Did you read the one I posted in this forum a few years back about when Cole played Ritchie Florence? Search for it. Let me know.Oh well you got my attention. I had some interesting interactions with Cole. 3877 is the number scribed in the stainless joint of the cue I purchased from Cole.
My first conversation experience with Cole came when I drove him from Kelso to Seattle in his truck. Oh did I get stories. A perk for a good cab driver.
Any Cole stories are appreciated. Thanks
Shoot a Million Balls? Give me a break.
- Thread starter jjohnson
- Start date
Hey there. Where you from? I'm from Fremont. A high school buddy of mine used to play golf with Cole. He told me about Cole wrapping his clubs around a tree because golf was hurting his stroke. My friends name was John Treglown (or something like this.) John had an older brother that was a very good baseball pitcher. Come back...
Give me a couple of weeks/months and I will prove to you that any average person with average eyes and intelligence with no physical handicaps can be a great player. That is, if they have the "knowledge." See, if you don't know where you're going and/or know how to get there, most likely even 2 million balls won't get you to pro status let alone champion status. Most all you guys, don't sell yourselves short. You just weren't told what was really going on or statistically, you didn't hit on the secret or two that makes all the difference. I remember when I was in the Corps in Japan back in '74, one day I decided to play some golf. I rented some clubs and played by myself on the base course. There was this one shot. It was about maybe 50+ yards from the hole. Even never having played before, I stepped up to this particular shot like I knew what I was doing. I stroked up a couple times and swung. It felt real good. Solid. I can still see myself standing there on that warm sunny day just watching in awe as that ball arced high into the sky. It was a thing of beauty. I could feel it. But then I looked aside and shook my head. I said to myself, no way. I had wasted too many hours at the pool hall as a kid, so I was not about to waste any more time starting to play golf. Probably a bad choice. I'll never know. My point is this. As you begin to play pool, you probably hit a few ball too perfectly. But didn't catch it. Or the cue ball reacted unbelievably but it all happened too fast. If you had been more attentive, you might have seen how you did it. You could have learned a secret or two. But you missed it. Maybe if you hit another 100,000 balls you might have repeated those shots and maybe this time you might see and remembered exactly what you did. And that could have made all the difference in your game. But fate didn't favor you. So you ended up a short stop or quit altogether. I played in a local tournament several years ago at Danny K's in Orange. I played a nice looking chick. Warming up I hit a short two footer. That cue ball drew back like a cartoon rocket. And she was standing right next to me and said, "Who is this guy." I just sort of acted embarrassed, awe shucks. Hell, I didn't have a clue. That was like world class draw. She won the match. Again, I think I can prove it to you that knowledge can give you a tremendous head start that is so exciting that it accelerates your enthusiasm even now. You'll put in the time and perfect what you have just learned. Here's one idea: watch Allen Hopkins. He has reduced everything he does to its bare minimum. The less he does minimizes risk and errors. Everything you do executing a shot has numerous degrees of freedom. You name it. Every slightest little thing. These are all things that can go wrong and probably some will. If you can eliminate them, you could achieve what Allen Hopkins has achieved. Near perfection. Maybe I'll let you know more about the specifics.Yep
I can't tell you how many people who will tell you that if they just had the time and resources to practice and play as much as they liked, that they would be on the tour.
Of course there's a huge talent factor that they refuse to acknowledge/accept.
Most people have no idea what that level of skill and athleticism looks like. Or how far they are away from it themselves...
Mitch, I'll be happy to relieve you of som of that 15 mil burden. I'll pm you my address!!
Look up the "Dan Plan".
For perspective, I've played golf for over 50 years, the vast majority at a mid to low single digit handicap, averaging well over 100 rounds a year for much of the last 15 years or so...
I know a lot of fairly athletic people who have devoted decades and tens of thousands of dollars to the game who can't break 80. In fact, the vast majority of recreational players can't...
I also play a lot with people a lot better than me. Until people see what someone with real skill/talent looks like, they have no idea what "good" really means...
Like everything else in life- some people start with more natural talents for something and develop those talents to a professional level. Some without great natural talent are fortunate enough to have elite instruction/knowledge imparted to them early in their career and they develop everything from a superior starting point.
