cue ball and object ball players

[CoachGavin]

cue ball and object ball players

in tennis the target is the court and the point your aiming the ball at and yet the player looks at the ball. In golf the player is aiming for the hole and yet they look at the ball. In snooker the aim is the object ball yet it seems some players look at the cue ball which would fit with other sports. I have seen Hendy is slow motion and he looks to me that he looks at the cue ball on strike.

[tedisbill]

in tennis the target is the court and the point your aiming the ball at and yet the player looks at the ball. In golf the player is aiming for the hole and yet they look at the ball. In snooker the aim is the object ball yet it seems some players look at the cue ball which would fit with other sports. I have seen Hendy is slow motion and he looks to me that he looks at the cue ball on strike.

No. In golf you're aiming for a rough area (an area of the green for example).

In snooker you're not aiming for an "area" on the object ball, you're aiming for a very specific point.

[thelongbomber]

well they must be lazy, or arrogant and not willing to learn. once someone is a high standard potter, its quite easy to learn cue ball control. practicing different heights and power soon they will learn the direction the cueball is going as they don't to worry anymore about the pot

I will only speak from personal experience in telling you that I was at one point a VERY high standard potter. I could literally pot anything. I was potting without having an intimate understanding of how I was doing it. I could feel it through hand/eye coordination. But I was completely blind to cue ball control to the point where my friends would laugh at how many rescue pots I would make in a break and so famously got the "longbomber" nickname given to me. Over the years I refined and dissected cue action and figured out how to control the cue ball and get position and now am building breaks rather than falling into them by accident. It's still not perfect. Learning cue ball control after potting is a very long and arduous process and so I dispense theory on learning it early now.

I don't think so, if you are feathering and can see the tip keeps returning to the same spot, and then on the front pause its still point there, why would you not hit that spot as long as you don't move and cue smoothly.

The way our brain is wired, our hand will follow our eyes. If we take our eyes off the path that the cue ball is meant to travel, there is a very good chance the hand will follow. And so if we were cueing in a straight line through the cue ball, and then on final delivery, took our eyes off that path, our hand is likely to follow. It's the same as driving a car. You look at the road, not at the steering wheel. The hand will follow the eyes. It's hard to do, but if you cue through the white into the ghost ball on final delivery, the cue will remain straight. This is what I do on final delivery. I don't look at the cue ball, i look at the ghost ball. Since the ghost ball is actually the cue ball at some future moment in time, I think it's perfectly acceptable to look at the cue ball in feathering and trying to prepare myself to move the cue ball in some controlled way down the line of aim. I flick my eyes from the cue ball into the path it will take a few times, until I'm ready. I pause, and then ensure I hit the cue ball exactly as intended into ghost ball position. The majority of aiming and figuring the shot out is done while standing. On blind shots, I might occasionally verify ghost ball position by looking up at the object ball and/or pocket.

[CoachGavin]

cue ball and object ball players

I wouldn't call the hole in golf a rough area yet when putting a golfer looks at the ball. also I think that some players steer the white into the object ball and hit a thick contact on thin shots as they are looking at the object ball when in truth the contact point between object ball and cue ball is mid air.

[tedisbill]

I wouldn't call the hole in golf a rough area yet when putting a golfer looks at the ball. also I think that some players steer the white into the object ball and hit a thick contact on thin shots as they are looking at the object ball when in truth the contact point between object ball and cue ball is mid air.

It's a bit like hitting the cue ball directly into the pocket though. It doesn't require anything like the accuracy of contacting the object ball in exactly the correct spot.

[itsnoteasy]

No. In golf you're aiming for a rough area (an area of the green for example).

In snooker you're not aiming for an "area" on the object ball, you're aiming for a very specific point.

Yep totally agree.

[itsnoteasy]

I wouldn't call the hole in golf a rough area yet when putting a golfer looks at the ball. also I think that some players steer the white into the object ball and hit a thick contact on thin shots as they are looking at the object ball when in truth the contact point between object ball and cue ball is mid air.

Sorry but the contact point between cue ball and object ball is never in mid air.

[golferson123]

Think he meant tip and thin air

[itsnoteasy]

in tennis the target is the court and the point your aiming the ball at and yet the player looks at the ball. In golf the player is aiming for the hole and yet they look at the ball. In snooker the aim is the object ball yet it seems some players look at the cue ball which would fit with other sports. I have seen Hendy is slow motion and he looks to me that he looks at the cue ball on strike.

Could you post up any footage you have seen of Hendry looking at the cue ball CoachGavin, so I could check it for myself, i have tried to find him doing it but I can't find any, but I couldn't say he never does it, as I said before when I watched the Higgins footage CyberHeater put up I would have sworn he was looking at the cue ball, but slow it down and he clearly isn't .

[lesedwards]

All I can say is Longbomber is onto something. I have been following his guidance for the past two weeks trying to practice every night which is tough this time of year but it is working. In this exact sequence.
1. Stand behind CB put nose on the line and decide on the shot I want to play.
2. Walk into shot and drop down onto the line I have chose.
3. Check my alignment to make sure it visually looks right.
4. Feather 3 times looking at CB then Front pause
5. At front pause look at ghost ball
6. As CB strikes OB my eyes go directly at a split second to CB and follow the CB till it stops, also staying down till it stops.
Depending on the angle of the pot I might not even see the OB go in the pocket.
Two things improved right off the word go, I now follow through with the cue instead of jabbing at it, also because my eyes go directly at a split second to the CB instead of the pocket it has stopped me from steering the cue towards the pocket.

[DandyA]

All I can say is Longbomber is onto something. I have been following his guidance for the past two weeks trying to practice every night which is tough this time of year but it is working. In this exact sequence.
1. Stand behind CB put nose on the line and decide on the shot I want to play.
2. Walk into shot and drop down onto the line I have chose.
3. Check my alignment to make sure it visually looks right.
4. Feather 3 times looking at CB then Front pause
5. At front pause look at ghost ball
6. As CB strikes OB my eyes go directly at a split second to CB and follow the CB till it stops, also staying down till it stops.
Depending on the angle of the pot I might not even see the OB go in the pocket.
Two things improved right off the word go, I now follow through with the cue instead of jabbing at it, also because my eyes go directly at a split second to the CB instead of the pocket it has stopped me from steering the cue towards the pocket.

where are you looking between 5 and 6 Les? ie during the final backswing and up until you hit the cueball with the cue ... 6 is very late in the action ...

[CoachGavin]

cue ball and object ball players

I visited Terry Griffiths in Wales and he has software that can study the techniques of players being coached. He has videos of the top players playing certain shots to compare cue actions. It was here that I saw Hendry in slow motion looking at the cueball.

[DandyA]

Two things improved right off the word go, I now follow through with the cue instead of jabbing at it, also because my eyes go directly at a split second to the CB instead of the pocket it has stopped me from steering the cue towards the pocket.

these are both good news, well done Les, keep up the good work ...

[alabadi]

5. At front pause look at ghost ball

The ghost ball is imaginary , not physical So can't be seen. What you are looking at is the OB or precisely the contact point or coverage

All these are just different methods of aiming.

And as bomber said the hand follows the eyes so if one looks at the cue ball on delivery there's always the risk to look before it it make contact and try steering

[Byrom]

I visited Terry Griffiths in Wales and he has software that can study the techniques of players being coached. He has videos of the top players playing certain shots to compare cue actions. It was here that I saw Hendry in slow motion looking at the cueball.

so it sounds like me been doing it all wrong all these years then? -I'm so embarrassed now I don't know where to look.