User:Fuhghettaboutit/History of the billiards cue

All billiard games are regarded as having evolved into indoor pursuits from outdoor stick-and-ball lawn games (sometimes termed ground billiards), and thus the stick employed in early billiard games, called a mace, mast or masse, had a form and functionality growing out of those used in the lawn games. The very word "billiard" is thought to have evolved from the French word billart or billette, meaning "stick", (though the term's origin has also been ascribed to the French bille, meaning "ball"). The mace consisted of "a square-fronted box-wood head, attached to a fine ash pole, of some four of five feet in length" or, as described in 1611, "a short and thicke trunchion or cudgell ... wherewith we touch the ball at billyards". The mace head was made to lay flat upon the cloth, while the stick depending from it angled up to rest upon a player's shoulder, from which vantage point it was used to shove rather than strike the cue ball. Use of the mace was difficult when the ball sought to be moved was against a  because the foot of the mace would not fit under the edge of the cushion to allow a square strike. Thus, by 1670 experienced players often used the tail or butt end of the mace instead. The term "cue" itself comes from queue, the French word for "tail", in reference to this practice. This style of shooting led to the development of separate, footless cue sticks, first seen in the early part of the eighteenth century.

The cue was used initially as an adjunct to the mace. In those early days only skilled players in public billiard rooms were allowed to use cues because the fragile cloth of tables could easily be torn by novices. After a transitional period during which only the better players used cue sticks, by the late 1700s the cue came to be the first choice of equipment —at least for men—while women and children continued to use the mace until well into the 19th century. By about 1860 women were also commonly using cues but the idea that it was unbecoming for a woman to play with a cue persisted well past that time. Regardless of sex, the mace was all but obsolete by about 1900. The idea of the cue initially was to try to strike the cue ball as centrally as possible to avoid a ; that is, to avoid the cue tip glancing or slipping off the cue ball, thus not effectively transferring the intended force, almost always resulting in a bungled shot.

The concept of placing on the cue ball (e.g. by striking near the bottom of the cue ball to make it go backwards upon contact with an ) was discovered before the cue tip was invented. Cues initially had a flat-fronted end, which made slippage without a central hit inescapable. The first departure from a flat pointed cue was a beveled tip which allowed it to lay flush with the cloth. Such tips, called 'Jefferys,' were filed to increase friction and enable the wielder to impart a small degree of to the cue ball by a below center hit.

In or about 1790 a new practice of rounding off the entire tip further decreased slippage. Some publications credit Mingaud with not just the invention of the leather cue tip but with the practice of rounding off a cue's terminus, while other publications ascribe the practice to no particular author. Regardless, application of spin remained a hit or miss affair, with no fine control yet possible, and miscues still "unavoidable where hard wood came in contact with slippery ivory." Application of or "twist" (sometimes called "English", especially in North America) was at the time an unknown artform.

It is into this picture that the leather cue tip came, allowing the cue ball to be sharply and precisely struck below, above and to either side of its center point without a miscue (ultimately made even more reliable upon the common use of chalk to increase friction), thereby imparting controlled degrees of spin to it such that it might, upon contacting an object ball, stop or reverse direction upon the hit by the application of ; race forward chasing the struck ball by application of ; take widened or shortened angles off rails or throw a struck ball off the natural path it would otherwise take via ; curve in its flight using the ; and even describe magnificent arcs like a boomerang, traveling away from the striking cue tip, pausing in its path, hesitating, and returning to the sender without ever touching another ball or rail using a full  stroke. Before the advent of leather cue tip with its ability to grip the surface of the cue ball and apply controlled applications of spin, "let any billiard player imagine what the game was without [that ability]; the dark ages of billiards indeed must those benighted times have been."