How Shaun Murphy plans to 'break the mould' with multi-cue 'innovation' to adapt to 'playing conditions'

Shaun Murphy has had a brainwave. Given the varying playing conditions in different parts of the globe on the World Snooker Tour, he is planning to bring three cues into the arena in the near future.

They will each be designed to account for the way the balls react on any given cloth, particularly in places with high humidity.

He intends to select the cue best suited to the environment of the day.

“Very soon you will see me walk into the arena with more than one cue and based on the playing conditions of the day, I’ll choose cue one, two or three,” Murphy said at the recent European Masters in Germany.

“I’m happy to break the mould. We are about 50 years behind other sports like golf and tennis in terms of how players use technology to their advantage. I have golf professional friends that think we, as snooker players, are like cavemen when we expect one cue to perform the same everywhere around the world. That is just madness.”

Murphy has clearly given the matter thought. Rather than just hope for the best regardless of conditions, he is trying to give himself as much of an advantage as he can.

“I’m always looking to try and improve,” he said. “It’s been frustrating in my career running into these different types of conditions.

"In Shanghai it is very humid, in Germany the temperatures were off the scale. That affects the cloth and the way the balls spin around the table. It has been incredibly frustrating just having to accept it and move on, that isn’t very professional. We are a little bit behind and I’d like to have been earlier with these innovations. They are coming and hopefully they will make a difference.”

Other players look at this with not a little scepticism.

“It would be brain damage for me,” was Kyren Wilson’s response to Murphy’s idea. “It’s just the one cue for me and if conditions don’t suit it then I’ll just have to find a way of battling through it.”

Luca Brecel walked out at the Masters in 2018 with two cues. The one he had been using previously had been lost so he went back to an older model, but he also had a newer one and was undecided as to which was best. He lost to Mark Allen and the experiment was not repeated.

The practicalities of Murphy’s idea are unclear even before he reaches the arena. Conditions tend to be most variable outside of Britain but is it really credible to take three cues on a plane? There’s enough anxiety for players as it is as they gather at the baggage carousel to see if the familiar long rectangular case has made the journey with them. Brecel’s cue went missing recently after an exhibition in Seattle, only turning up weeks later and causing him much anxiety in the meantime.

Would Murphy put the three cues together in a case and risk losing all of them? Or would he attempt to check each one in separately? If so, he might have to win the tournament to break even on excess baggage.

The significance of all of this is that a snooker player’s cue feels too intimate a component part of what they do to be considered a mere piece of equipment. It is intrinsic to their identity, a partner when at the table, and history tells us that the relationship can be obsessive.

When Steve Davis appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1983 he claimed that he took his cue to bed with him. This is extreme devotion but illustrates the centrality of the piece of wood to a player’s entire psyche.

In May 1997, the Canadian Alain Robidoux had just enjoyed his best-ever season, reaching a ranking final in Germany, the World Championship semi-finals and achieving his highest ranking of ninth. He needed repair work done to his cue so sent it to the man who originally manufactured it.

The cue-maker was very much a traditionalist and, appalled at seeing a sponsor’s logo Robidoux had attached to the butt end of the cue, smashed it into four pieces. Angered and heartbroken in equal measure, Robidoux’s form and confidence collapsed. The following season he did not win a single match and was never the same again.

Stephen Hendry won seven world titles with a cue which often attracted derision. It was regularly said that you wouldn’t pick it out of a rack at a snooker club. The key point, though, is that it was Hendry’s cue and in his hands it turned into a magic wand.

It was stolen from his hotel room at the 1990 Grand Prix and his manager put up a £10,000 reward for its safe return, so central was it to the Hendry mystique.

In 2003, returning to the UK from a tournament in Asia, Hendry found the cue severely damaged by airport baggage handlers. It could not be restored to former glories and, even though he did win a few more titles, his aura of invincibility dwindled.

It’s not known how many cues Ronnie O’Sullivan has had, but it seems he hasn’t formed a particularly sentimental attachment to any of them. After losing to Graeme Dott in the semi-finals of the 2006 World Championship O’Sullivan gave his cue away to a boy in the crowd. Just days before the 2009 Masters, he smashed his own cue up after struggling in a practise session. Using a new model, he won the title the following week.

Players have been known to chop and change their cues, as if searching for a Holy Grail of perfection. It’s all about feel and touch. The ideal cue is like an extension of the arm.

It can become a psychological issue as players convince themselves that the problem lies with the wood in their hand, not what they are doing with it.

John Higgins has constantly tinkered with his cue, having it shortened at times or bits stuck on as he sought to find the ideal balance. Mark Allen won the 2020 Champion of Champions and immediately changed his cue even though there seemed to be no obvious problem with it.

Such experimenting can muddle a player’s mind. If they don’t have confidence in the cue, they have little confidence full stop.

Murphy is right that snooker has not exactly embraced technological change, but to what extent does the wheel need to be reinvented? Golf professionals may well look at snooker players and wonder if they are stuck in the past but, as Alan McManus dryly observed on Eurosport, ‘What do golfers know about snooker?’

And a genuine golf analogy would surely be if a player at the forthcoming Ryder Cup walked out with three different putters in their bag, not sure which one to use.

Maybe one of the best things about snooker is its relative simplicity – not the game itself, but the materials required to play it. It’s not dependant on who can afford the most advanced equipment.

Murphy has been the player of 2023, winning three ranking titles and playing some sublime snooker, especially in capturing the Players Championship in February, making 11 centuries in four matches.

Many observers would argue he is doing fine with his current cue. He doubtless hopes to be even more dangerous when he enters the arena fully tooled up.

Time will tell whether there is any merit to his idea or if this experiment is quickly forgotten.

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