I know the rules -- I'm saying it's baloney, Bob. Every precedent in every other sport is the exact opposite.
ref marks the ball with his hand at womens us open semi final
- Thread starter lee brett
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I know the rules -- I'm saying it's baloney, Bob. Every precedent in every other sport is the exact opposite.
I've always thought the spike mark rule was one of the dumbest rules in golf inspite of the reasoning. Afterall you are allowed to fix other things like ballmarks. However that's a different conversation. I was wondering why a regular coin couldn't be used as a marker. Seems to work well on a putting green.
FYI, chalk seems to adhere to the "measle" cue ball for whatever reason. Much more so than a red circle cue ball. I have no idea why this is, but savvy players know this can create a problem and will frequently ask to have it cleaned. That is also why you see them cleaning it before breaking each rack. Chalk on the cue ball can absolutely cause a skid if it becomes the contact point with the object ball.
Well, no. Counter examples of cleaning in other sports have already been pointed out. And in curling, cleaning the equipment is a fine art.
Great example w/ the curling, Bob. That's another sport no one else plays but is on tv more than pool.
I'm not against ball cleaning. I'm merely against cleaning any balls during the middle of a rack. If anything, it should be done AFTER a rack or ideally once before each match.
Cleaning balls "mid-run" is really crap - bad for the sport - bad for viewers - bad for players. Most pool halls don't polish their balls daily and super great players still run out perfectly fine. Now, we're making it OK for players to non-stop buff balls during the middle of games because of a possible speck of chalk. Between JA picking lint and other pros calling for buff-jobs before an important ball is stupid.
I guess the rules are what they are because rules guys like yourself think it's OK. If you're in a golf tournament and you hit a perfect shot down the fairway and a clump of mud sticks to your ball -- you gotta play it as-is. Sure, you can mark/clean on the green, but if there's a ball mark 1" in front of your ball right on your line--- you gotta adjust and ram your ball over the hole without fixing it.
What you'll have in the long run is a bunch of hacks calling for ball cleanings in the middle of local tournaments when they can't even tell the difference to begin with. Horrible precedent to set. Watched the last few TARs and never saw those guys clean a ball 1x during a game ever. Alas, carry on and let's keep copying "curling."
My sentiments exactly! If the match wasn't on TV, there would not have been a ref, which means she would have had to just go ahead and shoot that ball anyway. It is very annoying. What it looks like, is when players get to that level they become primadonnas. They forget about the poolroom days when playing with old, dirty balls was the norm (wow! that could really be taken out of context!!). I have the utmost respect for players who have reached that level, but moves like that I believe are just stall maneuvers. As far as the way the ball was marked, whatever as long as it gets back into the same place...