Terry Griffiths
Terence Martin Griffiths was a Welsh professional snooker player, coach, and commentator. He won several amateur championships, including the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1975 and consecutive English Amateur Championship titles in 1977 and 1978, before turning professional in 1978 at the age of 30.
Griffiths won the 1979 World Snooker Championship as a qualifier, defeating Alex Higgins in the quarter-finals, Eddie Charlton in the semi-finals, and Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the final. He was only the second qualifier to win the World Championship, after Higgins in 1972; only Shaun Murphy and Zhao Xintong have repeated the feat. He reached a second World Championship final in 1988, losing 11–18 to Steve Davis after being level at 8–8.
Between 1984 and 1992, Griffiths reached at least the quarter-finals of the World Championship for nine consecutive years. He won the Masters in 1980 and the UK Championship in 1982, completing snooker’s Triple Crown. He was also runner-up at the Masters three times and reached the final of the 1989 European Open, losing the to John Parrott.
Later in his career, Griffiths focused on coaching and mentoring, serving as the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's director of coaching. He worked with several leading players, including Stephen Hendry, Mark Williams, and Ding Junhui. Griffiths retired from professional competition in 1997 and died in December 2024, aged 77, following a prolonged illness related to dementia.
Early years
Griffiths was born in Llanelli on 16 October 1947. He was admitted to a grammar school but was expelled for truancy and became a student at a secondary modern school, where he played rugby union with future Welsh national-team members Phil Bennett and Derek Quinnell. Griffiths began playing snooker when he was 14. After leaving school at 15, he worked as a blacksmith's apprentice and as a coal miner and became the youngest winner of the Llanelli and District snooker championship at age 16. Griffiths subsequently began working as a bus conductor, a job which gave him more time to practise. He later worked as a postman and as an insurance salesman.At age 17, Griffiths won the West Wales snooker championship. When he was 18 and working as a bus conductor, he met Annette Jones; they married in 1969. They had their first son, Wayne, a year and a half after their wedding, and their other son, Darren, two years later. Griffiths compiled his first century break at age 24, the first year he entered the Welsh Amateur Championship. Griffiths played in the amateur home internationals fourteen times, winning twelve of his matches; after winning the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1975, he reached the quarter-finals of the 1976 World Amateur Snooker Championship. He won the English Amateur Championship in 1977, defeating Sid Hood 13–3 in the final, and retained the title the following year, winning the final 13–6 against Joe Johnson.
Professional career
1978–1982
Griffiths became a professional player on 1 June 1978 after he was accepted as a member by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association at its meeting during the 1978 World Snooker Championship. Anticipating his acceptance as a professional, Snooker Scene said in May 1978 that "his power screws and long potting are second to no one's ... it will not be in the least surprising, if very soon he becomes a serious challenger for snooker's top professional titles."In his first professional match, qualifying for the 1978 UK Championship, Griffiths lost 8–9 to Rex Williams after leading 8–2. Williams took a 2–1 lead; Griffiths won the next seven frames, and Williams took the following seven. In the, Griffiths rushed when potting the and went, a shot. Williams later potted the pink for the victory. After qualifying for the 1979 World Championship by eliminating Bernard Bennett 9–2 and Jim Meadowcroft 9–6, Griffiths defeated the previous year's runner-up Perrie Mans 13–8 in the first round and Alex Higgins 13–12 in the quarter-finals. After beating Eddie Charlton 19–17 in a long semi-final which finished at 1:40 am, Griffiths told interviewer David Vine: "I'm in the final now, you know." In the final, he faced Dennis Taylor, who had been a professional since 1973 and was also playing in his first World Championship final. The match was close for the first four of the six and level at 15–15 before Griffiths took a 17–16 lead and won 24–16, becoming World Champion at his first attempt. It was Griffiths's second tournament as a professional. The result saw him placed eighth in the 1979/1980 world rankings. He was the second player to win the championship after playing in qualifying, and the first to win it as a qualifier at the Crucible in Sheffield, the venue for the championship since 1977. As of 2025, only two other players have achieved the feat, Shaun Murphy in 2005, and Zhao Xintong in 2025.
Griffiths reached the final of the 1979 Canadian Open the following season, losing 16–17 to Cliff Thorburn, and was part of the Welsh team that won the inaugural World Cup of snooker; Ray Reardon, Doug Mountjoy and Griffiths defeated England 14–3 in the final. At the end of 1979, Griffiths faced John Virgo in the UK Championship final. Virgo had been penalised two frames for arriving late to a session, which reduced his lead to 9–11. When the scores were 11–11, Griffiths offered to split the prize money. Virgo declined and went on to win the match 14–13.
