Round Is Not Good Enough
Many people think that because a ball is round it will roll properly, given a specific flatness of a surface. Indeed, even a billiard table is rarely “flat” as the wear and nap of the cloth may cause a ball to not roll straight. But, even more important to understand is that a billiard ball must be balanced as well as round. There are different qualities of billiard balls as well as different qualities of billiard table cloth. The better the quality of balls, slate, table structure and even billiard cue, the better the player will be able to deal with the variances of the game. Billiard ball manufacture has come a long way from the Scottish beginnings of wooden balls on a grassy plateau. Some even think that billiard playing was a precursor to the game of golf, but that still needs to be proven. These days’ billiard balls are made of a durable phenolic resin, polyester or acrylic to maintain a very high standard of balance and longevity as opposed to the earlier ivory made balls that most people identify as billiard ball material.
