How to Fit a Cue Continued.

At one point I tried to come up with a 'standard' way to determine proper cue dimensions for players in two specific areas. I think overall length of a cue is important and I also believe butt diameter is important. Weight is important, but in my opinion it is only important in how it is relevant to one specific cue in the hands of one specific player. What I mean by that is if you and I tried the same cue it might feel perfect to you but feel heavy to me. I don't mean that the cue is physically too heavy. I mean that the distribution of the weight in the cue is wrong for the feel I am comfortable with. A players posture is essential to any discussion about what length (or weight in the previous sentence) cue is correct for a particular persons height. The use of a low and outstretched posture should probably dictate a longer cue, for his or her actual height, than a more upright posture would.

If you've read any of what I've written you know I draw from my experiences with golf. For many, many years golfers have had different grip sizes to choose from. The general thought is a player with smaller hands should use thinner grips and a player with bigger hands should use thicker grips. There are several different methods for 'determining' which grip is right for the individual player. The problem is things are never quite that simple. I, for example, use three different sizes of grips on my clubs. I use thin grips on my driver and longer clubs because thinner grips help with wrist action and that is what I want for my distance clubs. I use a slightly thicker grip on my middle irons because I want more accuracy than distance on those clubs. On my short irons (scoring clubs) I use thick grips to inhibit wrist action and give me the greatest accuracy. I don't advocate this for other player but it works for me. Thicker grips tend to promote a fade by reducing wrist action. Thinner grips tend to promote a draw by increasing wrist action.

The situation is similar with golf club length. There are fitting methods that measure the length of the arm and the height of the player and give a projection of the 'correct' length of clubs he or she should use. If we remove loft and lie angles from the discussion (thank God we don't have those to deal with in pool) those methods are of some benefit, but they are way off the mark in many cases. Different golf club manufactures have different standard lengths. They do typically make women's clubs an inch shorter than mens clubs because men tend to be a bit taller than women, but in my opinion that is somewhat sexist and arbitrary. The main difference for this discussion is in golf a player has different length clubs to choose from for different types of shots. Pool players have a break and jump cue for specialty shots but only one cue for all the other shots.

In my case I make my long clubs (like the driver) longer than standard length. That gives me more distance up to a point. I also make my short clubs much shorter than standard length. That gives me more accuracy especially when it is combined with the thicker grips. Here again I would not recommend this for other players. I occasionally play an entire round with only one club. When I do I typically choose a 7 iron. It is truly a middle of the road club. I'll come back to this later.

Most snooker cues are 57 inches even though the tables are ten or twelve feet. Snooker balls are much smaller and lighter than pool balls. True billiards tables (no pockets) are usually ten feet and the cues are typically 54 to 56 inches long. True billiard balls are larger and heavier than pool balls. Honestly pool cues may be on the long side for most people at 58 inches. Pool cue shaft tapers tend to be thinner and less stiff than snooker or true billiards cues. Joints on pool cues also tend to be thinner, so overall our cues are less stiff and more springy than snooker or true billiard cues. I personally make most cues with slightly thicker joints than average. My shaft taper is also a bit stiffer than most shafts. My personal belief is control is more important than action. That is why I use a 7 iron if I play a round with only one club. It gives me the best balance between control and distance (or action).

My preference is to play on nine foot tables. Eight foot tables are my second choice. I really don't much care for seven foot tables, but they are in very common use these days. I now believe one can only draw broad generalities when it comes to advice for choosing a cue. If a player plays predominately on larger tables a longer cue is probably a better choice unless an upright posture negates that need. If a players posture is long and low, a longer cue is probably better. Obviously younger and smaller players should have equipment more suited to their physical characteristics. As with golf grips, thinner butts promote more wrist action, which can either be good or bad. For the most part I believe this hurts the average player. He or she gets more action on the cue ball but sacrifices shotmaking. I believe a thicker butt is a more accurate butt. While I think it is unlikely, at this point, that cue manufacturers will offer butts in different diameters; there are differences in butt diameter in different brands. Pool players can also borrow a tip from Billiard players and put slip on sleeves over the wrap area on their cues to experiment with a thicker butt.

Laminated wood shafts, more conical shaft tapers and fiberglass coatings all tend to stiffen the shaft of pool cues. That is probably a good thing, but that does not mean I favor these trends. The motivation probably wasn't to build better cues. It was probably just to build them faster.