Turning Pro

[Tom Read]

Evening all,

Just wondering whether snooker players ever turn pro in their late 20s/30s. Every new player coming through are usually 17 or 18, so why is it that you don't see new players at the age of 30? I mean, is it ever too late to turn pro, or could you if you put in the practise and effort?

Cheers.

[bonoman1970]

If you are good enough you are old/young enough,
forget yr age ,just play to yr best,
Its rubbish to say its a young mans game ,look at the top players ,O/Sullivan ,Higgins,
Hendry,King, ect ect they are all in their late thirties,
the snooker greats are technically middle aged ,with the younger hotshots trailing far behind them, so forget your age and just play......age does not come into it ,
it is all in the mind,
the greatest Darts player in History is now in his fifties, do you think that Phil Taylor will ever say he is too old, I myself would not bet against him being the best in ten years time .

[ja.]

the snooker greatest didnt turn pros yesterday. talent and ability is something you're born with, if you're not good enough when you're 15-16-17 it wont magically happen for you when you're 30.

[RGCirencester]

The only thing that would have changed in your 30s is experience, and if you didnt't start when you were younger you wouldn't have that.
Theres technically nothing to stop you but if you weren't good enough when you were young you won't be when your 30. Unless you hadn't picked up a cue until you were 25 or somethng but ts unlikely that somebody hasn't played pool or some other cuesport before and found they had a talent at it that lead them to snooker.

[1lawyer]

I do not think age is a barrier, though having the time and dedication is....
There are some pro players that did not take the game up until later in life now. Generally though most start earlier. If you are good enough and you have the right backing and attitude there is no reason why someone in their 20's could not progress to being a pro. I think it would be refreshing to see this happen to someone.:snooker:

[Foxxx]

About that...

Could somebody,provide any information regarding on how to get in touch with the people in charge of the PIOs Series? or any info related to the requirements or entry fees...thanks in advance

[fswt30]

Snooker is a hard games...turning pro will take years of practice. You cannot tell a baby to run before she can walks. Some people start in thier 20/30s, i think its ok...they found and start to love the game. its for all aged...its a mind game to solve the puzzle. Wishing you have a nice game. most important enjoy the game.

[crissgran]

Well didn't Ray Reardon turn pro late? Look what he acheived, so anything is possible, just takes practice.

[JanieWatkins]

Well didn't Ray Reardon turn pro late? Look what he acheived, so anything is possible, just takes practice.

In Reardon's play it wasn't unusual for players to be past 30 before they turned pro.
There was no television to inspire young kids. Most clubs didn't let juniors in and all the players had full time jobs first and second in their spare time, so it took a lot longer to come up to the required standard.


I think the oldest recently to gain pro status will be Stephen Rowlings who's in his mid 30s and came through last season's PIOs

[Terry Davidson]

I believe the big disadvantage on turning pro later is you will miss the good competitive matches when you're in your maximum learning curve, which is the younger the better.

In a lot of sports, not only snooker, we see most of the really good pros started as kids and got into competitive play with the top players when they are quite young. Here I'm thinking golf, tennis, hockey, even football

The other thing is unless a kid is coached to death he will naturally pick out a style and technique which is more natural to him (see Ronnie or Hendry).

Also, since I'm near 65 now and still slugging away trying to improve my technique, I can tell you it sure seems to take longer for me to learn something. I think all my memory cells are filled up or something as I have to re-train myself if I take a coffee break!

[crissgran]

The best way round that.... one of those beer hats but with coffee instead that way you dnt need to take a break

[lk8]

I think the easiest explaination to this question is, no one age 20+ will have enough time to take up the game to play to today's standard as most likely he/she will be too busy with work and education commitments, and maybe even family and marriage commitments...

if you look at today's professionals, they started training since 8-10 year old, and work on their game full time 8 hours a day for 10 years, so if we conclude that it takes approx 10 years +/- 2 years full time training to become as good as today's standard to become professional, then we can clearly see that anyone taking the game that is older than 15-17 year old is too late, as if you are 15-17 year old, you will not have enough free time in the next 10 years of your life to dedicate to the sport of snooker! Not even if you're a millionaire as your parents would be more interested to get you into a proper education and job, therefore you're not really going to be seeing 25-30 year old new players to enter the pro tour...