H.E.;
You made one of my points with your Efren 'shooting and winning plenty with a $12 cue' comment. It truly is the indian and to a much lesser degree, the arrow. As long as you have a good quality cue in hand, you don't need anything elite to play strong.
And to be clear, I was in no way knocking McDermott cues. I have a few myself.
What I found most interesting was that there are not many young players playing at a high level like Kevin Guimond, who have stayed with an 'old faithful' cue they've had for such a long time. He hasn't caved in to any peer pressure, etc.
I admire him for that.
best,
brian kc.
I didn't think you were knocking McDermotts, but I wanted to make it clear to people on here who bash "production" cues that you don't have to have a "custom" cue made by a "master" in order to play good pool. As a matter of fact, I sold my custom-made Richard Black cue that he made for me when I bought my first McDermott (a 1980-model C-14). To ME, the McDermott simply "outplayed" the Black. That is NOT a knock on Richard either, the first one he made me played DAMN GOOD, but I mistakenly sold it when he made me the second one before I realized it didn't play anywhere near as good as the first one. The first one was a simple 4-point and the second one was a Merry Widow type...maybe it was something due to the difference in construction. Almost ALL my cues are full-splice or short-splice cues.
Aloha.
