Cecil P. "Buddy" Hall has been an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 professional pool

Pocket billiards

Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...

 player for three decades. The International Pool Tour

International Pool Tour

The International Pool Tour is a professional sports tour created in 2005 by Kevin Trudeau and hosted by Rebecca Grant. It aims to elevate pool to the level of other modern sports. Closely modeled on the PGA Tour, the IPT offered the largest prize funds in pool history in its first year. The tour...

 heralds Hall as a "living pool legend." He is nicknamed "The Rifleman" for his accuracy.

Hall has been credited for creating the "clock system" which is a technique for where to hit the cue-ball, using the clock as a mechanism for where to aim.

Hall began playing at 14 years of age in a soda shop in his home town. When local pool rooms would not let him enter because of his age, he used subterfuge to obtain a new birth certificate from a local judge which stated he was of legal age. He cut his teeth at Herbie Lynn's pool room and was soon dominating the regulars. It was not long before he hit the road to try his hand at a wider playing field. He first gained some prominence at the Johnson City tournaments.

I went there to watch all the greats of the day play. Wimpy, Jersey Red, Eddie Taylor, Cornbread Red, Harold Worst, Jimmy Moore, Fats and U.J. were playing one another in both the tournament and in backroom ring games. I entered and was very pleased when I beat Wimpy and Jersey Red and won my entry fee back.

In the following years, Johnson City lost out as the hub of top tier tournament play to Dayton, Ohio

Dayton, Ohio

Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...

. There, organizer Joe Burns instituted a similar all-around tournaments to the format that had been used in Johnosn City. Hall played in the Dayton Tournaments for many years. He took first place there in 1974 winning $4,000. In 1982 Buddy won the Caesar's Tahoe Nine-ball Championship by edging out Allen Hopkins in the final with a score of 11-6, winning $33,500 for his efforts; an unprecedented purse at the time. ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

's announcement of Halls' win was the first ever mention of a billiard player on that cable television network.

Career

Buddy Hall was the thirty-ninth inductee in the Billiards Congress of America's Hall of Fame, in the year 2000. He was named Player of the Year by the pool media, to include The National Billiard News and Pool and Billiards Magazine, in 1982, 1991, and 1998. A profile of Hall appeared in The Hustler column of the inaugural issue of The Snap Magazine

The Snap Magazine

The Snap Magazine is a popular American pool periodical that was published in the late 1980s and early 1990s...

, a story reputed to have "... in many ways set the tone for the magazine from there on out." He is currently a member of the International Pool Tour

International Pool Tour

The International Pool Tour is a professional sports tour created in 2005 by Kevin Trudeau and hosted by Rebecca Grant. It aims to elevate pool to the level of other modern sports. Closely modeled on the PGA Tour, the IPT offered the largest prize funds in pool history in its first year. The tour...

 and still competes on various regional tours and senior events throughout the United States.

Titles

• 1998 Camel Shooters Nine-ball Open
• 1998 U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship
• 1995 PBC Commonwealth Shootout
• 1992 MPBA Bicycle Club Invitational
• 1992 International Challenge of Champions
  International Challenge of Champions
  The International Challenge of Champions is an annual nine-ball pool tournament held at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. It has always been broadcast on ESPN and is sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association...
  
  
• 1992 MPBA Rakm Up Classic
• 1991 International Nine-ball Classic
• 1991 US Open Nine-ball Championship
• 1991 MPBA International Classic
• 1987 Glass City Open
• 1987 Colorado Open
• 1987 Carolina's Cup
• 1987 Lexington Open
• 1986 Fall Classic
• 1986 Cue Club Open
• 1986 Super Bowl Open
• 1986 Memorial Day Open
• 1985 Gibbs Nine-Ball Shootout
• 1985 Charlotte Open
• 1985 East Coast Open
• 1985 Cowboy Casino Nine-ball Championship
• 1984 World Nine-Ball Open
• 1984 Caesars Tahoe Classic
• 1984 Dayton Open
• 1983 Dayton Open 9-ball Championship
• 1983 Caesar's Tahoe Nine-ball Championship
• 1982 Caesar's Tahoe Nine-ball Championship