What Do You Look For in a Pool Instructor

[SpiderWebComm]

And yet it's harder to hit the target dead on with a curved shot - just like in pool.

What you don't understand and never will because you know zippity-do-da about golf is that almost every player, amateur or pro, has a built-in natural flight path based on a number of factors that you won't comprehend to begin with. There's either a tendency to hit the ball with a curve from left to right (fade or slice) or right to left (draw or hook). Therefore, you want to go with what is going to naturally occur. So, totally UNLIKE pool, you do what is most natural.

Here's a question for you to ponder and answer...what is the bottom-line factor for the ball going in the direction it does whether straight, curving from left to right, or right to left? Get this right and you'll be answering your own questions. Don't get it right and this is over for me because it's like talking to a brick wall

To hit a specific target with a curved shot you have to hit it in a precise initial direction, just like a straight shot - and then you also have to judge/control the curve.

This was told to you by Wobbly and me...a straight shot is the hardest shot to hit. Most players, pros and amateurs, have a built in flight that's ingrained that moves the ball left to right or right to left. You go with the flow and what's easiest to do.

If a player’s better at curved shots that's him, not the curve.

He might be better at it, but shit happens and the exact opposite occurs and usually ends up in a lot of trouble causing a high score on the hole. The brain and the body just don't coordinate with each other. Go to a driving range and try hitting some
balls and report back how frustrating and miserable you feel. And you WILL! Until then, golf talk is OVER because it's like trying to explain something to a person living in the Twilight Zone.

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Might have been a local rule. Might have been nine over par too. I don't know. They were talking about Mulligans and such too, which seems to be a mercy rule.

Mulligans are a "second chance" with another ball. Forget the first one." Pros don't get mulligans or anyone playing in a tournament or for money. It would be like playing 9-ball and missing the 8 and telling your opponent, "I'm taking a mulligan"
which means you reset the balls where they were and have a second chance. What do you think he'd say if there was money on the line?

A funny, I was visiting my cousin a few states over. Her husband came in from playing golf. He was pumped! He had scored two eagles, a sprinkling of birdies, had a great day. Trying to share that with me was like trying to tell him I ran a sixpack.

That would be about right.

Anything I know about golf is decades old. I heard the commentators referring to the shot to get to the putting green as the approach shot. My running partner played golf and tennis, worked on golf clubs and tennis rackets too. Listening to other people talk or the rare times I was trapped into watching it on TV are the only times I heard about or saw golf. I might watch the final few holes or a playoff by choice. I like to watch people under pressure regardless of what they are doing. When there is enough money between first and second place to buy a house and they are trying to get a funny looking jacket it gets interesting. Kinda like olympic sports. I may not care about the sport itself but the competitors can be interesting. Remember Olga?

The Russian girl? Of course. Corbett? (or something like that)

I did watch hours of golf one day. I think it was a major event somewhere in the UK. There was a huge swag in the green, closest thing I can think of to describe it would be when the big ocean swells are rolling in. They decided it would be a good idea to put the cup maybe five feet down from the top of this trough. You either holed out or you watched your ball roll back and forth awhile. When you got to shoot again, uphill from the bottom of the trough, you made the putt or you watched your ball roll back and forth again. I think some players went five or six over on that one hole. They did move the cup again after that day's play, no more fun for spectators! One or two players did hit that cup from fifty feet out or further, the best way to not go gray, grey?, or bald playing that one hole!

A few balls managed to hang on the grade but then a player was trying to read a severe side to side grade. They had to hit the ball hard to fight the grade but then they had to center the cup perfectly to get the ball in the cup. Lip the cup and watch the ball roll back and forth awhile.

I'll match your tough putting greens with dirt tracks. Ever changing, very tough conditions sometimes, and you are the ball! One track had a habit of things coming up out of it while racing. They put whatever was handy to rough in the shape of the track banking and then put a little dirt over it. The entire roof of a car came up in a turn one night, fortunately it was firmly attached to the car beneath it! Another night a piece of wood was coming out of the track. When somebody centered it we discovered it was a huge stump! A wrecker pulled it out leaving a hole in the track the size of a small car. No way to fix the track so it was just a matter of stay out of the hole in between turns one and two that night. Mostly people came to that track to fight, squeezing in an occasional race between fights. The Frog Pond as we called it was a barrel of fun! I have to admit if I wasn't with a car I sat in the stands with both hands firmly in my lap!

