Screw shots and confidence

[levon]

Yesterday at my regular practice session i've suddenly lost my confidence on a screw shots. It's like i've never played this shot before, completely lost the touch. Cue ball was jumping over the object ball. I know that such a things can happen but i had a strange feeling, becouse it's a shot that i've made a hundreds times.
I've decided to leave the screw shots and go on and playing other shots to build up my confidence. After one hour i tried to make a screw shot again and felt that it came back to me.
Do you have any other suggestions?

[BoBnoGG!n]

could be the tip, could be a bad day.

some days u might b hitting too hard, forcing too much, not hitting with a clean follow through, but jabbing and making it jump.

tip's life might be up, if the tip is worn down and hard, maybe this could be why its affecting the shot.

try not to let it get to u, and keep trying. maybe youve changed somehting in your technique. dont giv up =]

[Freddie Ng]

There are some old thread about screw shots. Look through it, maybe you will find your mistakes and get it right from there.
Make sure you cue tip and technique is correct like Bob said. And you don't need to go too low to get a nice screw back..

[mick.hinde]

I had the same problem about three weeks ago. It was so bad I actually rang my instructor to talk through the problem there and then. After a little while of going through the common factors he advised me to feel as if the grip was coming on after the tip hits the ball(it doesn't actually do so, it is just a feeling of doing so). The problem was rectified immediatly. Hope this helps.

[levon]

Well, the cue tip is ok and i wasn't distracted by nothing. The grip was loose and I was doing it like always. I always start my practice session with simple shots to the middle pockets (stuns, follow through and screw) and then the same straight long shots with the blue ball to a side pockets. All the shots beside the screws were ok. Probably something went wrong, and then it just came back to me on it's own and i was doing it as usual. I don't have an instructor so i could not talk to anybody. Next time i'll try to analyse what goes wrong.
Thank you guys, i'll look through the old threads.

[Terry Davidson]

If the tip was OK and your grip was nice and loose then the only other cause of mis-cueing would be head/shoulder movement on the shot.

Concentrate on keeping your chin on the cue throughout the stroke and this includes the feathering, backswing and delivery. Remember to bring the grip hand through to the chest on every shot and that is an absolutel must on screw shots

Terry

[levon]

Thank you for the advice Terry, i'll remember it.

[cantpotforshíte]

I know you have said that the grip was loose, but unless somebody else is watching you, it's very difficult to see for yourself if you tighten the grip as you follow through. An awful lot of players do this - me included - and as you tighten your grip, the butt end of the cue raises slightly, and the tip end goes down slightly, causing the jump.
The other unwanted effect it has is causing to you to cue across the ball. If you miss long pots by a long way when applying bottom, then this could be why.

[levon]

I know you have said that the grip was loose, but unless somebody else is watching you, it's very difficult to see for yourself if you tighten the grip as you follow through. An awful lot of players do this - me included - and as you tighten your grip, the butt end of the cue raises slightly, and the tip end goes down slightly, causing the jump.
The other unwanted effect it has is causing to you to cue across the ball. If you miss long pots by a long way when applying bottom, then this could be why.

The follow through shots across the middle pockets were perfect, so as a cue ball and a blue ball went to the same corner pocket, about 5 of 10 shots in a long straight line up. The stuns were perfect too, only a screws were messed.
Anyway, today i was practicing the screw shots, i've made a lots of it and everything was great. I guess it was temporary.

Thank you!

[Freddie Ng]

Good that everything works fine again.. keep up the good work

[tepe]

I had similar problem few days ago. Several miscueing with screw shot.
What I did was doing same shots with closed eyes. Closing my eyes just before last back swing and delivery. It really helped me, I didn't do anything stupid during delivery.

[golferson123]

sorry to hear that, once you misscue like that you become frightened of doing it again so you tighten up and heypresto! one really good tip to make sure you follow through is to practice just with the white! place it 6 inches from the cue tip and just keep hitting it it makes you cue straight and level