- Sessions Billiards Club at Tyger Manor Centre in Tygervalley celebrated its first anniversary on 26 July, highlighting its mission to promote billiards as a respectable and professional sport.
- Co-owner Craig Bouwer, who has played billiards worldwide, aims to dispel stereotypes and open the sport to new generations.
- The club offers a safe, clean, and family-friendly environment and runs a Junior Billiards Academy for children aged 9 to 18.
Gone are the days of associating a game of pool, formally known as billiards, in dodgy dives or pubs as Sessions Billiards Club at the Tyger Manor Centre in Tygervalley celebrated it’s first birthday in promoting the sport with class.
When co-owner Craig Bouwer returned to South Africa after decades of social and professional billiards playing, touring five continents, he set out to change the offering, ditch the stereotype and open the sport to a new generation of athletes.
The birthday bash, held on Friday 26 July, signified Sessions’ safe, clean, accessible and family-friendly environment where young players are encouraged and trained to the highest standards in a sport which has significant professional career opportunities.
Reasons to take a shot
Besides the attraction of turning pool into a professional career, or even going to the Olympics, the game provides numerous benefits for children, like:building confidence and socialising;encourages healthy competition;great hand-eye coordination;positive mindset in being present in the moment, focusing on an aim andthere is no shelf life on physical performance.
Bouwer praises billiards, “for not only helping me with confidence socially, but also with developing my patience and analytical thinking. These are key skills that have helped me throughout my life and in my career.”
Driving aim and passion
All the while, pursuing this sport socially allowed him to travel and earn some prize money along the way.
Even if you’ve been away from the game for a while, pool is one of the sports that never leaves you, Bouwer asserts.
“The passion is always there. It’s like therapy,” he jokes.
He believes in the opportunities that the sport can provide so much that Sessions Billiards Club invests largely in their Junior Billiards Academy where bootcamps, training sessions and tournaments are open to kids over the age of 9 to 18 years.
With the aim of encouraging young players to take up pool as an after-school activity, Bouwer is working with his own 10-year-old son on a structured curriculum that he can take to schools in the area. Sessions also sponsors eight players from Mitchells Plain, where there’s a thriving pool scene filled with talented young players, who simply need access to a proper environment to up their game.
He is joined in these coaching sessions by 17-year-old Marnitz Hawkes, a National Junior champion himself. Hawkes is something of a poster child for the new age of pool careers and Sessions, working at the club while being fully supported in his pool ambitions by his parents who home-school him to allow him time to dedicate himself to the sport.
- For more information, send an email to info@sessionsbc.co.za or visit www.sessionsbc.co.za
