Has anyone ever heard of a older Pool Player named Horace Howard or have any stories

The King

The King

Here's Jimbo....
Silver Member
A friend and I were up at The Hole Thang today playing ... They had thier monthly tournament there today 1000.00 added. We have been going up there for a few months now and have meet some good and interesting players there . Scotty Townsend and his son ... A Paul Turner (???) Not sure on his last name I was told he was a World Champion 9 Ball player (Barbox) A Larry Price (Very Stong player) A Doug Young along with several other top notch players ... I'm kind of surprised at the talent that goes into this place.

A older gentleman had caught my attention I had never talked to him till tonight . Though he had always caught my attention as I would see him shuffle in and out of The Hole Thang. Always well dressed and studying the players and tables. When I would see him shoot he always shot extemely well ... We were standing up by the Pro shop talking to one of the guys who help run it when the man shuffles by smiles and winks at us and keeps going... Curiosity got the best of us then and we asked the man at the Pro Shop who this older guy was ... The shop keeper looked kind of surprised we did not already know and told us that is Horace Howard ... It rang no bells with us so we asked who is Mr Howard? The shop keeper went on to tell us in his prime Horace was one of the best players if not the best player in the State of Georgia ... He also went on to tell us that one night Horace found himself in a game with Minnesota Fats and by the end of the night Horace had taken 30,000 dollars from Fats , not a bad pay check for a nights work... He also told us Horace was fairly popular in his prime and it was nothing for a big name player to fly in to Georgia from Chicago , New York ,California etc...to play Horace...

A litte while later my friend and I were setting at a table talking to Shelly the T.D. when Horace came up and sat with us ... His intent was to get the T.D. to try to start a ameture tournament with some kind of added money ... Something the Pro's could not get into ... It was a pretty interesting conversation to say the least as he considered himself an ameture ...

We later sat to watch Horace play and he was playing one of the top players at The Hole Thang a younger guy that has been on World tour ...
During his match he came over and sat with us often and of course we took advantage of the opportunity to pry into Horace's past a little ... We wanted to find out if he really had played Minnesota Fats as the shop keeper had told us earlier that night but we did not want to look like we were being to nosey ... So we started off by asking him how old he was when he started playing and he told us he started playing the game when he was 5 years old... And he said he has been playing for 72 years since he started at the age of five .... It was his shot and he went over and ran several balls and then hooked himself ... He came back by us muttering to himself ...." I'm to old to be playing this game ... I need to retire I should of retired years ago ... A old man like me has no business playing this game " He then shot a safety that pretty much tied his oppenents hands ... His opponent missed and shot a good safety of his own ,Horace went over and studied it made a very nice shot then ran the table ... He came back over winked at us and said " But they can't leave this old man a shot, if they do I can still run the table " lol...

It was a race to five and Horace sat by us the whole time and we got to talk to him ... We asked him how the game was played in his prime and he told us nothing like it is today ... He told us they played a Gentlemans game it was all offense .... Not alot of safties and hooks like in todays game ... He said safties and hooks were kind of frowned upon, And in that respect the game of today has changed alot ... He told us that back then they would play two foul ball in hand or something to that effect ... And that he owned a pool hall back then and he would spend hour after hour just practicing pushing out ... He said he woud practice shots where he would push out to where his opponents would tell him to shoot again thinking the shot could not be made or there was no shot... Of course he had spent hour after hour practicing these shots in his pool hall and when his opponent would tell him to shoot again he had these difficult shots down to a T... He would make the shot and run the table time after time ...

We figured that was the time to ask the question we had been wanting to ask ... And we asked him " I bet in your day you played alot of interesting players maybe even some big name players back then" ... His reply was "Yes I have played them all Misconi , Wimpy Lassiter , Minnesota Fats ... Jersey Joe ??? "I believe that is the name he said I have never heard of Jersey Joe ... He told us he was 77 years old and he had seen alot of things in his life and played alot of great players ...

