BILLIARDS MAGIC

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1930, Page 7

BILLIARDS MAGIC

CUE AS A WAND. THE WORLD’S BEST PLAYER LONDON, December 3. There is such a thing n.s a magic wand after all. 1 saw one in use at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon-street, “E.C., yesterday afternoon. The Wizard who wielded it, Walter Lindruin, the Australian who is proving himself the greatest Milliards player who ever lived, used it to perform feats that Cinquevalli would have marvelled at. If Lindrum had worn a flowing Oriental robe, hemmed with gold and stitched with silken orchids, I should have expected his magic to bo cheered- to the echo. Instead, he wore a brown suit, from which lie had discarded the jacket, and had a black tie that •looked like a stab in the throat against his black shirt. That, I am sure, is the only reason why we had nothing but low murmurs of applause—like the scraping of a cue tip on chalk—from the blackness of the hall in which cigars and cigarettes glowed like a plague of fireflies. One sees Smith, his opponent, leave the table. Lindrum walks out of the darkness into the patch of light and plunges his magic wand into the full glare of the ares. Unless you are an expert at the game you do not realise he has scored until he reaches his third or fourth cannon. He is as quick as that. You are just realising that ha is a short, dark-haired, young-looking Australian with a bronzed, clean-shaven face stamped with a, permament smile when you find that his score is in' the fifties. Quite clever amateurs, I am told, would write to their relatives on reaching such a total. Lindrum just wears a “hope-I-break-my-duck” look.

CHILD’S PLAY. There is someone chanting the score as each addition is made to it. At times one feels for the man.' One hopes that Lindrum will slacken up if only to let him take a breath. He disposes of shots that would earn “Oh, well done sir!” in a West End club at the rate of ten a minute Ami no one says “Well done.” It is one thing to make a ball touch another and then yet a third, which I «m told is called a connon. It'is another to score in this way and leave the three just where you want them for the next stroke. All that seems to be child’s play to Lindrum. But he knows where the balls are coming to rest the moment lie strikes. He takes up a new stand before they have finished rolling. He has struck ■again while you are wondering what his tactics should be in such circumstances. And‘he is in his new position while the balls are still on the move. He keeps the novice’s mind following up three strokes behind. Alter lie lias carried his permanent half-smile to his dressing-room you go there expecting to find him in the hands of experts who wrap his hands In oiled fabrics.

“PRACTICE, PRACTICE.” Instead he just vaults on to a table putting all his weight on those treasured hands of his, and sprawls at ease confessing that he is tired after an arduous session. He tells you that it is only by playyourself into tiredness that you can hope to become a champion. “Practice, practice, practice,” is his recipe. “Practise until your back aches.” In this way lie was able to get his first 100 break as a. schoolboy of 12 and, emulating In's father and brother, became champion of Australia in succession to them. To-day he is the world’s greatest player.