McCready had a ''hitch'' in his style didn't he?
Cornbread Red had sumptin goin' on too
Cornbread Red had sumptin goin' on too
Billy Thorpe
- Thread starter Island Drive
- Start date
Do you think he needs his accessories to maintain his stroke or is it that his accessories make him comfortable and give him confidence for whatever reason?? I am guessing that it is the later.
Yea I don’t quite understand the bunting reference either. Most of the great players today exhibit a pool stroke that looks extremely smooth and well timed with a longer draw back and very very complete and even speed all the way through the cue ball with tip going to the cloth.
Tight pockets and fast tables really require this stroke technique both for accuracy and to create enough backspin on the cue ball to slow it down when needed off the very fast cushions in place today.
I think that , in the “old” days of 5 inch short shelf pockets, slower cloth and cushions- AKA the Brunswick GC series— one could “get away” with stroke mechanics far less demanding in consistent execution than what is needed today to be a top 100 player.
I am not saying that old time greats would not be great today - I think they would adopt to this modern style - but a lot of strokes that were sloppy in years past just could not cut mustard against today’s pro players on this equipment.
No top player today strays as far from textbook as Billy. Lots of stromg players who can't come close to being pro do stray quite far. Even more bangers do. Draw your own conclusions.You know, there are a LOT of elite players both past and present that have things in their form that aren’t textbook, the list is quite long. It’s like Jeremy Jones told me once, if you’re playing 6,8,10 hours a day, you can make almost anything work.
I don’t think that you are missing anything either. Buddy was one of the “prior generation” of players who had the stroke fundamentals that would have translated very effortlessly into this modern pool playing equipment world.
I think all the past greats could play great today.
The real issue is for the the amateur old timer who never had the internet etc. in their earlier years of play and developed strokes that just do not translate well to pro quality table specs of today - it is a struggle for us to remake ourselves at this point in our lives - so fast fast tables and pro type pocket configurations are much more challenging than some care to deal with - that’s all.
There are times that some people play "firm" on fast tables in order to control the cue ball with a punch stroke and speed rather than a normal stroke.
This allows you to keep a constant stroke speed instead of bunting.
I had rather use speed and a "dead" cue ball to move around the table rather than a rolling cue ball and having to constantly rely on different stroke speeds and varying amounts of spin.
They were not 5" pockets in the tournies back then. Al Conte set them up with 4.5" pockets and his tables played great.
SVB seems to use that punch stroke with a desired speed quite often over using a lot of spin stroking
So, some of Al's tourneys weren't at 5in that you know of?
Wasn't the standard pocket size at the time, 5in though?
Asked and answered!
Thanks for the reply?
Sidearm stroke. Of course Keith was unique, many different stances and bridges in his arsenal. And he kept coming up with new ones!McCready had a ''hitch'' in his style didn't he?
Cornbread Red had sumptin goin' on too
I was playing on 760 simonis in the late 80s I believe, fast tables have been around forever, not as prevalent but around
That's about when 760 showed up in Tulsa, '87-'88ish.
As another pointed out in this thread, 3 out the last 4 WNT Majors winners have issues with form, SVB, Grabe, FSR. I can point out a ton of them.
You think Billy’s problems are form, I think it’s things off the table and away from the game that have held him back.
I was not talking about the cloth as much as the cushions on tables like Diamond and Rasson as examples- nobody can tell me that the older GC cushions were as fast as the two I just mentioned - these tables are much faster off the rail than the older tournament GCs
The majority of players' problems are "mental" once you reach a certain stage.
All this BS about "xxx doesn't have a perfect stroke, etc." is hype.
If a person makes a thousand shots with a "bad stroke" and then misses one, it can't be attributed to his form.
For some people "unnatural" is "natural".
Yeah, I remember playing on Simonis on GCs in the ‘80’s and don’t remember them being as fast as Diamonds. I did play on one GC this millennium that was the bounciest table I have experienced. That was shortly before Hank’s at 38th and Sheridan in Denver closed. I don’t remember a table in that room playing like that in the ‘80’s, but that wasn’t my main place. I am sure that was new rubber and not stock old GC cushions..