Can't imagine how I overlooked the vote on this one.No doubt I am in this thread earlier but with 800 posts in it I'm too lazy to dig. I came very close to mastering cue ball control when I was a 60+ hour a week player for years. One thing I learned was aiming anywhere along the shot line. I might be looking at the cue ball, the object ball, the line anywhere from the contact point on the cue ball to the contact point on the object ball, Edit: That isn't really quite right, anywhere along the shot line is what I am trying to say duplicating the next section, the path the cue ball will take, or anywhere along an extended line beyond the object ball contact point.
I found it hard to have a nice freeflowing stroke when the object ball was fairly close to the cue ball, I'll use ten inches as an example. If a choppy stroke worked for the shot then looking at the cue ball or object ball was fine. However, if I needed the cue ball to travel a long ways I found extending the shot line out behind the object ball and picking a spot along this line to shoot at made it easier to let my stroke out despite the fact that neither ball would ever cross my aim point.
One of a few "slights" used long ago to make play easier. Now playing little I have reverted back to my original P&H style on all shots.(Poke and Hope!)
Hu

I see a lot that I resemble in that remark.