Hüpper, Gerhard Dr.

Born in '29, majored in medicine and also studied sports science and psychology, later law and philosophy. Graduated in 1957 with a state examination and doctorate, then trained as a specialist in internal medicine. Scientific work on heart defects and post-myocardial infarction syndrome.  Settled in Münster (Westphalia) as an internist in 1967. Later part-time activity as a specialist journalist for economic, tax, EDP and insurance issues.

Sports activities: As a youth, athletics, artistic gymnastics, table tennis, judo.  Joined billiards at the age of 17.  First home club was the BC Herne-Stamm. Later stations were among others the Billardfreunde Düsseldorf with world record holder Siegfried Spielmann and the Münstersche Billardgesellschaft, where he formed the top duo in 1957/58 together with Joachim Eidner (German Champion 1962 in Cadre 71/2).
In 1957 he won the German national championship 1st class three-cushion in Düsseldorf.  This was the end of the career as a billiard player, because with the start of the professional activity as a doctor, the sport had to retire completely.

In 1967, the author discovered his love for golf, which by the way has many parallels to billiards.  The analysis of motion sequences and sports psychology had always been his focus.  After extensive research of his own, discussions with golf professionals, and study of international literature, he decided to undertake a major scientific study of golf.
In 1967, the author discovered his love for golf, which incidentally has many parallels to billiards.  The analysis of motion sequences and sports psychology had always been his focus.  After extensive research of his own, discussions with golf professionals and the study of international literature, he decided to write a large scientifically oriented handbook of the game of golf, which was published by HEEL in 1988 (now in its 3rd edition).

After the end of his professional activity Dr. Hüpper came back in contact with the billiard sport in Münster.  He had to realize that the development in three-cushion had made enormous progress, which unfortunately hardly found its expression in the German-language publications. The international literature was more productive, but difficult to obtain and not satisfactory in every respect.
This was followed by four years of intensive research in the practical and theoretical fields, focusing, among other things, on the questions of how to solve designs as reliably as possible and in what way systems and positional play help to significantly improve the results.  This resulted in a wealth of knowledge, which the author would now like to make available to a wider audience. Because of the size of the work - the complete work contains about 1800 illustrations, its preparation took another four years - a distribution into two volumes was unavoidable.

Gerhard Hüpper, MD, passed away on December 15, 2018, at the age of 89.