Robert Byrne (author)

Robert Leo Byrne (1930 to 2016) was an American writer who became one of the best-known teachers of pool and billiards in the English-speaking world. Born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa, he trained as a civil engineer before moving into trade journalism and then, in 1977, into full-time writing. He wrote seven novels, five collections of humorous quotations and seven books on billiards, among them Byrne's Standard Book of Pool and Billiards, first published in 1978 and credited with sales of more than 500,000 copies, in which he coined the pool term squirt for the sideways deflection of the cue ball under sidespin. He also made instructional videos and wrote for Billiards Digest from its first issue in 1978. As a player he won national senior and amateur athletic club billiards championships in 1999 and finished third and fourth in national professional three-cushion championships. He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame for meritorious service in 2001.