The Game of Pool

McDermott Cue started making cue sticks in 1975 in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Milwaukee.  Since then McDermott has made a reputation for themselves, and has become on of the most recognized names in the billiard industry.  The founder of McDermott Cue began in the world of billiards by repairing cues in the mid-1960s in his home in Milwaukee.  He went to local bars and poolrooms, picking up cues in need of repair and delivered the cues he had repaired.  He met Rollie Welch in 1966 who was a master at making pool cues.  He worked with him for a number of years learning how to make the cue he repaired.

In 1975 McDermott introduced their first line of cues.  Today McDermott has one of the most massive assortments of cues on the market today.  They make starter models and progress to the McDermott M8P4 Prestige Series IV, which is the cue known to use 24 K gold in the rings and the medallion.

In making their cues, McDermott utilizes over 150 separate procedures in the building of just one cue.  The shafts of their cues are all made from the finest Kiln-dried, hand-selected American Hard Rock maple, which has been turned 11 times.  The forearm and butt of each cue are handcrafted from the most unusual and finest, wood from all over the world.  The wood has been aged for 2 years and shaped by machine 3 separate times to ensure they are straight.

McDermott only uses the best wood they hand select from all over the world.  The wood is then aged for 18 months to 24 months.  During that time the wood will be turned and shaped by machine 3 different times, each time allowing the most moisture to escape from the wood to make sure each piece is perfectly straight.

In the making of the shaft, McDermott hand select the North American Hard Rock maple for straightness of grain, the best moisture content, and the white color.  Each shaft has been shaped, bored, and thread cut in order to create perfect uniform shafts and then turned 11 times, which will ensure the shafts are as straight as they can be and their roll is straight.

McDermott is known for its signature wood-to wood joint, which gives you the most solid hit.

The McDermott cues features a unique tip made from Water Buffalo Chrome tanned hide.  The tip is the medium hard triangle tip and they provide the best cue ball control and require less reshaping than most standard tips.

The ferrules used by McDermott are a fine weave linen based ivorine 3 and have been both hand glued and hand screwed on a wood tenon.  The result is the direct contact between the shaft and the tip, which gives you the most response at the point of contact,

The wrap used on the McDermott cues is genuine imported Irish linen, which has been securely wound around the grip, double-pressed, and polished for just the right fit and a smooth feel.  This will protect the grip from the elements and will absorb moisture from the hand.

Each cue is hand-stained with an exclusive organic pigment stain, which has been imported from Europe and has been made with the finest pigment in the world.  McDermott uses a stain, which is obviously top-quality when compared to the synthetic stains usually used by the competition in the industry.  It is famous for the even saturation of the wood.  Each cue is given 5 coats of the Ultra High-Luster urethane, which creates a scratch resistant surface.  McDermott cues have the best cloudless finish in the industry.

Is it pool? Is it billiards? What is it I’m playing on this green felt table that reminds me of a smooth, clipped lawn placed conveniently at waist level?

The resemblance is not accidental. It is almost certain that the game we know mostly in the U.S. and Canada as “pool” almost certainly derived from a game played outdoors. Games have been played with sticks and balls of every size and type imaginable since before records were kept. Shakespeare mentioned the game of billiards in Antony and Cleopatra. But something that we today would recognize as a pool game probably first evolved in the early 19th century in France and moved quickly to England and other countries. The French origin is deduced mainly because of the word “billiard” itself. The French word “billart” refers to a type of stick or club, which resembled today’s golf club and is thought to have led, also, to modern pool cues.

In the United States the terms “pool” and “billiards” or “pocket billiards” mean essentially the same thing depending on the area of the country. In Britain and the Netherlands the word “billiard” refers games with specific rules. The game in Britain is usually called “English Billiards” and in the Netherlands Carambole Billiards – in shorthand “billiards” but not used as it is in the U.S. to refer in general to any game where balls are hit into pockets on a table using a cue stick. The game came to the United States early in the history of the country, but really came into its own as a serious sport when a man named Michael Phelan came from Ireland in the 1850’s and began writing about it, designing tables and organizing tournaments.

As a generalization, the word “pool” is thought of as the common man’s term for billiards and this time we look to another sport on which people often wager their hard-earned money, horse racing! In the first incarnation of off-track betting men would gather in rooms to put their money together (or “pool” it) to figure out what the odds would be. Naturally, these places came to be known as “poolrooms.” To help entertain the men while they were waiting for races to begin these rooms usually had billiard tables. So interestingly, the name of the room came before the name of the game!

Today the game has a varied reputation. Some people think of it (and here we would be calling it “pool” not “billiards”) as a useless pastime for people who should put their time to better use, not to mention the money lost on betting on the game. Just think of Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man preaching in song against “Trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for POOL!” He was hired by a whole town to save their youngsters from the seduction of this tawdry occupation. On the other hand, international pool tournaments are now followed avidly by people in all walks of life and prizes run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hardly a waste of time for those who aspire to the heights of this lowly game!