Is billiards the toughest sport?

If you really think about any PRO sport, baseball, tennis, golf, boxing, bowling, auto-racing. Look at how many top players, there is, and then look at how many mid-level players there is!

In baseball how often do you see a guy get called up, but then gets sent right back down to the minor's to never be seen again? Or a Boxer who loses a fight and then never gains that same edge he usta have? How many one time wonders have there been in golf? or bowling?

I see alot of arm-chair Qb's, or pool hall wanna-b's, or ex hs baseball wanna-b's who give the whole well Back in the day! I was pretty good, when they probably couldn't get into a jock-strap.

I've done the whole pro-bowling escapade and its freaking tough as hell!!!!! I see guys all the time who would average 190 to 220 in the average joe blow league, and claim they can do that too on TV. Well bowling on the Pro-Tour is a world of difference than your typical house league.

For one, your typical house league has a Wall Shot, basically if you throw the ball between the 15th and 10th board on the lane, you'll end up in the pocket. The speed of your shot really doesnt matter as long as you dont throw it super slow or way too fast.

Plus there is so much oil on the lane, that the shot will hardly change during the 3 games you and you team, and other team is bowling.

now on the PBA tour, you have normally 3 guys per lane, and a PBA oil pattern. The PBA oil pattern changes fast, normally after a couple of frames the players are making adjustments, or changing bowling balls.

Plus you dont see the oil moving on the lanes, so your shots have to be very consistent or you never know how your ball is going to react.

Also, you need to be very accurate, basically with-in 1 to 1 1/2 inches 35 to 40ft down the lane! Also with the right ball speed too! too fast and you miss the pocket, or end up in the gutter, to slow and the ball goes past the pocket and goes brooklyn, or Jersey-side!

Now also imagine, taking all of this into account and then averaging 215 for the tournament, only to find out you didnt make any money!

It's basically like going into a pool tournament and saying yea, i played pretty damn good, I didnt miss a ball. But went 2 n out, cuz I played Efren and Bustamante!!!!
 
Cuebacca said:
Well, it's not like their marketing department did the study. Here's their "panel" of judges:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=degree/bios

I would think these people would have some kind of clue, but sure if the marketing people really wanted to pick a panel to suit their desired outcome, I'm sure they could.

I think the approach they described was alright. Again, the results all depend on how you define "difficult", which they at least made an effort to do.

I never gave my opinion on their findings though. Personally, I don't particularly like their results, but it's the only study I found and figured it was worth putting up for whatever it was worth. If you know of one by a more credible organization, it would be interesting to see it.
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Aha just as I Thought, not one pool player in the bunch!
 
renard said:
I am not world class in either Billiards or Golf are you? I'll repeat, I am not world class in either Billiards or Golf are you?

I your answer is "yes" then I'll back Mr. Schmidt against you. If your answer is "no" then your point is built upon the same sand as mine. Thus your point is not as valid as mine. :p
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That's funny.

Since you don't have the knowledge necessary to make a real argument you want to change the subject to matching me up with a US Open Champion and maybe the best straight pool player alive. :rolleyes:

You wouldn't play John at both games, or Corey or Gabe either. I am sure that there are several golf pros that you wouldn't play both games with.

How about you and I play golf and 9 ball.
36 holes of golf from the back tees and a 7 ahead set on a tight 9 foot or something like that. I doubt you would do that because the best you can hope for is to break even. And that would be you assuming you had the advantage in 9 ball. Which you might.
PM me if you are interested

I see no reason to continue arguing with you about the subject, because you only seem to understand half of it. In case you haven't noticed, half of the people in this thread believe that golf is more difficult. This is a pool forum. If this question came up on a golf forum, the overwhelming answer would be golf. Think about it
 
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Interesting

This is all subjective. There are limits on all topics here. Everyone has made some good points. Pool shooting is a learned skill and a gift. I never had lessons, i was self taught. Well, actually i paid a lot of money to get educated in this game. I started in the 50's, honed my skills in the 60's and hustled through the 70's. Pool to me is far more mental than anything else. The physical sports, golf, basketball, football etc. are another learned skill, made better by practice. I learned years ago that you train to a level of "conditioned response". Things are done over and over until they are done instinctively without any thought. Practice is a tool in any endeavor, most especially pool. I would go to the pool hall and warm up on a snooker table for two hours every night then go cruise the bars till closing looking for game. from a nine foot to a six or seven foot is a hugh difference. The pockets in the bars looked like canyons. I seldom played in any event because there was no money advantage. I've been in golf and a number of other sports over the years but the one that I found required the most concentration and mental agility is pool..... Just my opinion.... " opinions are like arses, everyone has one and they all stink".............:o :D :D ;)
 
