What do you think of this absurd comment
- Thread starter jimmy-leggs
- Start date
That's only because pool tournaments aren't designed properly to insure the best player wins. Bad format design doesn't mean pool is easier than golf. Long races in pool will reveal the best player always.
That is the fault of the pool tournament structure. It isn't properly designed to reveal the best player. It is, in fact, harder for the best pool player to win a tournament than it is for the best golfer to win a tournament.
In the tape Earl said he's shot a sixty forty times and that he's had a hole-in-one. But some people here are saying he isn't a high level golfer.
Regardless of the terminology Don Cherry used which was probably just due to verbal sloppiness his basic analogy is correct. You can get more good golfers and bowlers out of a group of fifty than you can good pool players. In fact you probably couldn't get one good pool player out of a group of fifty. He should have specified groups of 500 or more.
Pool is harder to play at a high level, no doubt about it.
I'll believe golf is harder than pool when I see a golfer who uses his ball to knock other balls in the hole and applies just the right amount of draw to his golf shots to get position to knock the next ball in the hole with his ball.
In golf the "cue tip" is 30 times bigger. Not exactly precision.
Getting back to the pocket size obsession- when someone tees off in golf they aren't shooting at the hole, they're shooting to stay on the green which is huge.
etc.
In golf the "cue tip" is 30 times bigger. Not exactly precision.
Getting back to the pocket size obsession- when someone tees off in golf they aren't shooting at the hole, they're shooting to stay on the green which is huge.
etc.
This post demonstrates that you know nothing about golf...and about making rational comparisons.
Bad part about a hole In one Is that It still costs you a stroke,lol. I guess I've been lucky or unlucky as I have seen 5 or 6 hole In one's.I've only had one myself.155 yrd par 3, one hopped It in with a 7 Iron on the way to winning my club championship.I used to be pretty good,not anymore though.John B.
are you for real?Lol.
Imagine this:Being in the finals of a 9ball event,the score is hill-hill and you've run out to the 9 but realize your out of position.The day you have to shoot that 9ball over a pond ,threw 2 trees with a 20mph wind blowing in your face,then I might agree that pool is harder.
That's a good one there.Hard to argue that.(think I've had that shot too)I've had my knees shake on a golf shot but never a pool shot.Yeah, have a put to tie from about 10 or 12 ft for a bunch of $ and you'll see which one Is harded,lol.But I think the real question should be Is this.Which tourny Is the hardest to win In your prespective group.I just keep thinking about all the luck you have to fade In pool,not so much In golf.Sorry If I offend anyone.John B.
ANOTHER Club Champion pool player....!
You need to come out and play!! It's been 75-80 for a couple weeks now. Come thaw out......Next road trip stop by...plenty of room.
See you in a couple weeks!
Wow my hat's off to Don, sounds like he was quite the man of leisure and certainly has an interesting and unique perspective. But I get the impression that while he was a top pro jack of all trades, he wasn't quite good enough to really know the skill gap between top pros across the games.
I don't think we'll ever know for sure. To have a true comparison, you'd really need someone who's mastered both games. I'd guess if that person ever came along, they'd be too damn crazy to take seriously anyways.
Good tidbit, I enjoyed reading about Don!
Not to mention the bill for a round of drinks when you get back to the clubhouse. :grin:
Not to mention the bill for a round of drinks when you get back to the clubhouse. :grin:
One thing though, it seems like the luck factor in pool is a little blown out of proportion. While it's true a race to 7 or 11 won't reveal the best player as often as a race to 100, I just don't see a lot of nobody's taking down any of these pro tournaments. I mean say John Morra beats Ralf in a tournament match during the event. So what. Morra is perhaps not at the same level as Ralf obviously, but he sure is capable of beating him. It seems more often than not the winner is still the guy who was better that day than it is the guy who got completely lucky. I just don't think luck enters into it as often as people seem to think. Even under usual tournament match lengths it seems the guy who breaks better or plays better in that match still almost always wins.
Careful Jamie, I said nearly the same thing earlier in this thread and was basically called an idiot for it.
Although, considering the source, I don't give it much weight.
DrOnePocket
Banned
Golf is so much more difficult than pool it's really not comparable. The only part of golf that is comparable is putting and even then you battle wind and slopes. People that think pool is more difficult don't have a clue. I play both games well and have done so for many years. The margin for error comments are laughable. Can you imagine having 3-4 feet wide fairways. lol
A lesser player can beat a champion in a short tournament race because of luck, but that lesser player won't survive a long gauntlet of champions to win the tournament.
An analogy would be tossing a die. If I call "five" and toss a die, I might well hit it. The odds are against me (probability is 1/6) but it's still quite possible. However, if I have to throw a "five" six times in a row, I've got only about one chance in 50,000. In pool tournaments, the lesser player might be quite a bit better than a 5-to-1 underdog in each match (probability of 1/6 of winning), but I think you get the idea.