Another track, the track developed washboard style ripples for well over a hundred feet in a big sweeping 180 degree turn, technically turns three and four. For several months I tried to find a car set-up and path through the washboard. I would be working my steering wheel all over the place trying to find some bite with the front wheels then when I finally got to the other end of the washboard my car would alter direction drastically depending on where I had the front wheels pointed which I of course had no idea about until I found traction. The only solution I found was to pick the spot I wanted to come out of turn four at, aim at it going into turn three, then just hold my steering wheel straight while the washboard had it's way with me and the car. It still flung me out the other side out of shape but at least I knew where my front wheels were pointing!

Hu

Funny post!

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Free rock climbing looks harder than chasing a leetle teeny tinee ball around all day.

Chasing a leetle teeny tinee ball around all day doesn't include having a death wish though.

 

[straightline]

Chasing a leetle teeny tinee ball around all day doesn't include having a death wish though.

Possible. You do get wuzzit, unlimited tries at golf?

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Possible. You do get wuzzit, unlimited tries at golf?

Sure, it's called the driving range. Hit all the balls your body can handle.

 

[straightline]

Sure, it's called the driving range. Hit all the balls your body can handle.

Pool rooms need a driving range even if it's alley wood. 50 feet would do.

 

[tim913]

Interested in what people look for in a pool instructor, can anyone recommend a good golf forum?

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Interested in what people look for in a pool instructor, can anyone recommend a good golf forum?

You're in it right now. It's being converted into a 2 for 1 forum.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

…almost every player, amateur or pro, has a built-in natural flight path

And every flight path, straight or curved, must start off going in a precise initial direction in order to hit its target - exactly the same challenge as hitting a straight shot, plus the added challenge of judging/controlling the curve.

Maybe if I point this out another dozen times…

Don't get it right and this is over for me

Why wait?

pj
chgo

 

[SpiderWebComm]

And every flight path, straight or curved, must start off going in a precise initial direction in order to hit its target - exactly the same challenge as hitting a straight shot (plus the added challenge of judging/controlling the curve).

There's very little that's precise about golf especially when there are players who can shoot par or under to those who shoot
125 or higher, and everything in between. That's why golf courses have fairways 50 yards wide and some even wider. A lot to
work with when imprecise.

That's it. In your quest to be right every time and make others believe you're the smartest, most logical man on the planet, you're getting further and further from what happens and nothing can or will penetrate the rock head. Adios.

I do have a picture of you. Would you be OK with it being posted to let everyone on here vote as to whether you'd be a good
candidate for golf or not?

 

[tim913]

You're in it right now. It's being converted into a 2 for 1 forum.

Funny .. I look at it as a 1/2 off sale

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Funny .. I look at it as a 1/2 off sale

Except there's no cost to begin with.

 

[tim913]

Except there's no cost to begin with.

Only the cost in time spent looking for something relevant to op’s question

 

[Patrick Johnson]

Only the cost in time spent looking for something relevant to op’s question

My apologies for the extended golf tangent. The difference between straight and curved golf shots is actually a pretty good analogy for CJ Wiley’s “Touch of Inside” technique in pool - CJ himself makes the comparison as support for his questionable argument that the TOI technique “cuts out half the aiming errors”.

pj
chgo

 

[ShootingArts]

My apologies for the extended golf tangent. The difference between straight and curved golf shots is actually a pretty good analogy for CJ Wiley’s “Touch of Inside” technique in pool - CJ himself makes the comparison as support for his questionable argument that the TOI technique “cuts out half the aiming errors”.

pj
chgo

This seems like a great idea! How about combining a touch of inside with a touch of outside? With touch of inside cutting out half the aiming errors and touch of outside cutting out the other half aiming errors should be a thing of the past. We could cut out all aiming errors just by hitting the ball in the center! Of course we can't market something like center ball so we will have to come out with something that sounds sexy. How about the inside out system? Maybe the outside in system? Better get back with me next Thursday, this inside out thing is gonna take a little time!