avmaster said:
This is all subjective. There are limits on all topics here. Everyone has made some good points. Pool shooting is a learned skill and a gift. I never had lessons, i was self taught. Well, actually i paid a lot of money to get educated in this game. I started in the 50's, honed my skills in the 60's and hustled through the 70's. Pool to me is far more mental than anything else. The physical sports, golf, basketball, football etc. are another learned skill, made better by practice. I learned years ago that you train to a level of "conditioned response". Things are done over and over until they are done instinctively without any thought. Practice is a tool in any endeavor, most especially pool. I would go to the pool hall and warm up on a snooker table for two hours every night then go cruise the bars till closing looking for game. from a nine foot to a six or seven foot is a hugh difference. The pockets in the bars looked like canyons. I seldom played in any event because there was no money advantage. I've been in golf and a number of other sports over the years but the one that I found required the most concentration and mental agility is pool..... Just my opinion.... " opinions are like arses, everyone has one and they all stink".............:o :D :D ;)
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unless you wash it regularly it may not stink lol ;) :D
 
I have nothing but respect for golf, and I do think it's the toughest sport. But pool has something very unique that none of these other sports have. In pool you can lose a match and never approach the table. In pool you can be doing everything perfectly, and one small little error can cost you the match and the tournament. In golf, often you can get rewarded for being close. I.e. driving the ball to a part of the course that puts you in a better position than before (obviously). In pool, close doesn't count. JMHO
 
I don't see how any 2 things can be compared to trully say one is harder than another. The ESPN thing where pool is what, 59.. why is speed, strength, size, conditioning ranked higher than fine motor skills or thinking? I would think training your focus and fine control is much harder that being the recipient of a few good genes and being 6'2" and 230lbs. Pool can be played by anyone, of any size, on just about any budget. It may not be the hardest sport, it's all relative to what you base that on. Race car driver.. very stressful, very expensive, racing teams invest millions in a driver to succeed. Heck just the tool they use to play the game is worth 100s of thousands, the skill they must have to get that type of trust is pretty high I would think.

I did not see shooting listed by anyone. I bet there are much fewer people on the planet that can compete against each other in long distance rifles than in most other sports. Whenever I try to describe a nice pool stroke or focus it takes to play at a A or high B level, I try to use shooting analogies. They both require very fine control and focus on a small target. Shooting I would think is harder than golf, you need to be much more precise and have a smaller margin of error. You can miss a hole by 10 ft in golf over 100 yards and be a top player, try to miss a target by 2 in. over 1,000 yards and be a top shooter.
 
What you have left out...

renard said:
1) Billiards/Pool
2) Golf

Mental preparation is roughly the same for both. Golf requires that you strike a round sphere and send it to a specific distant area. Billiards requires that you strike a round sphere into another round sphere to send it to a nearby area... a touch more difficult.

Games such as Soccer, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Tennis, and Hockey all have the element of the action happening so fast that the mental game is not half of what Billiards or Golf is. These sports use the unconscious controls of the mind more than Billiards or Golf. Many times they have to react in split seconds that requires no conscious thought thus it is indeed easier.

In Billiards and Golf we have all the time in the world to strike the sphere. Being human the mind endlessly self talks to ensure the correct course of action is taken. It lays down the blueprint of success, then it is supposed to shut up, so the unconscious controls can take over and carry out the finely laid plans of the conscious mind. It never does... (Go ahead right now and think of nothing...blank mind...time yourself, very tough to do.) Thus the conscious interferes with every happening of the game. That same banter of the mind can be judgmental and create a bigger obstacle in lost confidence.

In Summary Golf and Billiards are games that mental preparedness is more paramount to be successful in that field. More so than other Sports or Games.
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I agree with you about the mental aspect, think long...think wrong...however, what you have left out are the constant changing conditions in golf that are not present on the pool table...temperature, wind, rain, slope of the ground, grain of the grass, length of grass, texture of the sand, depth of sand, etc, etc, etc. I have not played pool professionally, but I have been a playing professional, teaching professional and Division I coach in golf. I actually took up playing pool in college to help improve my putting, so I do believe there are several similarities.