But there is something else that people often overlook when they claim that luck doesn't play much of a role in pro pool tournaments because a champion always wins. And that is the fact that if they had been playing under rules that did a decent job of minimizing the effects of luck, it might have been a different champion who won. A champion-vs.-champion match can be decided by luck.
I think this is a healthy little debate. I don't think this is a knock-out, drag-out like described in the other thread.
All I know is this:
In pool, I always feel as though there's a chance (even if it's a snowball's chance in hell... there's always a prayer) of winning a match almost no matter how I play.
In golf, there's nothing like playing in a nassau with a 2-down auto-bet while you're playing like shit and then spray your drive about 3 yards short of the largest weeping willow you've ever seen, with no line of sight to anywhere near where you need to go (while your opponent bash-fcks his drive 300 up the gut).
The feeling is so helpless, so desolate-like. Part of you wants to throw your clubs into the pond and storm off the course and another part of you is hoping your opponent chunks his shot and throws his back out.
In pool, your opponent can run a bunch of balls and dog the key ball and lose. In golf, each player has to get to the hole and hole-out. It's not like your opponent hits a green in regulation, misses a put and you tap it in for your birdie.
I've had countless rounds where I've made a bet on the tee and blow-up the first hole by hitting OB twice in a row. Golf scores build progressively. Meaning, if you hit OB (when there's pressure), it's now twice as hard (mentally / physically) to hit your next shot after you drop the ball. That means, when bad shit happens... it comes in FORCE.
Straight pool is the only pool game that's remotely close to golf, because each player must reach 100 or 150 (same as each player must finish the hole/round). One player can't make 149 balls, miss, and have the other guy tap the ball in and win.
All I know is this:
In pool, I always feel as though there's a chance (even if it's a snowball's chance in hell... there's always a prayer) of winning a match almost no matter how I play.
In golf, there's nothing like playing in a nassau with a 2-down auto-bet while you're playing like shit and then spray your drive about 3 yards short of the largest weeping willow you've ever seen, with no line of sight to anywhere near where you need to go (while your opponent bash-fcks his drive 300 up the gut).
The feeling is so helpless, so desolate-like. Part of you wants to throw your clubs into the pond and storm off the course and another part of you is hoping your opponent chunks his shot and throws his back out.
In pool, your opponent can run a bunch of balls and dog the key ball and lose. In golf, each player has to get to the hole and hole-out. It's not like your opponent hits a green in regulation, misses a put and you tap it in for your birdie.
I've had countless rounds where I've made a bet on the tee and blow-up the first hole by hitting OB twice in a row. Golf scores build progressively. Meaning, if you hit OB (when there's pressure), it's now twice as hard (mentally / physically) to hit your next shot after you drop the ball. That means, when bad shit happens... it comes in FORCE.
Straight pool is the only pool game that's remotely close to golf, because each player must reach 100 or 150 (same as each player must finish the hole/round). One player can't make 149 balls, miss, and have the other guy tap the ball in and win.
I understand what you are saying but I just don't think it comes down to it all that often. A couple of rolls aside, even in races to 7 the guy that played better in that match almost always wins. And the shorter races induces pressure for the players to overcome. Is there any pressure, for instance, on JA to play me in a race to 100? Nope. But in a race to 7 he knows he's got at least a little bit of risk. So the top pros that bring their best game to all his matches against lesser players during the event are the guys left standing at the end to duke it out. I kind of like this better than having races to 50 say, and having every tournament with only the top 8-16 guys entering with no prize money for the winner. Besides, there is no way around the short races given the amount of time it takes to complete a match play tournament.
Perhaps the way to accomplish both is to move away from total match play, kind of like they do in bowling. Have all the players competing against the field instead of one opponent. Suppose for the first day or two of the tournament everyone plays Bowlliards or Pool300 with each player playing 10-20 games. At the end on the last day, the top 8 guys get into the match play rounds with races to 25 of 8 Ball, 9 Ball, 10 Ball, or whatever. As a player I like it because it would eliminate all the waiting between matches. As a spectator I can look at the scoreboard at any point in time during the tournament and see where everyone actually stands in the tournament in relation to each other. Of course, it would take a complete change in the mindset of how we currently think of pool tournaments.
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Maybe I finally get it. Like I've mentioned previously - there is way more going on in golf. The golf swing is way more complicated and I see why people think the game is more difficult because of this.
What I sort of figured out now is that while hitting a golf ball accurately may be more difficult than hitting a cue ball accurately -- it is the way the games are setup that make it more difficult for a pool player to excel. You mentioned previously, that golf is designed in such a way that the better golfer will usually win. In a race to 7 or 9 in pool, that's not really the case.
I think Earl's original statement was really referring to how difficult it is to excel at tournament pool. If Tiger Woods constantly had to play match-play (I think that's what it's called) against a field of 64 players that even included club pros, and they played on random courses, playing only 3 holes - how do you think he would fare?