PRACTICE DEVICES

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 12 September 1930, Page 8

PRACTICE DEVICES

IMPROVEMENT IN BILLIARDS

A form of practice likely to impr<m> ou-e-deiive-ry or beginners is to- place an ordinary matchbox cover on tliei t-abba, and try to pass Hie cue through it t-liree or tour times without- touching the sides', fsa-ys a well-known Pilliairdiot-, Tom Newman, in a contribution tq “Alt Sports Weekly.”) Obviously, this mast tend to teach straight cue-delivery, an indispensable asset, and 1 quite -believe- that useful pUayers will 'pass the Le>t every time, out that beginners knock the box all over the -Libit".

To make the- test of any value, if is obvious that the cue must be- delivered in the usual way. A (steady deliberate half-push intended to doi northing except “miss- the box” would not help at all, hut if taken in hand in tire- light spirit, I should say that this test will help many of my readers- to improve their cue delivery. 1 remember another ingenious mechanical contrivance designed to answer the same purpose more thoroughly and scientifically. It consisted -of a light wooden frame, something like the match box cover, but with no top to it-. This was mounted on a skeleton frame of wire at the end of which wa«, a stilfish wire to which a short cross - piece at the top was f-ast-ened. so that a thin fine dangling from the end of the dross-piece was dead facing the cue-tip after it passed through the frame. At the end of this line was a- tiny bead, not much bigger than the spot on the spot-bull, and’ the idea was to swing your cue through the -frame and hit the bead with your cue tip. By changing the length, of the Illicit was simple- to- (play to hit the bead high or low ’and obtain graduations equalling the-vertical 'line of the strtikable surface of a billiard ball. There is nothing to stop any n-esit-fingerod readier from making the applismeo for -himself and his- friends- from my- -rough description, when I will 'guarantee that a course of Hying to bit the bead will turn many a. twenty-breaker into a. 'far better player than he ever thought he would be.