Golf questions

SJDinPHX said:

Trust me Steve, You will never get a consensus on the rules of golf, even if Moses brought them down etched in stone.
The real golf hotbeds were Denver and Alb. NM, and they eventually sophisticated the rules to where they were pretty equitable.
In Colo. Springs, (only 60 miles from Denver) they played a radically different game.

Here in Phx, when golf was common, they had different rules, in pool rooms only blocks apart...go figure.

Without going into great detail, most places have accepted a set of rules for ring games, that will vary slightly from head up games played in the same joint. Lots of jangling over the rules, wherever you went...everybody thought theirs was the best, but some made absolutely no sense at all. Many were favored by room owners, just to milk the clock for more $$$ in the ring games.

The rules Calired described are a perfect example of that mindset.

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Not only do the rules change from room to room, sometimes they go around the opposite way and I have played in rooms that used regular pool balls instead of the smaller snooker balls. This was usually on a 6 x 12.

If you really want to go nuts, try playing Gypsy Golf the way they used to play at The House of Billiards at 6th & Western in Los Angeles years ago.

The only rules I insisted on when gambling fairly high was that the object ball had to come off the table after a foul and you had to hit a rail.

Poker Paul, from San Jose, and I took a road trip in the summer about 25 years ago and got golf action in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. I played in at least a dozen different rooms with different rules.

If they had a regular decent golf game going anywhere within 60 miles of me today, I would be there every day. The only reason I ever consider going down to Southern California is to play in the golf game at Hard Times in Bellflower. It has been the best game on the West Coast for years.

NH Steve said:

I actually own a copy of some kind of "official" golf rules that somebody published back about twenty years ago. It looked to me like these were the rules for some local golf league in FL, iirc, but I would have to dig it out to refresh my memory. I might be able to scan the basic rules (if I can sort them out from all the addendums, lol)

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Steve, as I understand it the BCA included golf in the Official Rules booklets sometime during the 70s. Have you got access to any copies of those?

Skin

Skin said:

Steve, as I understand it the BCA included golf in the Official Rules booklets sometime during the 70s. Have you got access to any copies of those?

Skin

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That was a different game, I believe. It was a "count your strokes" kind of around the table game, not at all like the advanced game that these guys are talking about.

NH Steve said:

That was a different game, I believe. It was a "count your strokes" kind of around the table game, not at all like the advanced game that these guys are talking about.

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Sounds like "Stymie", a golf game SJD talks a little about in this thread.

I know they played a bit of it in the San Jose/San Francisco area years ago.

Skin said:

Steve, as I understand it the BCA included golf in the Official Rules booklets sometime during the 70s. Have you got access to any copies of those?

Skin

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Actually my BCA rule book is from 1995, and the Golf rules are pretty close to the way we used to play it in Hollywood, and also at an Elk's club in north Calif. Re-reading those rules, it sounds like a good way to play.

Doc

I found my Golf book, it is called Official Rules and Directives for Billiard "Golf", by Kenneth LeBar. It refers a lot to Miami, Florida; the published address is Coral Gables. It dates from 1980. It has hilarious references to "Campy" "Kokomo Joe", "Johnny Irish" and "Spin-the-Ball George". It lists 92 rules!

Here is one just for example, rule #25: "After a snookered player decides to push-out, he must give the next shooter a visible piece of his Object-ball. He does not have to let the incoming shooter see the entire ball, as long as "Paint is showing", the incoming player is not snookered."

Incidentally, they describe starting the game with the cue ball in the "D" and the object ball on the "Seven spot".

How do I get a copy?

How do I get a copy?

NH Steve said:

I found my Golf book, it is called Official Rules and Directives for Billiard "Golf", by Kenneth LeBar. It refers a lot to Miami, Florida; the published address is Coral Gables. It dates from 1980. It has hilarious references to "Campy" "Kokomo Joe", "Johnny Irish" and "Spin-the-Ball George". It lists 92 rules!

Here is one just for example, rule #25: "After a snookered player decides to push-out, he must give the next shooter a visible piece of his Object-ball. He does not have to let the incoming shooter see the entire ball, as long as "Paint is showing", the incoming player is not snookered."

