Sport: The Master Retires

If ever a professional so dominated his field as to deserve the misused term “genius,” that man was Billiard Master Willie Hoppe. A touring prodigy at nine, Willie deserted straight rail billiards in his early teens as too simple a game: at 13 he made a consecutive run of 2,000. At 18 he won his first world championship at the more difficult game of 18.1 balkline.* Since then he has consistently held the world’s best players at bay. Age has not noticeably withered Willie’s wizard touch with a cue. Now a silver-haired 65, he holds his twelfth world three-cushion bilHard title (TIME, March 17). Along Willie’s ivory-clicking way, he won 39 other world championships, and set exhibition records that may never be equaled (e.g., an 18.1 balkline run of 622; 25 points in a row in the difficult three-cushion game).

Last week, long since a living legend, Willie racked up his tournament cue for good. His “retirement” from competition will be spent in playing exhibitions for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co., the billiard and bowling equipment manufacturer that has sponsored Willie for 45 years. Although tournament players can now breathe more easily, Willie will doubtless go on dominating exhibition play. The old rocking chair that will finally get him away from the billiard table has probably not yet been built.

* In which, by lines drawn 18 in. from the rails, the billiard table is marked off into nine zones. From a given zone, at least one of the two object balls must be driven by the cue ball on each shot.