Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-12-19
QUAKER CITY GIRL
A REAL CUE STAR
Miss Clara Haywood Is Am
bilious to Win National Balk-
line Billiard Title.

| Miss Clara Catherine Haywood, the
| girl whose billiard playing is amazing
| the experts and who has attained n1em-
bership in the National Association of
Amateur Billiard Players, is seeking
| high cue honors.
Miss Haywood with due modesty says
that she is ambitious to win national
championship at 1872 balkline. She is
hopeful that the way will be opened
SO that she may possibly compete in
either the Glass or the Class A tour
naments, this season.
1T was my ambition to beat dad that
may properly be said to have been the
starting point of my love for billiards
and what l have accomplished at the
game" is the way Miss Haywood ex-
plains her devotion to the art of car
roms. Now she is considered the great
est woman amateur in the world at the
age of twenty-one years
Started Very Young.
While still schoolgirl Miss Haywood
displayed an intense interest in the
game of billiards. Had she been boy
she would have spent her skill at mar
! bles. Being a girl, however, with
small, oId-fashioned 4 12x9 table in her
| big. rambling homestead at CynWyd.
| Pa. the girl turned TO that. At that
tender age Miss Haywood was not suf-
iciently tall to bring off the ordinary
carroms 1t was often necessary to
stand on stool to reach for the cue
ball as il lay out on the table. Seeing
the fascination billiards possessed for
his daughter. her father. Joseph b. Hay
wood, undertook to teach her the inner
points of straight rail and cushion car
rom billiards as he knew them. me
\ he q
table in those days and once in while
her brother Jack. who is now an officer
with the United States Army in France,
took hand. The girl, however, was
always the master at the game.
| Judge Haywood. who is man OF
wealth in addition to his Pennsylvania
estate. owning a large plantation II,
Virginia, had friends who were IN the
habit Of visiting his country nome.
There they engaged Miss Clara at bill
| lizards. Tutored by men willing to
teach the charming girl all they knew.
II was not long before she exceIled any
| of them. At this time. Miss Haywood
admits. she devoted more time to Bill
| lizards than to her piano studies. The
friends of the Judge" came to believe
the girl a billiard genius Even A.
that age on the small table she could
work out runs of 80 and more. the
friends insisted that the girl have
competent teacher, with the result that
her father engaged the professional,
Harry Cline of Philadelphia, to instruct
her So proficient has the girl be-
come In two years Of teaching that
lexperts generally agree that she knows
as much about the game as Cline.
stroke Perfection Amazes.
| The perfection of stroke and touch
as Miss Haywood deftiy weaves and
carroms is the amazement of experts.
The girl, who Is of athletic figure and
who plays golf and tennis, is about
five feet ten inches tall. 1t is no un-
usual thing for her to stand at the
table and count runs ot 200 at straight
4 rail. turning the corners and doubling
the rail for reverse count: piece
i of execution only duplicated by the
late Wizard Schaefer and Napoleon
Ives. Miss Haywood has put together
impressive clusters OF more imam IVY
on several occasions at 1872 balkline
4 and she has made averages up 70 ~
at this style of competition Those
ttwho saw her in the ambulance fund
tches in Philadelphia were surprised
at the rapid breezy style of her cue
work and the wonderful dash and dar-
| ing of her masse shots. 1t Is matter
/ Of record that she did not miss once
4 on the masse.
/ Miss Haywood enthusiastically de-
Il clares that more women should under
l take to play billiards. as 1t affords mild
/ exercise suited to many of them, She
believes that it is a game at which
women naturally would excel, because
I it requires delicacy Of touch, the true
eve for measurement possessed by
most women and the intuition to ac-
complish results in new and unexpect-
| ed ways. In her recent games the girl
ably demonstrated the last contention
She was brilliant in extricating her
self whenever the ivory orbs rolled to
apparently hopeless positions.
/ All that women need is the oppor-
tunity to play billiards under pleasing
surroundings, according to Miss Hay
wood. She says there should be. more
rooms like the Recreation building in
4 Detroit, where it is not unusual to see
from twenty-five to fifty women play
ing at the tables.