Mark
 
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Bluesteel said:
what you have left out are the constant changing conditions in golf that are not present on the pool table...wind, rain, slope of the ground, grain of the grass, length of grass, texture of the sand, depth of sand, etc, etc, etc
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the key to this statement is ...... etc etc etc. :)

There are so more variables to take into account in golf. They almost aren't comparable
 
I think golf is more difficult, as you are swinging a bunch of different crooked sticks over your head. Not moving a straight stick back & forth a few inches. A lot more can go wrong with a golf swing.
 
storke said:
man that pic is killing me! And women should have their own category not fair to the rest of the field. They would be the hardest by a long shot
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that pic has been killing me all week, it gives my girl the 8 ball, gives my ex girl the 5 ball, but its still killing me. the Brazillian chix in the above post go heads up with my girl, but the girl with the feet gives them the 8? any other opinions? :D
 
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storke said:
I ask this question because as I think of it I can't think of another sport with as many top competitors. Are there the same in other sports? Look at how many great pool players there are. The list seems to get bigger yearly. What are your opinions?
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Here's the deal, you really can't compare sports to one another, only because they differ in so many ways. Even three cushion billiards can't be compared to pool on degree of dificulty. However, pool is a very hard game to master. I know people who have been playing 40 years and still can't run a rack!
 
First off, I think you have to separate the team sports from the individuale sports. Solo sports would be more difficult because your on your own. And I agree that you really can't put one against the other. They each have their own skills and strategies and tactics to overcome at the highest level.

With that said, and this is my own opinion, at the highest levels the most difficult, mentally and physicaly, would be bicycling. Try keeping your body and mind focused for 21 days during the Tour de France.

For sheer mental stress, if it can be considered a sport, try competeing at the highest levels of chess. Thats 10 or 12 days of competition.

But these are just examples. I couldn't argue with anyone which was tougher, harder, more stressful or difficult over another. They are all difficult at the higher levels. If they weren't everyone would be a champ.
 
I was vacationing in the Dominican Republic during the World Cup once. I was
one of a hand full of Americans in an area full of European tourists. I was
sarcastically asked more than once why Americans are such bad athletes. In
other words, why are Americans so bad at soccer? My answer was that the game
wasn't taken seriously here by the youth of my generation. Being from the
Detroit area, I remember wondering what it would have been like to see the
Detroit Lions NFL super star running back Barry Sanders bringing a soccer
ball up the field.
That would have been amazing to witness had he devoted his talents to soccer
rather than the NFL.
How about a man like Dennis Rodman tending goal for the US soccer team?
Soccer in the USA has never had the pool of talent to draw from that many
nations with lesser populations have long had.


I just don't think billiards is that physically tough a game. I think that
most ANY athlete that could drive a professional race car, par a PGA course,
or drive a baseball out of the infield consistently could be taught to run
rack after rack on the pool table if they even gave half a whit about pool.
I don't care if they took up the game as a youth or not. Granted I think
that it's a big advantage to learning a physical skill when you're young,
and I also think that the human body can grow and wire itself better to
learn difficult physical skills when one is very young, but pool is so easy
that I think that a very talented athlete could take up the game in his late
20's and beat the worlds best in five years or less with some quality
instruction and a strong drive to compete and win.
The main thing needed to play great pool (just like putting) is an
incredible touch for distance or speed. There are thousands of golfers that
can crush the ball 275 yards just like the very top professionals can -
there isn't one golfer in a million that has the touch for distance on the
putting green that the elite professionals do.
The touch for distance is the only physically hard part of billiards. Men or
women can be blessed with that talent - or not. I doubt it makes much
difference sexually.
If I'm trying to teach a new player how to play pool on a higher level, I
think the hardest thing to illustrate to them is that any time you pick a
contact point to strike the cueball that is designed to impart sidespin, the
force at which you stroke the cue ball will change the aim point. In other
words if one could define or measure the power of ones stroke on a scale of
0-100, every time I use side spin on the cue ball, the velocity has to be
correct as well to pocket the ball. If I pick an aim point on the cueball
that's designed to impart side spin, I must take into account how hard I'm
planning to strike the cueball as well. The perfect spot to contact the
cueball (using side) that will pocket the object ball and achieve proper
shape if I stroke the ball with 20/100 units of force will probably miss the
pocket completely if I strike the cue ball with 40/100 units of force. If I
use 3/4 tip of right hand english and strike the cue ball exactly on the
correct spot to pocket the ball, my shot is still going to miss badly if I
strike the ball twice as hard as I intended, even if I aim correctly and
strike the ball exactly where I was aiming.


