Curious observation about oldtimer's strokes

[His Boy Elroy]

There's another thread on the front page called, " Who's the best all - around player of all time." In post # 10 there's a link to an interesting article about Harold Worst. So after reading it I went over to YOU TUBE to see if I could catch a glimpse of his game.

That's all I could catch...a very small glimpse of extremely grainy footage. I did, however get longer views of Greenleaf, Lassiter, and Boston shorty. I observed something I'm curious about. None of the three were upright, ala' Keith McCready. At the same time, none of them had their chins anywhere near the shaft.

Also; all three had their arms, from the elbow to the shoulder, parallel to the floor (Flat) or close to parallel......That's how I do it. It works for me. I find having my chin way down and my elbow way up higher than my shoulder very awkward.....Seems to work for 99% of modern pro's though....I just found it curious.

 

[skip100]

http://billiards.colostate.edu/threads/stance.html

Dr Dave's site has a short discussion of this but doesn't really answer your question.

A more upright stance does have its advantages.
- Obviously a more upright stance is more comfortable than bending down all the way down to the cue. For some people it might be physically impossible to shoot with their chin touching the cue.
- A low stance can also help you aim and sight a shot, but at the expense of reduced peripheral vision of the rest of the table. A more upright stance lets you get a better vision of the table - there's a reason pool broadcasters use high cameras.

My guess is that with larger pockets and more straight pool being played, there was less need for snooker-style precision aiming/shooting and more importance placed on table awareness and precision position play. In 9-ball with small pockets, you have relatively larger position zones and smaller aiming targets.