Nobody becomes great at any game/sport just because they had millions of repetitions, those repetitions can create a certain success level, but it takes more than that to beat the best players in anything because you need numbers 1 or 2 above or both, combined with dedication to be truly great.
This is just from the physical side of the game, the " mental" side is another discussion and huge factor in longer term success. You don't have to be mentally balanced ( as we all know from seeing greats in many sports who were lunatics in life) ; rather you need to be consistently mentally " correct" during your execution in competition - characterized by very, very consistent short bursts of extreme focus without mind distractions.
Nobody becomes great at any game/sport just because they had millions of repetitions, those repetitions can create a certain success level, but it takes more than that to beat the best players in anything because you need numbers 1 or 2 above or both, combined with dedication to be truly great.
This is just from the physical side of the game, the " mental" side is another discussion and huge factor in longer term success. You don't have to be mentally balanced ( as we all know from seeing greats in many sports who were lunatics in life) ; rather you need to be consistently mentally " correct" during your execution in competition - characterized by very, very consistent short bursts of extreme focus without mind distractions.
I never heard that. It was, "you get the 8 and breaks"
I was number 3 in the pecking order on the east side. (Bellevue centric). I did get the money from numbers 1 and 2 though. 
Off handed was the game and I busted both. I played Lucky Lefty whenever possible. According to a few things i've read roughly 55% of golfers can break 100. That's for fairly active players, those that only play 1-2rds/mo its down to about 15%.
Make them play strictly by the rules, and I suspect it's lower than that.
People take two off the tee, roll the ball in the fairway, drop a ball near where they think they lost one rather than taking stroke and distance, pick up any putt inside a couple of feet, etc...and then crow about their score.
I usually play it up in the fairway(not a country clubber) but down in the rough and putt all but really short ones. If i play it down all the way my score might be 5shots higher. I've got friends that would easily shoot 10+shots higher(prob more) if they played anything close to the rules. There was this old dude we called 'TeeBill' 'cause he literally tee'd up everything but a putt or trap shot. He was old and cool so we never said a word.
Damn, never thought there was something I could help you with. I could go through half of that for you like it was pocket change, take the strain off your mind. If the money still doesn't seem to be going fast enough I will introduce you to my ex!
Now about the practice and how many balls. Willie Mosconi was shooting his normal pace when he set his record. With someone else racking I believe he averaged about fifteen seconds a ball racking and all.
When I had a serious pool jones I was working long hours too. 50-72 hours a week on the job. I figured I still spent more time on a pool table so I got curious and clocked it. 60 to 80+ hours a week on a pool table for three weeks measured twice about three years apart. Most of the time was solo practice.
When I decided I wanted pinpoint shape on the cue ball, within an inch almost all shots except very thin cuts where you had to turn the cue ball loose for the object ball to reach the pocket, I spent 6000-8000 hours getting there. I was already a pretty good ball pocketer and thought I was playing shape.
I always think about Ringo Starr and his song about having to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues. Nothing comes easy. When I shot pistol competition I shot over a thousand rounds a week. One of the military teams had it a lot tougher. Their shooters had to shoot a thousand rounds a day! They would pay people to just rattle off magazines into the berm.
To be pretty good at something you have to be a bit obsessed. In high school I often spent entire classes with my left hand forced into a closed bridge.
I don't know how many hours I have put in on a pool table. If there were a way to count I would bet big I was on the topside of two million balls hit. I started off as a lousy pool player. Wasn't acceptable so I put in the hours and days.
Hu
Thank you for your kind offer.
I used to go to the range and shoot 50×308W and 100×45ACP 3 times a week
Then come back home and reload all of them.
It has been said:: "The mark of a good pool player is a misspent youth" !!
Because some people just don’t have the hand eye coordination or maybe they can’t see the lines or have the feel others do. You may have the ability but mentally can’t handle the pressure . Everyone is different but either way you can’t get out of putting the work in. Every pro golfer has spend 1000s and 1000s of hours on range and putting greens to get where they are. Either way there is no easy way..either put the work in and find out if you can be great or don’t and unless your an idiot savant have no chance of being great . Either way be happy with where you are and I enjoy playing.