Unfortunatly it was only a race to 5 and it was winding down ... Horace was at the table shooting again and the young player that had played on the World tour was standing beside me ... A little disappointed with the way the game was going... He told me "I have had him sewn up several times and he always kicks out of it ... He sews himself up and gets out of it ... I'm about to lose can you believe this ? I can't beleive this ... " Horace ran out the last four balls missing position on two of them but still being able to pocket them and get out ... The younger guy was disappointed but put a smile on his face and congradulated Horace on his win... Horace turned towards us and smiled then winked at us ... It was late and we had a 2 hour drive to get home ... So we walked over shook Horaces hand and wished him good luck and told him we were glad to have met him... They were calling Horace to the table for the Semi finals ... I don't know how it ended Horace still had Larry Price to get through and there were two other guys still in it ... But for a 77 year old man he still shoots a very good stick.... It was a pleasure to meet him and listen to him talk ...

I was wondering if any of you here on AZ had ever heard of him or met him or may have some stories of him? I have just heard his name for the first time tonight ... But listening to him talk and some of the stories people told of him and the names mentioned really had me fascinated .... Just to meet him and talk to him was worth the trip alone ... If you ever find yourself in Macon Georgia ... Stop in at "The Hole Thang " There is no telling who you might meet in there ...
 
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Me and a couple friends went through South Georgia a few years ago. We were in a town called Eatonton(I think this is correct spelling). It was a resort town it seemed. They have a big lake there and seemed like a very affluent community. One of my buddies had been through Southern GA before and had a good idea who all the players were. We didn't expect much from this town so we just had a good time for a couple days as we had done well earlier in the trip. One of the bars in town advertised a pool tournament on the radio and so we decided to give it a shot. The bar added $200 to the tournament amazingly enough and none of the players there could run a rack of eight ball. My friend won the tournament and I finished second and along the way we managed to scare up some action "I'll play you some after the tournament" sort of stuff. Well I played one guy and he played one guy(Keep in mind we never stalled) I beat my guy out of about 260-300 at 20 a game and my friend did about the same. As soon as that was over one of them started barking that his granddad would play either one of us for $2000(the guy that said this was 45 minimum, LOL) so naturally we said get him up here. In walks this guy my friend recognized and he said immediately "I know him, I played him 10 years or so ago and got robbed". When he walked over to us he introduced himself as Horace and sure enough my friend said yeah thats the same guy later. He and my buddy didn't play(because the old guy wanted to play with the oversized cueball that he brought with him and my friend is admittedly bad with it) and my friend wouldn't let me play even though Horace said he'd play with the valley ball that was there. Which was weird because I thought I could beat anybody over 70? Guess not though at least not this guy... I'm guessing this must be the same guy but it's hard to say...

thx for this thread and bringing up a good memory! Even if they aren't even related it served a good purpose
 
The part about being purely offensive reminds me of an old man I used to play a lot. He was an amazing shot and regardless of the lay of the table he was going to at least try to make a ball. Sadly he refuses to change his ways which is how he loses a lot of matches.

He also had a remarkable stroke. He would have his stance nearly upright and would stroke very very fast regardless of shooting hard or barely touching the cue ball.

I was always happy to play him or watch him play.
 
I WISH TWO FOUL NINE BALL WOULD COME BACK!

I grew up on that and LOVED the challenge aspect of it. No matter how good someone can kick or jump the person doing it is at a disadvantage and that's not fair because the safety is often far easier than the shot the incoming player is faced with.

In two-foul you have to be a shotmaker's shotmaker because safeties don't do you any good when someone can push out of them and challenge you with a shot.

Great story King!!!!

Lots of old timers out there were pretty sporty shortstops in their day and can still dab it from time to time.
 
Pinocchio said:
Horace Howard no Horace Hopper yes.......................
Pinocchio
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Horace Harper, Eatonton(not sure of spelling) Ga. home of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. played like burning hell, beat Ronnie Allen and Eddie Kelly playing 9 ball in Macon in 1968. Eddie was doing the playing. Ronnie and Eddie split the sheets after that. Ronnie went to jacksonville fla. and played Horace's stakehorse, also named Horace (Fowler) even 9 ball. Ronnie played onehanded, jacked up. Ronnie made a big score. Kelly went to Mobile to play Cleo, waited around a week and never got to play. Cleo liked to get em loser on the nut and then match up tough.
 
