But it is true of golf that you will find it impossible to avoid being compelled some time or other to play with a club you have little confidence in, and to negotiate distances you hate. The billiard balls, formerly made of ivory or Belgian clay, are now usually plastic; they each measure from about 21/4 to 23/8 inches (5.7 to 6 cm) in diameter, the larger balls being used in carom billiards. If you can tease out the pattern’s underlying chaotic systems, you can effect a measure of control over randomness and turn instability into an asset. He has lost some of his length, he cannot force a ball out of its bunker as he did formerly, and his eye is not quick at judging the distance of about eighty yards which he has to carry to get over some danger. One man insists on having his caddie and everybody he may be playing with, fixed behind his back and nowhere else-on the absurd ground, I suppose, that if they take up their position in any other spot they catch his eye. Set such a man on a putting-green with a putter and three or four balls, and he will very likely putt as well as the best professional; ask him to drive or play a brassey and he will be nowhere.

If a man is off his drive he nevertheless has to play with his driver or brassey off the tee, what is billiards for to drive with a cleek is ignominious and fatiguing withal. At Sandwich, therefore, you can with truth remark that the match cannot be won by the bad driver. Combos can be incredibly useful when executed correctly, allowing you to clear multiple balls from the table in a single turn. Snooker is also one of the cue sports that is played with cues on a six-pocket table. Snooker is played on a table similar to a pool table but uses nine to 15 balls. For example, they play snooker on a pool table, where a professional table measures seven feet long and 3.5 feet wide. The game of snooker is primarily British and is played to a small degree in the Americas. This makes snooker the youngest of the three. Carom, or French, billiards is played with three balls on a table that has no pockets. The cloth on a billiard table plays a crucial role in determining the speed and accuracy of shots.

Why is it more of a trial to nerves than billiards, which is wholly a question of strength with a reasonable amount of accuracy? When people talk about billiards, they mean The Carom or carambola billiards. All billiards games require the basic equipment of a table, cue sticks, and balls. You play with the same cue at billiards, with the same bat at cricket, with the same mallet at croquet, with the same racquet at tennis, lawn-tennis, and racquets; golf is the only game in the world, as far as I know, where it is absolutely necessary to have a minimum number of five or six clubs to play a game with. In billiards it is equally true to say that only a few men play equally well at different shots, the long losing hazard or the long winner, the screw, follow on, &c.; but at billiards it is far easier to regulate and engineer your game so as to avoid having to attempt a stroke you cannot play. In like manner, if a young golfer makes up his mind that he will not allow himself to be disturbed if a rook flies across the line of play, or his opponent talks to his caddie, he will find that such things will not disturb him and he will enjoy the game more himself and be a far pleasanter companion and opponent to everybody else.

The bad-tempered golfer is a nuisance and anxiety to himself and his friends; indeed I have seen it come to such a pass that, though a man may have friends anywhere else, they are not to be found on the links. You can let anything grow upon you if you permit it to do so, and why should we expect a man to have disciplined himself in his youth to avoid gluttony or any other pleasing vice, and not have feelings of scorn for the golfer who has allowed every absurd fad to take such possession of him that he is a slave to them, and an annoyance to himself and a nuisance to his fellow-creatures. I do not pretend to say that an average player is always "off" with this or that club, but as every golfer knows there come times or spells of times when all skill with one class of club seems to vanish. In a long hole of over four hundred yards, the golfer need not bother his head about strength for the first two strokes; he has to hit both these as hard as he can-there is no nice calculation of less or more.