The creativity and seasoning required to play 8-ball, 14:1, etc are
important but the games are not demanding physically compared to many other
sports like baseball, golf, auto racing, etc.
It's a free market economy. If Efren, Archer, (Wiseman, Kirkwood, Smith,
Binion, Achcraft, in my neighborhood) ect. could hit 20 home runs a year in
the show or shoot 73 on a PGA track then they would be earning 5 million USD
a year too. The reality is that they can't and there are few humans that
can. That's why they make the big bucks.

Some are probably guessing that I don't really know pool, that I don't
understand how hard pool is, or that I don't understand how good the best
players can play. We'll I've played long enough and good enough to know
where I really stand and how much weight I really do need from any top
player. I sometimes think that many top players believe that they could be
making some dollars off of their abilities if pool could be grown larger.
But what if you could win $500K for a major pool tournament twelve dates a
year? One thing that would change is that you are going to have ten times
the number of talented athletes chasing that money. Efren is an enormous
whale in the very tiny pond of serious players . If the worlds pool of
talented billiards players was to increase ten fold just because players
could become incredibly wealthy by playing pool for a living than that pond
would get a lot bigger. Efren might very well remain at the top, he might
very well find himself the 79th best player in the world because there are
10,000 more young athletes playing pool that practice 12 hours a day, lift
weights for two hours a day four days a week, eat right, don't smoke, and
don't drink. Maybe some guys like Barry Sanders or Dennis Rodman. Maybe
someone like Derek Jeter or Joe Mauer.


Eddie
 
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One no has thought of

is Archery. My paternal Grandfather made bows and arrows by hand.
I got my 'lemon wood' bow when I was about 7, my brother got a one piece 'oak' bow.

My brother took it back up when he was grown, and shot for years.
He won many titles, 4 outdoor State titles, 3 indoor, midwest national took 2nd (broke his best bow on 2nd day), and took 11th in the world in Australia when he was 9 years past his prime in Archery.

His whole family shot. His wife won many state championships, his kids won jr championships. The paper here did a big article on them 3 different times.

Archery is physical, very tiring over a long tournament, and takes a great deal of concentration. My brother shot the very first 300 ever in a State indoor championship, that's 60 arrows in the small bullseye.

I have seen, I was with him, put 5 arrows in the small bullseye, about half dollar size, of the 80 yard bears outdoor target. Try that sometime. And even today, he has a wart hog head from Texas, a deer's head from Kansas, and a full stuffed 6 1/2 foot tall Black Bear from Canada that he brought down with 1 arrow standing behind his wood bar in his game room, which I named
'Harvey' (he is the bartender .... LOL).

Archery and Pool has similiarities as far as sports, and some in how they are thought of and treated in our country.
 
most of these posts boil down to golf and pool. As close to an apples to apples comparison as your likely to find (call it red apples vs green apples)

the biggest difference between the two is this:

In golf you have to beat a score card, your opponent has no tactical moves against you, he cannot make your position in the game better or worse for any given shot, the total score is all that matters.

Golf vs pool... the closest analogy is 3 ball who can make all three balls in the least amount of shots.. not exactly the most difficult billiards game.

In pool (9,10-ball) a skilled opponent can make your life miserable and only sink a single ball himself. on the score card he's getting whipped but at the end of the rack he won.

Compared to other reaction sports the physical demands are not as high in many ways, run faster, hit harder, stay on your feet while beaten up.

But, the muscle control is far more important in pool that anywhere else. To punch a guy in the face.. you just hit hard and land on his face. do that enough times with enough power and you will win, or Track..just run fast. fastest guy there wins.. He might not be able to complete a sentence or tell you anything other than "I RUN FAST". the muscles are pushed to their peak and the guy with the highest peak wins 90% of the time.

Pool is fine motor control on a level nothing else compares to. name another sport where muscles are forced to move comparatively slowly, very short distances with pinpoint precision. mentally add in not only mental fortitude, but knowledge of the game. and you have a very difficult sport.

Football players need a similar knowledge of the game, but at the end of the day its their reaction speed that determines winning or losing any given play.

compare that to one pocket where the guy with the most knowledge but diminished skills will come out ahead more often than not.

you can play pool your whole life and you are in between two extremes lots of knowledge and less skills or less knowledge and a ton of skill, very few hit the sweet spot and have enough of both for a little while but its always a limited time.. just a few years.
 
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Is Billiards the toughest sport? No.

lance.jpg


Hey, while we are at it....some one go dig up that "Is pool a sport or a game" horse and lets beat on that b!tch some more. :D
 
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