It may of been Horace Harper or Hopper then, I have seen him in there a few times but last night was when I started hearing about what all he had done in life and got to talk to him ... I will check to see if his last name was Howard or Harper... He was very nice and I really enjoyed getting the chance to talk to him... I was surprised that he played like he did at the age of 77 ....
 
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........androd????????

Good catch an you got more facts. I knew david Howard in the late 60's an I asked him once what his best score was.At that time in 1969 maybe David was 16 an already a good player. David told me it was $1200.00 off Ronnie Allen. I asked David how they were playing an he said not at pool we were playing the pinball machine. Ronnie would gamble on anything. I stand corrected it is Horace Harper. Have a good evening.........
Pinocchio
I sent you a little green...........
 
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I looked into this a little further contacting The Hole Thang and also stand corrected ,The Gentlemens name is Horace Harper .....Here is the reply they gave me and a couple of good stories...Rep to you Androd

Horace "The Bull" Harper Could probably make a good living on the senior circuit....has played all the greats....back in the day a local bookie named Doolittle backed The Bull and people would fly in from all over the world to play him ($10,000 matches were not uncommon in the early 70's)....Gandy was located here and in the early 60's a "world championship" was held here...Horace also hit the road alot....One of his fav stories was he was in a bar in Tenn and whipped the town shooter, so the bar owner gets Horace's number so if any shooters come through, he can call Horace and back Horace to play them....flash forward a year, Horace has put on 20lbs and grown a full beard.....he goes to same bar in Tenn and beats the new top gun of the place....the bartender won't let him leave, keeps telling him he has someone coming for him to play, the owner finally shows up and finally see's Horace under the beard...and says "DAMNIT, I have been calling you for 2 hours...they called and told me a shooter was in the bar and I was calling you to come play him"........It is not too often, when you get called upon to play yourself! Another favorite story, Doolittle flew in the Canadian Champion to play Horace in 9-Ball...high dollars....race to 7....Horace breaks and runs 7 racks....the Canadian Champ asks for the 8 for the next set...Horace says HELL NO BUDDY, I ain't seen you shoot yet! You might break and run 9!

JessieBfan I would think he is the same Horace you ran up on seeing he does come from Eatonton, Rep to you for a great story ...
 
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Thanks for sharing those two great stories. It's always nice to hear about our great players from the earlier days. Hope you enjoy your visit to MD. in March. Maybe this 66 year old can play you a little pool then. From one older player to another Horace, only the best. "country"
 
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Not the same as Horace Godwin aka Water Moccasion from GA is it? He's an older gentleman that came through Mother's quite often and hit em' pretty sporty. Often ran with Dennis Spears.
 
Varney Cues said:
Not the same as Horace Godwin aka Water Moccasion from GA is it? He's an older gentleman that came through Mother's quite often and hit em' pretty sporty. Often ran with Dennis Spears.
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No it is not the same person. The Horace they are referring to here is and older white gentleman.

Horace Godwin also went by "Groundhog". He is still out and playing though.
 
King, that ain't seen you shoot yet story and the called to play yourself story both get applied to most top notchers at some point or other. I have heard the same stories about the Bushwhacker, Gary Nolan and the Goose, Benny Conway, among others.
 
Reminds me of a guy I knew before I moved away from St Louis, Bill Hendricks. Bill is author of the book "History of Billiards" and 1964 intercollegiate 14.1 champion. A guy who used to own a pool room in the St Louis area told me Bill came into his place one day, set up a breakout ball, ran 200 balls and without missing a ball proceeded to start to break down his cue. The guy asked him if he wasn't going to finish the run and Bill said "I'll finish tomorrow". No big deal, just a 200 ball run.

