Cue Action Woes!!!!

[jasond28]

Just recently I feel as I'm not hitting the cue ball where I want. I'm tending to strike higher than I'm actually aiming i.e. a screw shot will become a semi stun screw and a stun shot will have too much top spin.

Someone I was watching me play in a recent billiards tournament said that I wasn't striking the ball when my cue arm was vertical. I've often thought that my elbow drops far to early in my forward action. I need to get out of this bad habit as I feel I've lost a lot of consistency in my game.

Any help/practice routines would help.

[jasond28]

Anybody? LOL

[Belloz22]

Trying moving your bridge hand closer to the white..... and make sure the grip hand is pointing directly down to the floor when the tip is at the address position on the white. Once you hit the white the follow through is made up of the space between the grip hand and the chest. So by the time your cue ever rises you should have struck the white long before that. Also make sure you are keeping your head down on the shot..... sometimes you will unconciously get up during the shot and thus lift your cue. But my guess is you have already passed the grip hand veritical address point even before youve hit the white

[humperdingle]

This might be weird, but try practising without a cue ball. I was practising this earlier, against a white background (piece of A4 on the table, and a dot marked for reference.

Using my normal action, I found that the tip of the cue was ending up on the left of the dot consistently. My reason for doing this was that - during practice play - If I attempted a straight backward screw shot, the white would always veer left instead of straight back.

I now know that my swing forward isn't perfectly straight, but consistently to the left... Something I need to work on! But it means I always have unwanted left side on a screw shot.

[Terry Davidson]

jasond28:

Dropping the elbow prematurely (thus raising the tip) is a very common fault which a lot of players will do when using any power above medium pace.

In fact, I have this problem and I'm presently trying to control it. Everything is fine on lower power shots or when I shoot the spots with high power but when I get say a straight in black and I want to screw back off the cushion and out to the pink area I find my elbow drop and I get more stun that screw.

What I'm trying out right now is to try and keep the elbow up as high as I comfortably can when in the address position and try and keep it up as high as possible during the backswing and delivery. In order to keep the cue as level as possible on a longer backswing it's necessary to drop the elbow a bit and then on a higher power shot the elbow seems to drop automatically but for me a bit too much. I am trying to limit that forward elbow drop but still accelerate through the cueball and drive the grip hand to the chest.

To me it seems the way to 'get' this is to be sure to keep the grip relaxed and try and stay absolutely still on the backswing (another problem of mine). That seems to work and will give me tremendous screw power.

Terry

[j6uk]

Sounds like you could be miss timing the ball. This happens to everyone. It can throw your game right off and make a century break maker look kinda average. A player can end up looking for problems that aren't there, simply by miss timing the ball.

Just recently I feel as I'm not hitting the cue ball where I want. I'm tending to strike higher than I'm actually aiming i.e. a screw shot will become a semi stun screw and a stun shot will have too much top spin.

Someone I was watching me play in a recent billiards tournament said that I wasn't striking the ball when my cue arm was vertical. I've often thought that my elbow drops far to early in my forward action. I need to get out of this bad habit as I feel I've lost a lot of consistency in my game.

Any help/practice routines would help.

[luke-h]

Just recently I feel as I'm not hitting the cue ball where I want. I'm tending to strike higher than I'm actually aiming i.e. a screw shot will become a semi stun screw and a stun shot will have too much top spin.

Someone I was watching me play in a recent billiards tournament said that I wasn't striking the ball when my cue arm was vertical. I've often thought that my elbow drops far to early in my forward action. I need to get out of this bad habit as I feel I've lost a lot of consistency in my game.


Any help/practice routines would help.

i dont know if this will help but il tell you my situation, i have been playing with an off the shelf 100 quid cue which when i weighed it turned out it was 21 ounces and about 32 mill but size and i always felt like i had to grip the cue to get any kind of consistency or accuracy, iv since taken delivery of a one piece cue and its alot lighter 18.5 ounces and a slim but, i went to play with it yesterday and i feel as though i dont need half the grip and its not as heavy, i guess what im trying to say is it may be something to do with the cue lol

[viv0147]

A possible reason could be your grip is to tight if you are holding the cue too tight before you strike the ball when you strike the ball it automatically tightens which on times can cause the cue to lift. I am sure you have seen some players where the cue comes completely off their bridge.