Most professionals who have written instructional books have assumed that the grip is not very important. Why? Because they have not experienced any problems themselves. Their own talent for the game makes the grip come naturally to them.
Readers have usually been advised to pick up the cue as though they were going to hit someone over the head with it, but when it comes to striking a ball I think there is more to it than that, particularly for players who have not got that natural talent. We are looking for a grip which will enable a player to send the cue along in a straight line up to and well through the ball.
Since top professionals have so many different grips, it would be wrong to suggest which is right and which is wrong, so I am not going to advocate one grip for all players. It will be right if it is right for you. Experiment with several until you find one that suits you.
It could be that your wrist is turned out to the right, which naturally puts the grip more into the fingertips (1); you could have the wrist dead straight and in line with the forearm (2); or with the elbow jutting outwards, like Ray Reardon, which takes the grip more into the palm of the hand (3).
Reardon was thought to be very unorthodox in this respect but that didn't prevent him from winning six world titles. Could he possibly have done this if he had had a grip which prevented him cueing along a straight line?
Is it wrong when a world champion, the best player in the world at the time, has a grip with the wrist cocked slightly to the right? Unorthodox maybe, but effective for him.
Steve Davis does not conform to the accepted orthodoxy regarding the feet. He stands face on to the table but has a classically orthodox alignment of his elbow directly behind the cue.
He won his first two world titles with a grip which conventional coaching would have argued was wrong. As it happens, he did subsequently alter it.
How you grip your cue influences, in some cases, where your elbow is. You just cannot say that one is right and another is wrong. Remember that the grip (your back hand) is what you play Snooker with, and it should not be dismissed in just a few lines, as in most coaching books.
Patsy Fagan, the 1977 UK champion, used an extreme fingertip grip but developed a problem using the rest, freezing so badly that he could not even hit the cue ball.
I do not think he understood the other ways he was not in control of his cue. It could be that if he had had somebody to show him a better grip when he first started to play, he would have been an even better player.
Dennis Taylor, the 1985 world champion, also has a loose grip, though not as loose as Fagan's, with a large gap between the cue and the V formed by the web between his thumb and forefinger. Willie Thorne, who has made more 147 breaks than anyone else, hardly uses the V as his cue rests hard against the top of his forefinger. Terry Griffiths experimented with three or four different grips and finally settled for the firmer one with the V in con¬tact with the cue.
Your grip is all about feeling the cue, and that feeling has got to come into your game when you are playing differ¬ent types of shots.
In (4), the grip is one where the V formed by the thumb and forefinger is not in contact with the cue. In (5), the V is closed up with a much firmer grip and is in contact with the cue. Billiards players of old had a looser grip because power play seldom came into the game. Even Joe Davis had to close up his V to get a firmer grip for Snooker, which requires far more accuracy in terms of hitting the object ball on the necessary spot.
What matters in Snooker is straight cueing and getting through the cue ball. The right grip allows you to do this, and while there are a number of ways to look at and experiment with, they all achieve the same objective - sending the cue along in a straight line.
If a player feels more comfortable with his hand in a particular position, is able to send the cue along a straight line, can get well through the cue ball - and with that grip is capable of playing all the shots needed, quite simply that is the correct grip for him.
In their tens of thousands, local league amateurs grip the cue too tightly and, worst of all, grip it even tighter when a power shot is required. It is very important to keep your cue as horizontal as you can.
But if you grip the cue tightly with all the fingers when your cue arm is verti¬cal from wrist to elbow, you will auto¬matically lift the butt end above the hor¬izontal on your backswing.
This produces a scooping motion instead of a horizontal strike and causes some of the spectacular miscues which are seen when a player attempting a deep screw shot instead jumps the cue ball over the object ball.
When a professional does this it is almost invariably because tension has caused him to grip the cue more tightly than he knows he should. Many books say that the grip of the fingers should be just strong enough to pick up the cue from the table, but I would stress the importance of easing the grip of the second and third fingers as the cue swings back. Most professionals do this instinctively.
If you have a four-finger grip and keep the back finger on the cue on the backswing, it is bound to lift the cue above the horizontal. I would emphasize that the back fingers should be relaxed on the backswing. You can even lift the little finger off the cue altogether (6).
Steve Davis did not actually go as far as this, but there is no strength in the grip of his little finger on the backswing and I do not therefore believe that the little finger itself plays any significant part in the shot itself.
Most books advocate nipping the cue on impact with the cue ball but, once again, if the grip is too slack - if the cue is not in contact with the V - this could lead to a snatch on hitting the ball. With such a snatch, is it likely that you will be able to keep the cue on a straight line as it goes through the ball?
If, as I advocate, you have the cue flush with the V, you will feel the cue tighten against the V on the backswing. By taking the cue back with the first finger and thumb - at the same time relaxing the second and third fingers - you will automatically cock the wrist. Now there is no need to pinch the cue on impact. I repeat: the thumb and first finger should remain constant through¬out the stroke.
Jimmy White takes the cue back with the first finger, which gives him the immediate wrist cock which is the secret of his cue power. John Parrott has exceptional cue power and he, too, uses this method.
Watch him when he has finished a power shot; as with Steve Davis, only his forearm has moved. The rest of his body has remained perfectly still until the completion of the shot. How many players, even professionals, can claim this?
An extreme example to the contrary was Alex Higgins who constantly used body movement to generate power. When he was younger, with all his natural co-ordination and reflexes still in perfect shape, he got away with this a lot more than he did later.
