As politically incorrect as it may be, there is much truth to Billy's statements.
Among my experiences, I have met many women that, while being decent players, could not physically move the cue fast enough to pull of a decent break or even a long draw shot. There are VERY few men that lack the strength.
The men who can't pull off hard breaks and long draw usually have problems in the areas of timing and stroking straight rather than being physically unable. Timing and stroking straight can be fixed through practice. Many women would have to add weight lifting to their practice regiment to reach the strength of you average guy.
This lack of strength may not seem like much because long draw doesn't come up extremely often and pool is considered a "finesse" game, but being able to pull off the tough shots generally makes it much easier to make the easy shots as well. This may be a small advantage for any given shot, but over the long run small advantages like this build up to huge advantages over long sets.
There are women who do have the strength to pull off decent breaks and long draw, but the percentage is much lower than the men. That fact alone would significantly decrease the amount of women that have the potential to make it to the top ranks.
Add in to that the fact that there are probably 1/50 the amount of competitive women vs men, and you basically shrink the talent pool to a number so small that it is very unlikely that a top pro will come out of it.
Among my experiences, I have met many women that, while being decent players, could not physically move the cue fast enough to pull of a decent break or even a long draw shot. There are VERY few men that lack the strength.
The men who can't pull off hard breaks and long draw usually have problems in the areas of timing and stroking straight rather than being physically unable. Timing and stroking straight can be fixed through practice. Many women would have to add weight lifting to their practice regiment to reach the strength of you average guy.
This lack of strength may not seem like much because long draw doesn't come up extremely often and pool is considered a "finesse" game, but being able to pull off the tough shots generally makes it much easier to make the easy shots as well. This may be a small advantage for any given shot, but over the long run small advantages like this build up to huge advantages over long sets.
There are women who do have the strength to pull off decent breaks and long draw, but the percentage is much lower than the men. That fact alone would significantly decrease the amount of women that have the potential to make it to the top ranks.
Add in to that the fact that there are probably 1/50 the amount of competitive women vs men, and you basically shrink the talent pool to a number so small that it is very unlikely that a top pro will come out of it.