Griffiths was named the BBC Cymru Wales Sports Personality of the Year for 1979, and was the subject for a This Is Your Life episode the following year. He won the 1980 Masters, defeating Higgins 9–5 in front of 2,323 spectators at the Wembley Conference Centre after compiling a break of 131 to win the deciding frame. It was his first Masters appearance and his only Masters title, although he was runner-up at the event three times in the subsequent four years. He also won the 1980 Irish Masters, defeating Mountjoy 10–9 in the final.
Defending champion at the 1980 World Championship, Griffiths lost the first seven frames against Davis in his first-round match and ended the first session trailing 1–7. Davis won the opening frame of the second session to extend his lead to 8–1, and had a seven-frame lead again at 10–3 before Griffiths won three frames to end the session 6–10 behind. In the third session, Griffiths won the first four frames to level at 10–10; Davis won the next three for a 13–10 victory, which included a 116 break in the 22nd frame. With this first-round defeat, Griffiths became the first victim of the so-called "Crucible curse", a term later adopted to describe the failure of any first-time champion to defend their title at the venue. He moved up three places to fifth in the annual rankings for 1980/1981.
Griffiths and his Wales teammates retained the 1980 World Challenge Cup, and he again won the Irish Masters in 1981 before losing to eventual winner Davis in the quarter-finals of the 1981 World Snooker Championship. Griffiths lost 3–16 to Davis in the 1981 UK Championship final, the first of five finals in consecutive events contested by the pair. Griffiths won two of the five, winning 9–8 on the final black in the deciding frame of the 1982 Classic after Davis had recovered from 3–8 to 8–8. He also won the 1982 Irish Masters, his third consecutive title at the event, defeating Davis 9–5 in the final. After Tony Knowles's surprise 10–1 win over Davis in the first round of the 1982 World Championship, Griffiths became the bookmakers' favourite for the title. However, Griffiths also exited in the first round, losing 6–10 to Willie Thorne. Despite this, he advanced again in the rankings, achieving third place, which would be his highest-ever ranking, in 1981/1982. He won the 1982 UK Championship at the end of the year, defeating Higgins 16–15 in the final.
1983–1989
Griffiths won several further invitational events, including Pot Black in 1984, and the 1984 Malaysian Masters. He also gained titles at the 1984 Singapore Masters, where he also topped a round-robin group in which Davis was the runner-up; and the 1985 Hong Kong Masters, where he defeated Davis 4–2. The 1985–86 snooker season saw Griffiths win the Welsh Professional Championship for the first time after defeating Mountjoy 9–4. He also won the 1986 Belgian Classic, where he saw off Kirk Stevens 9–7 in the final.His ranking had dropped to fourteenth in 1982/1983 when his 1979 points were no longer counted towards his total, which at the time was calculated purely on the basis of results in the preceding three World Championships. He improved to ninth in 1983/1984, and was eighth for both 1984/1985 and 1985/1986 before falling to tenth for 1986/1987.
Two months before the 1986 World Snooker Championship, Griffiths began working with coach Frank Callan. After eliminating Higgins 13–12 in the last 16, he praised Callan for helping his game: "I tried to do the right things myself for three years... Frank has knitted it all together for me. I didn't think anyone knew that much about snooker." He led eventual winner Johnson 12–9 in their quarter-final match, but Johnson won four consecutive frames, two with century breaks, for a 13–12 victory. He ended the season by winning the 1986 Pontins Professional, defeating Thorne in the final.
Griffiths was the only player to reach the televised stages of each ranking tournament in the 1986–87 season, but did not reach the semi-finals in any of them. At the end of the season, he moved up four places in the rankings to sixth. He won the Welsh Professional Championship again in 1986, defeating Doug Mountjoy 9–3. In 1987, Griffiths opened a billiard hall: the Terry Griffiths Matchroom in Llanelli. The next year, he won the 1988 Welsh Professional Championship final 9–3 against Wayne Jones.
At the 1988 World Snooker Championship, Griffiths defeated Steve Longworth, Thorne, Neal Foulds and Jimmy White to reach his second world final, but lost 11–18 to defending champion Davis. The players had been level at 8–8 after the first of two days' play in the final, and Terry Smith of The Daily Telegraph said after the match: "Griffiths knows he produced his best snooker since he became world champion in 1979, and still lost." The 1989 European Open was his only final the following season. Although Griffiths won four of the first five frames, John Parrott tied the scores at 4–4 after the first session. Griffiths later led 8–7, but Parrott won the match 9–8.