asia get coaching.

 

[sixpack]

I read Mizerak's book when I was starting out. He said when you are just starting out you need to do tons and tons of drills to build skill but as you get better you need to compete more and more. Eventually, when you get to be a top player, you need competition almost exclusively with drills to work on things that might come up.

I think that viewpoint is a little bit dated. The best players in the world now do drills a lot and practice a lot more than he would have suggested.

 

[alstl]

I saw SVB in an interview say he doesn't do drills.

 

[sjm]

I saw SVB in an interview say he doesn't do drills.

Playing the ghost is, in my opinion, a drill. He does that.

 

[gerryf]

I saw SVB warming up for a match. He did a few different shots, then missed one. He missed it again. Then he set it up and played it over and over again around a dozen times. That sounds like a drill.

 

[couldnthinkof01]

I saw SVB warming up for a match. He did a few different shots, then missed one. He missed it again. Then he set it up and played it over and over again around a dozen times. That sounds like a drill.

I've seen him do that also. And then rack and break for 3 hrs, have dinner, then another 3 hrs of racking and breaking. This was a day before a small regional tournament. He may not call that drills, but that's what it looked like to me.

 

[mikemosconi]

My own opinion on this is from my own experience, but I have completely bought into the concepts in Mark Wilson's "Play Great Pool" book- The greatest emphasis in practicing should be on proper alignment to each shot, the straightness of the stroke itself, the proper delivery of the stroke, and stroke completion. To this end, to me, the self video and constant review of your videos and striving to get all about the stroke correct is number one in my book - whatever one chooses to play solo when video taping is their choice - it can be drills, the Ghost, or your game of preference or any combination.

I have learned so much about my own game now that I have the time to use the video, review it, and refer to the best teachings out there to make solid improvements.

I also believe strongly that solid solo practice, combined with stiff competition on a regular basis brings the best results.

 

[The_JV]

Playing the ghost is, in my opinion, a drill. He does that.

I don't know... that seems a bit of a stretch. By this argument you could say any break&run in a competitive match is a drill. Regardless of difficulty....

If 'I' had to define a drill. I would say any repeditive activity that involved predetermined ball locations.

Breaking = drill
Dealing with a random scattering of balls after a break, (ghost or not) = not drill.

 

[MTfish]

Gets to be a matter of semantics. I think of playing the ghost as more of a practice routine than a drill, but could easily see where others would see those two things as the same.

 

[sjm]

I don't know... that seems a bit of a stretch. By this argument you could say any break&run in a competitive match is a drill. Regardless of difficulty....

If 'I' had to define a drill. I would say any repeditive activity that involved predetermined ball locations.

Breaking = drill
Dealing with a random scattering of balls after a break, (ghost or not) = not drill.

Yeah, it's a fine line. The exercise, shown to me by Tony Robles, in which you shoot random shots but always try to leave the cue ball inside a circle in the center was introduced to me as the "circle drill" but it doesn't qualify as a drill by your definition because the positions are not predetermined.

I see a drill as any developmental procedure that is repeatable and that deviates from a regular game but that develops specific skills. The ghost, which does not require pocketing a ball on the break, offers ball in hand every rack, and eliminates defense, kicking and two way shots from the equation, seems to qualify for me.

... of course, it's a matter of opinion.

 

[CaleAYS]

Sky Woodward said on a podcast recently he’s never done drills. Never had the patience for it or something like that. Said he plays the 12b ghost a lot.