Incidentally, they describe starting the game with the cue ball in the "D" and the object ball on the "Seven spot".

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The book is probably about the old poolroom that used to exist in South Miami, Dinty Moore's. Camp is Marcel Camp, Kokomo Joe is Joe Ross who ran Moe's open-air pool room on South Beach, one of my original hangouts. Kokomo Joe was from NY and was unbeatable on Moe's tables, which were the worst I have ever played on. Spin the Ball George was just that, a player who spun the cue ball for proposition bets. I seldom stuck my nose in any of those golf games, the 5 x 10 or 6 x 12 versions, they played it way too good.

Beard

SJDinPHX said:

Many were favored by room owners, just to milk the clock for more $$$ in the ring games.

The rules Calired described are a perfect example of that mindset.

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I think our room might have been the exception to that

The owner, John Teerink (who spent a lot of time in Phoenix - his getaway location from Seattle during the winter) he was in alot of the games and because he was a damn good 3 cushion player, he was the one that won most of the games. His 3 cushion cronies were in the game too....We knew we had the disadvantage, but we figured in a ring game, anything could happen.

He made some mighty fine 4 and 5 rail kicks and banks though.

So in this case, the owner was milking the players directly from their wallet, not the table time. It was about 2.80 a hour so split up between 7 or so players, hardly nothing.

By the way, this book talks about both "One ball golf" and "Two ball golf". The two ball version apparently being a form of partners golf where instead of one ball per team, players have two balls per team. Partners are allowed to shoot at either of "their" balls when it is their shot.

Does this sound like a Florida variation?

NH Steve said:

Here is one just for example, rule #25: "After a snookered player decides to push-out, he must give the next shooter a visible piece of his Object-ball. He does not have to let the incoming shooter see the entire ball, as long as "Paint is showing", the incoming player is not snookered."

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In that situation, I believe we played that the incoming player had to be able to see the entire ball. Just like in the old "shoot out" 9-ball rules.

Doc

gulfportdoc said:

In that situation, I believe we played that the incoming player had to be able to see the entire ball. Just like in the old "shoot out" 9-ball rules.

Doc

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We never played that way in 9-ball -- we would just make the other guy shoot if he rolled out to where we couldn't see it. I thought that's the way it always was, but maybe not...

I never played "Golf", although they do play a local variation around here (which I have played), but it is really different. It uses all 15 balls, a wide open break. You can shoot any ball you want, in any pocket, but the object is to shoot the 1-ball first in the corner right hand pocket at the foot of the table (opposite big table "Golf"), and whenever the one is pocketed it goes back up right on the foot spot (not one of the snooker spots) and you keep shooting. Once the other balls are down they stay down and play just continues with the one ball. Both players are trying to go around the table with the one ball. You never go backwards via scratches (no matter how many scratches you are on).

This is the pocket order for "Around the World":

[CUETABLE]http://CueTable.com/P/?@3Achw4Bcxr1CefA1Dcpx2EcQt3FdQC@[/CUETABLE]

NH Steve said:

By the way, this book talks about both "One ball golf" and "Two ball golf". The two ball version apparently being a form of partners golf where instead of one ball per team, players have two balls per team. Partners are allowed to shoot at either of "their" balls when it is their shot.

Does this sound like a Florida variation?

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I was looking around the web for the BCA rules and stumbled across these rules, which are very close to how I was taught to play in Dallas (late 60s-early 70s). A British version of the game, I presume. No hickey count. Go back a hole on a foul. Shoot from the D with ob on the 5 spot...even the hole numbers too, as I recall.

http://www.snookergames.co.uk/games4.html

They also talk about a version where two players each are assigned two sets of balls - one for offense and one for defense like you say above. Imagine that game!

Skin

Two ball golf

Two ball golf

NH Steve said:

By the way, this book talks about both "One ball golf" and "Two ball golf". The two ball version apparently being a form of partners golf where instead of one ball per team, players have two balls per team. Partners are allowed to shoot at either of "their" balls when it is their shot.

Does this sound like a Florida variation?

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Yes, they played a lot of two ball golf at Congress Billiards in North Miami. It was the only golf game that I would periodically play in. A much more offensive game, many banks, whereas one ball was mostly kicks.

Beard