I got hooked up one Father’s Day week with an older retired gentlemen and his mid 30s son. His son was using his old clubs. Wearing running shoes and striping balls down the fairway with a 3 wood well past us. Was on the greens putting for bird almost every hole. Had a great short game when he did miss. I asked his dad how much does he play.. he doesn’t he said. Just once a year with me. Oh but he must have played when he was in school or something? Nope .. ran truck and cross country . That’s what he got a college scholarship for. He just would play once or twice a summer to hang out with me. He’s naturally good at sports. Man f$$%$ that guy
I was about fifteen when I started reloading too. Remember the six dollar Lee set-ups? One of those, a seventeen dollar powder scale because I didn't trust the scoops, and I was in business!
Later I had two Dillon 550B's one set up for small primer and one for large. Cranked out a lot of the 45's myself. Then I got into benchrest and really messed with heads. Thirty pieces of brass was enough to wear out a barrel and you reloaded at the range or when I took the same rifle to the varmint fields, on the open prairie! My companions were flipping to watch me shoot twenty-five or thirty rounds, clean barrel while reloading, and go again. I had a medium twist 6BR barrel and found five hundred to a thousand so easy it wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.
I had bought a 10-22 for short range as a last minute purchase and it turned out to have issues so I got annoyed and pulled the .45 out from under the seat and nailed a 'dog at about 35 yards. When I did it again at thirty my friend got curious. After that it was an at least once a day thing for Dave to go through a prairie dog town at least once a day playing Hogan's Alley!
I shot my factory .308 to a best of a 0.403" inch aggregate at a hundred yards but that was mostly a fluke. One day it put the first four rounds into a still round hole, then parked the fifth in a separate hole! The curse of the .308. Still nice for 700 yards or so. I miss shooting but no place to reload and too much hassle to buy ready rolled stuff. Doesn't tickle my accuracy fancy anyway.
Taking another left turn, I was taking a friend night fishing out of a canoe to show him how much fun it was. Issue was we got there too early. There were pool tables at the landing. While I was at the counter drinking beer the local hustler came over and got my buddy on a table. Busted him for fifty bucks in a hurry. He came and asked me to get his money back. I did, and a bit over a hundred more. Never wet a line. Two guys around twenty, somebody else's money, party time! We even played more pool and could do no wrong.
Hu
Here's one for ya...Oh well you got my attention. I had some interesting interactions with Cole. 3877 is the number scribed in the stainless joint of the cue I purchased from Cole.
My first conversation experience with Cole came when I drove him from Kelso to Seattle in his truck. Oh did I get stories. A perk for a good cab driver.
Any Cole stories are appreciated. Thanks
Cole Dickson vs. Richie Florence
So I meet up with Cole at a poolroom in the Bay area. He needed $1,000 to pay back someone there, so I gave it to him. He told me if I drive him down to San Jose there is a guy there who will give him $1,000 for his cue and he'll give it to me. I say okay and off we go. Pretty soon Cole pulls out a burner and tells me to take a hit of this. I did and I liked it so I took a couple more.Oh well you got my attention. I had some interesting interactions with Cole. 3877 is the number scribed in the stainless joint of the cue I purchased from Cole.
My first conversation experience with Cole came when I drove him from Kelso to Seattle in his truck. Oh did I get stories. A perk for a good cab driver.
Any Cole stories are appreciated. Thanks
We were supposed to meet the guy at a cardroom there and by the time we show up I'm higher than a kite. The guy has not arrived yet so we have to wait. Cole walks me over to the board and they have one seat open in a 20-40 Hold'em game. I feel like I can jump over the Moon so I take the seat. Cole tells me the guy is on his way. I play every hand, relentless in my pursuit of inside straights and two pairs. In one hour I manage to lose $2,000 before the guy gets there.
The guy finally shows and I get my $1,000 back, so I'm only stuck two thousand for helping Cole out. Meanwhile he's laughing his ass off watching me play. The moral of this story is never play poker when you're high!
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