I haven't seen him in a couple of years, but he is well into his 80's and has trouble being on his feet for a long time. The only thing I saw him play was some three cushion, but he would frequently come in Riverbend Billiards and just quietly sit at a table and watch watch the action while taking an occasional nap. 95% of the people in the place had no idea that the old man sitting there was a champion.
 
I don't have any great stories about Horace Harper, but he has been around forever and still played high B level or lower A level pool last time I saw him. My son beat him at the Hole Thang a while back in a tournament there. Are they still having it second Saturday of every month?
 
I heard a story once that back in the early 70's Mike Sigel and Jimmy Mataya went to Macon, GA. play Horace "The Bull" Harper some 9 ball on the bar box. Mike and Jimmy left a couple of days later talking to themselves about how some local tore them both "new ones".
 
I came across a Pro's page from AZ that listed alot of the Pro's past and present ... I was surprised to see Horace's name listed there ... Yes I would say that at 77 Horace is still playing High B or Low A.... He was playing very good this weekend ... Made it to the final four on the winners side and had a kid from Alabama at 6-4 with Horace on the hill... The kids name was Randy Jordan I beleive ... Randy came back to win it and put Horace on the losers side but you could see Randy was sweating it a little ... Horace was real nice about it and smiled then congradulated the kid ..He come to our table and sat down and started his" I'm to old to play this game most nights I can't even see across the table... I had the kid and let him off the hook." A little while later he walked up to Shelly the T.D. who does a great job by the way and told her jokingly I won the match but I'm going to let the kid have it ... lol .... In the next game on the losers side he had to play Chuck Dorsett ... I'm pretty sure that is his name ... If I was'nt trying to type this I would remember it off the top of my head. Anyway we were told that Chuck had been on World tour before and I have seen him shoot before he is very very good... Horace had Chuck talking to himself by the end of the match ... He beat Chuck on this day to advance to the semi finals...

cueman I'm not sure who your son is but The Hole Thang holds thier tournaments on the third saturday of every month .... The next one will be December 20 th is what Shelly told us she said they will also have a Low Country Boil there to feed the players ... And she intends to start the Calcutta at 3 p.m. sharp .... She would like to start it at 2:45... Hope this helps ... It will be 1000.00 added by The Hole Thang...
 
Ol' Horace Harper. He's a hell of a player. Sonny Poole,the owner of a local pool hall,who is also a hell of a player himself,is related to Horace. Anyway there was a tournament on some 9 footers at Sonny's place and I had to play Horace the first round. I was playing pretty good but I still made some critical mistakes and lost. I was honored to have played him though. Another time I squared off against him in a partners snooker tournament and Horace and his partner either put my partner and I in the losers' bracket or beat us out of the tourney. Horace and his partner went on to place 2nd or 3rd that day. Snooker is not his strongest game though.
I've even heard that Horace played Earl Strickland when Strickland was very young and beat Earl bad. It would probably be the other way around now though as Horace doesn't play at the same level he used to. I also heard that Horace and Sonny used to go on the road together and play the greats. Horace is fairly quiet and unassuming. Like someone said earlier,if you didn't see him play pool you would never know that he was one of the greats.
 
The last time I was at the Hole thing a month or so ago I drew Horace ...Like you I made some critical mistakes and he beat me 7-3 but it was a honor to play him and I really enjoyed the games.

We got to talking some after the match and he told me he beat Earl Strickland when he was 56 years old and he played Earl again recently and came close to beating Earl again but Earl got him the last time they played he said he had Earl mumbling to himself though about how he could'nt beat Horace ...lol... One of the highlights of my trips to Macon is getting to talk to Horace I hope I get aroud that good when I am that age... And would be glad to play like he still does anytime ...lol...

There is some talent that shows up at The Hole Thang in Macon on the third Saturday of each month ... Scotty Townsend , Paul Turner Jessie Middlebrooks ...every once in awhile Doug Yonug comes through ... you never know who you might see in there. Not to long ago Archer and Strickland were in there will thier traveling pool school.
 
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