I have noticed a lot of pool players are into golfing too. What is it about golf that draws pool players? And what came first? The golf or pool. Not really an important question, but I'm just curious on people's opinions. Also, if the prize money was the same, what would you golfer/pool players choose to do as career in sports?
Pool and Golf
- Thread starter ledrums
- Start date
ledrums said:
They share a lot of the traits, especially before you hit the ball. Stroke mechanics, setup, speed control, mental discipline, adjusting to conditions, ability to drink and play, instruction approaches, etc. They are both non-reactive SPORTS that require a good amount of hand-eye coordination and feel.
Golf and pool of course are related. Pool can be traced back to a mallet and wicket lawn game (like croquet ) that was brought indoors onto a table. The wicket at some point turned into a hole for pocket billiards. Some of the terms in croquet are shared in billiards (i.e., cannons).
I'm not a golfer, but I've been an avid television fan since the 70's (when they only showed a few final rounds a year). It's everything in the first paragraph that attracts me to spectate. I have close friend with whom I work who has had a PGA card. We can talk pool and golf virtually on the same level of understanding because of the similar approaches.
Fred
Historians find references to games that vaguely resemble billiards and golf going back to the time of Ancient Greece. Both games, as we know them today, probably originated from a croquet-like lawn game played by the wealthy over a thousand years ago.
Golf as we know it was defined around 1552, when the St. Andrews course was built.
The earliest pictures of a game similar to modern billiards surfaced in the 1100s. The Knights Templar are tentatively credited with spreading the game of billiards from France to England and the rest of Europe. Perhaps that's why many Masonic lodges have billiards rooms.
Master cueist and psychologist Bob Fancher, in his book Pleasures of Small Motions, suggests that the allure of billiards lies in man's primitive urge to refine his hunting skills. The practice of these skills induces pleasure in humans because they once were vital to our survival. The skills are even more obviously practiced in golf, where one stalks a target over great distances firing projectiles at it, and searches for balls in the woods.
I'd wager that a disproportionate percentage of billiards and golf players also hunt and/or fish, with pool players being more likely to fish because we're basically lazy.
Pool. The object of hunting is to get food with the least effort.
Golf as we know it was defined around 1552, when the St. Andrews course was built.
The earliest pictures of a game similar to modern billiards surfaced in the 1100s. The Knights Templar are tentatively credited with spreading the game of billiards from France to England and the rest of Europe. Perhaps that's why many Masonic lodges have billiards rooms.
Master cueist and psychologist Bob Fancher, in his book Pleasures of Small Motions, suggests that the allure of billiards lies in man's primitive urge to refine his hunting skills. The practice of these skills induces pleasure in humans because they once were vital to our survival. The skills are even more obviously practiced in golf, where one stalks a target over great distances firing projectiles at it, and searches for balls in the woods.
I'd wager that a disproportionate percentage of billiards and golf players also hunt and/or fish, with pool players being more likely to fish because we're basically lazy.
ledrums said:
Pool. The object of hunting is to get food with the least effort.
There are definitely a lot of similarities. Before coming to the US, I was a member of a club and played consistently off a six handicap. Living in the Tri-State area without a car seriously limited my golf (now I play once a month if I am very lucky) so that is when I took up pool.
Jack Nicklaus always used to say that if you don't aim the gun correctly, don't expect to hit the target. Golf is based on the fundamentals of grip, stance, alignment, posture and ball position. I used to see so many people on the range just hitting a big bucket of balls with a driver with no concept of fundamentals. This is your bar pool banger. I would always practice with clubs on the ground to make sure I was perfectly aligned so that your memory takes that to the course. That is why for pool I believe everything is based on getting aligned and a straight stroke. The most fundamental shot and the one that I practice above all others is the long straight shot. Get this right and you have the fundamentals to build on. Get this wrong, and well your game can fall over like pack of cards. My golf teacher build me a solid foundation so I knew that on the first tee I could hit a good shot no matter how tense or nervous I was because I had the fundamentals right. Same goes for pool on that long straight 9-ball to win your team the championship. In your mind, you will have the confidence of knowing that you cannot miss the shot because you have the solid fundamentals.
Now Fall and Winter are around the corner and I start to pick up the pool playing, long straight shots will be the vast majority of my practice. Once I have that nailed down, I'll have the basis for the rest, just like playing a draw, or a fade is to golf.
One final analogy ... BBC Golf commentator Peter Alliss once remarked that the best amateur putters he had ever seen were professional snooker players.
Jack Nicklaus always used to say that if you don't aim the gun correctly, don't expect to hit the target. Golf is based on the fundamentals of grip, stance, alignment, posture and ball position. I used to see so many people on the range just hitting a big bucket of balls with a driver with no concept of fundamentals. This is your bar pool banger. I would always practice with clubs on the ground to make sure I was perfectly aligned so that your memory takes that to the course. That is why for pool I believe everything is based on getting aligned and a straight stroke. The most fundamental shot and the one that I practice above all others is the long straight shot. Get this right and you have the fundamentals to build on. Get this wrong, and well your game can fall over like pack of cards. My golf teacher build me a solid foundation so I knew that on the first tee I could hit a good shot no matter how tense or nervous I was because I had the fundamentals right. Same goes for pool on that long straight 9-ball to win your team the championship. In your mind, you will have the confidence of knowing that you cannot miss the shot because you have the solid fundamentals.
Now Fall and Winter are around the corner and I start to pick up the pool playing, long straight shots will be the vast majority of my practice. Once I have that nailed down, I'll have the basis for the rest, just like playing a draw, or a fade is to golf.
One final analogy ... BBC Golf commentator Peter Alliss once remarked that the best amateur putters he had ever seen were professional snooker players.