Terry's Coaching Facility

[Neil Taperell]

Terry is your man by all accounts .

He likes to change his cue a few times as well.............not something a lot of members do

[Wayne G]

Les,

I've had several lessons with Terry. Well worth the drive.

[Terry Davidson]

Thanks guys. Right now my tournament schedule is a little sparse so I have lots of free time. Going to Dartmouth, NS to play in the Maritime Open weekend of 13th April and then our own ranking tourney the following weekend.

I am still using the #10 cloth and haven't yet tried out the Hainsworth Precision, but maybe at the end of this season.

Hoping to qualify to play in the World's (Masters Division) and perhaps do a little better this year as I was entirely lousy last year (drawing Darren Morgan in my group didn't help much either!).

Still using my MW cue although I had to repair a bad crack in the butt, which I managed to do using a great type of glue which expands the wood and seals the crack. Just have to get some ebony dust and complete the last stage of the repair to make the cue look as good as new. I seem to be playing well with it in practice but I also seem to be unable to carry my practice game into matches and I think that's due to stress which surfaces as a couple of bad glitches in my backswing and delivery. I may have stumbled upon a grip which gets me around that so I'll see in the Maritime Open coming up. Nice BCE Westbury steel-blocked tables there and I hope they have good cloths and balls.

Terry

[Neil Taperell]

Good luck Terry . Sounds like all you do is play Snooker ! i'm jealous .

How did you manage to crack the butt ?

[Terry Davidson]

neil:

I don't know how the butt cracked as I treat my cues very well, have a carpeted floor (don't bang the butt on the floor anyway) and I store it either on the table or in an open case. It was a 6" crack from the joint down into the first veneer and about 1/32" wide and there was also a smaller 2" crack in the ebony on the shaft side of the joint. Mike blamed the low humidity we have here in Canada in the winter (my facility gets down to around 28% in Jan/Feb) although I've had over 200 cues through here in the past 5 years and haven't had a cue crack like that in any of them.

I have managed to seal the crack with a glue specific for repairing hairline cracks in hardwood and now I just have to get the ebony dust and mix it with epoxy to complete the final stages of the repair. I wanted to try a repair myself as I didn't want to send the cue back to Mike and lose the cue for a month or two right in the middle of the season as it is an excellent playing cue. Mike didn't offer to repair the cue as he felt he was blameless but said he did have this problem with some cues sent to Canada and Finland which both have dry winters.

Unfortunately the cue was fairly expensive and has lost significant value and if I ever do sell it on I'll have to be honest with the buyer and show a picture of the butt, although the crack hasn't effected the playability of the cue at all.

Terry

[lesedwards]

Snooker & Golf

Hi Terry I was just reading an article in the Wellington published last August. I see we have a couple sports in common. You played professional Snooker but hooked on Golf and I played professional golf but hooked on Snooker. I put at least an hour on my table every day working on my Snooker Gym. I am in the brown chapter now with a high break of 32. Getting close but need help. We need to get together on the sports we are hooked on and help each other.....lol I am about an hour and 45 minutes from your place.

[Terry Davidson]

Les:

I haven't golfed since 2005 which was when I returned to Canada and decided to take up snooker seriously (but not to turn pro).

Also, I played on the Pro-Am circuit in Britain in the late 80's but the pro ranks were closed down at that time and I was never a professional, just a wannabee but I failed to make the top 8 amateurs in the pro ticket tournaments who got to play the bottom 8 pros for their tour tickets.

The best I reached was #30 on the Snooker Scene top 100 amateurs which the magazine used to keep track of every month. There were some really good amateur players around in those days and a large number of them did turn pro and a few were very successful on the pro tour. I left Britain in 1988 which was just before they opened up the pro ranks to almost any player who was willing to pay his fee and take his chances. I believe for a few seasons they had somewhere around 500 pros but I had returned to Canada as I needed to get a real job that paid the bills.

I gave up snooker and took up golf and got down to an 11 handicap but then in 2005 I did the reverse and gave up golf and took up snooker and had built my retirement house here in Alma with the room to put a 12ft table in the basement. It's worked out real well.

Terry