Larger Tip - True or False?

[Maverick54]

Been playing for years with a 9.5mm tip but as the eyes are failing now I appear to be struggling quite a bit to find the centre of the cue ball and am adding a bit of unwanted side on many an occasion.

Remember reading years back that using a larger tip can help in avoiding unwanted side. Is this true and what would the downsides be to changing to a larger tip?

[damienlch]

It certainly helped me strike the cue ball more accurately when I switched to playing with a larger tip size, i.e. from 9.5mm to 9.75mm.

You'd probably have to get used to the application of side with a larger sized tip and that's going to affect cue ball control. You might also find sighting down the tip to be kind of weird at first. But no biggie, I got used to it all that after a while and I certainly do feel the added pressure of hitting with a smaller tip being eased.

Well, basically more pros than cons for me although one of my mates felt he could not generate as much side as before. I told him to position the cue ball better then...

Be careful with cue modifications though... depending on the taper of the shaft, you might end up with too short a cue.

[sberry]

True, it will help but no need to change the cue, if the ferrule is currently 9.5mm just fit a 10mm tip mushroom style and give that a go.

[Maverick54]

Thanks guys nice to have my thoughts confirmed. Going try a 10mm tip and see how it goes.

[luke-h]

Its not so much the size, it's the way some people shape their tips, if you have a hard tip on and shape it overly domed not much of that tip is in contact with the white, conversely if you shaped that tip slightly more flat you probably would have better results

[djholly]

hi, although new to the tsf i've been playing snooker and pool for twenty years in local leagues. i recently sold my burwat champion cue and bought a smith and nelson sportsman cue. i've gone from a 10.25 tip to a 9.25 tip and i'm hitting the ball cleaner and seem to be getting more response off the cue ball. a few better players with smaller tipped cues use a seperate breaking cue with a 10mm tip and play with a 8 or 9mm tip.