Hu

 

[Patrick Johnson]

My apologies for the extended golf tangent. The difference between straight and curved golf shots is actually a pretty good analogy for CJ Wiley’s “Touch of Inside” technique in pool - CJ himself makes the comparison as support for his questionable argument that the TOI technique “cuts out half the aiming errors”.

This seems like a great idea! How about combining a touch of inside with a touch of outside?
With touch of inside cutting out half the aiming errors and touch of outside cutting out the other half aiming errors should be a thing of the past. We could cut out all aiming errors just by hitting the ball in the center! Of course we can't market something like center ball so we will have to come out with something that sounds sexy. How about the inside out system? Maybe the outside in system?

Brilliant! That's how I do it - I call it Touch O' Nuttin' (TON).

You have a bright academic future in... well, in AzB.

pj <- hits a TON
chgo

 

[Patrick Johnson]

... every flight path, straight or curved, must start off going in a precise initial direction in order to hit its target - exactly the same challenge as hitting a straight shot, plus the added challenge of judging/controlling the curve.

There's very little that's precise about golf

And yet...

... every flight path, straight or curved, must start off going in a precise initial direction in order to hit its target - exactly the same challenge as hitting a straight shot, plus the added challenge of judging/controlling the curve.

pj
chgo

 

[WobblyStroke]

And every flight path, straight or curved, must start off going in a precise initial direction in order to hit its target - exactly the same challenge as hitting a straight shot, plus the added challenge of judging/controlling the curve.

Maybe if I point this out another dozen times…

To play a specific curve on a specific line to a specific point, yes. BUT the nice thing about playing a shot like a push draw is that the more you swing right, the more right the ball will start AND the more it will curve back. So since what is actually a swing error (like the one I outlined in one of my first posts regarding my draw into a fairway) produces an unintended starting line AND an unintended higher amount of curve. The result is a shot that lands in the fairway which I obv pass off as intended, but really I just made a mistake and got bailed out because I'm playing a curve. Same level of mistake on a str8 attempt is def not in the FW.

Does that help? Or another dozen times required for this too? I'll give it another go at least rn....
You start your ball at the edge of your rather wide target i.e. a FW.
You play a curve to the left so you have the entire FW to curve into while a str8 ball (miss) will still be okay on the right edge.
From here there are several misses that can happen...
1. An awful pull that keeps the intended curve and sends you far left (bad)
2. A pull with less right to left spin (much more likely because of the nature of a pull being out-to-in path favoring a fade). This will give a str8ish pull or a small fade (opposite of intended curve) but on a line way left of intended so both of these end up in the FW (good)
3. str8 ball (good)
4. intended shot (good)
5. Push draw that starts farther right but also curves back more to target (good)
6. Double cross where you put wrong spin on it but send on your line... Out of bounds (bad).

So, not only does the curver have the entire FW to curve into compared to half a fairway of buffer on either side of str8, he also has the benefit of a common miss resulting in both an unintended line further right combnined with an unintended amount of spin bringing the ball back to target. Other mistakes are also playable. There is simply more room for error for a curver of the golf ball, not only in the larger safe target to curve into, but also in getting away with some errors which will still produce decent results.

You are right that a specific line and specific curve to a specific point are just as impossibly difficult for the curver and the str8 hitter. Where you are wrong is in thinking that this is what is intended by anyone. Golf is a game of misses. You play in a way so more of your misses are in good shape. Playing a curve generally gives you a bigger target to curve into and allows you to produce very good results with swings that were not exactly what you were going for. Add this on top of eliminating hazards on one side of the course for you to end up in and this is why the vast majority of players who aren't robots that can zero out their path and face play curves.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

You are right that a specific line and specific curve to a specific point are just as impossibly difficult for the curver and the str8 hitter.

And that's where CJ's golf/pool analogy ends (in pool, substitute "squirt" for "curve").

In both it's all about the precision of your aim/stroke - how you view it doesn't change that.

pj
chgo

 

[gregcantrall]

I really dislike analogous conversations because they are like a box of chocolates. So when somebody gives me a nice looking one and then I bite it to find Coconut! I want to spit it back in my hand. My endeavors to attain the Miss Congenital tatty award led me to study miss manners. So I just swallow and say thank you. So when I say "thank you for your input" I am thinking, "you are so full of shit".