Goal Setting

Lanny Bassham's book, With Winning in Mind, states that, "One habit separates the top 5% of competitors from the other 95% who just play, setting goals." It's basically mid-season for me so I'll look at where I am compared to the goals I set last winter.

Shoot 100 straight. Not yet, four 99s, but close.
Get punched to 25 yards by the end of the year. Not yet, punched to 22.5 so far.
Attend State Shoot and Grand. Done
Maintain a 96 singles average. Got it.
Shoot 360/400 in Spring trap league. Got it, barely.

When you meet your goals, you have to set new ones, to that end:

Get classified AA in singles.
Shoot 370/400 in the Fall trap league
Shoot a higher score in the Fall wobble trap league

I have really had a lot of fun shooting this year.

Dennis DeVault Newsletter

I took a clinic with Dennis DeVault last year which I thought was really well done. I see lots of happy customers for the stocks he makes as well. He puts out a nice newsletter every month, you can sign up for it here.

Wobble League Over

Final night of wobble league. I shot a 45 and a 49 for a total of 288/300, 96%. Far better than last year. I won a 10 round trap card for St. Charles Sportsmen's Club. I got something better out of the wobble league than that though. In wobble trap, you have to hold lower on the house to account for the low birds. I had success with that and was breaking better or as good weeknight scores at wobble than at weeknight regular, ATA style targets. I figured I was getting a better look at the birds. I applied the lower hold to my ATA targets over the past few weeks and am seeing better scores.

Matt ran a nice league and there were brats on the grill last night. There are fall trap and wobble leagues to look forward to and more immediately, leaving for the Grand on Wednesday.

Punched to 22.5 Yards

I shot at Darien today, after being at the beach on the East Coast for a week. It was 100 and humid back east, it was mid-80s today in Wisconsin and not that humid. Crystal clear and no wind. I shot 75 straight in singles and then dropped a target on the last trap to end with a 99. That tied A class and we agreed to split the money rather than shoot off. In the handicap, I ran 75 straight and then dropped one on post 5 and then one on post 1 to end with a 98. My previous high at handicap was a 95. There was another 98 (from 27 yards !!!), we split the money rather than shoot off. I was very happy. Everything just came together, it was very smooth, it didn't seem to require much effort.

I am sure that the good shooting today was the result of being on vacation and not getting up at 3:30AM and staring into computer screens all week. I already have found that I shoot better on Sunday than Saturday with the extra day's rest.

That's nephew, son and daughter at the go-kart track in Fenwick Island, Delaware.

Punched to 21.5

This weekend was the Grand Chicago. Saturday was 200 singles, I shot a 94 which was disappointing. After the break, ran 50, missed one and then ran final 25 for a 99. So a good comeback. Can't figure out what I was doing wrong on the 94, a lot of chipped targets. Its been feast or famine in singles lately, three 99s but also a 92 and a 94.

Sunday was the handicap, it was hot, humid and windy. I shot a 93 which I didn't think was very good but it won my yardage and the high score overall was a 94. I bought myself in the "special event" and basically won back expenses. And finally earned a half yard punch to 21.5 yards. The video, shows (poorly) the two 94s shooting off for handicap champion. That's Illinois Hall of Famer Herman Welch officiating.

Wobble Week 3

Shot a 48 in the wobble trap league last night, 24 and 24. Missed the first one out of the house in the second round and then got the rest. Warm night but clear and sunny. My friend Randy broke 50 straight, first time that has happened in the league. They had their largest turn out for the shoot as well.

100th Grand Chicago Handicap

This weekend, Downers Grove Sportsmans Club (a club I like going to) holds the 100th Grand Chicago Handicap. It was first held in 1910 at the Chicago Gun Club. This picture is from that club, circa 1908. The New York Times (!) had a preview of the first event, noting that 500 shooters were expected to attend. There was a $500 trophy. If my information/math is correct, that is the equivalent of about $11,000 today.

Finding The Extra Target

I read something on Trapshooters.com about this book. I think it's out of print but I found a used copy on Amazon.com. It's got a lot of stuff of limited value (how to clean your gun, skeet rules) but I found a good practice routine called the Five by Five. Basically, you lock the trap, shoot five straightaways from post 3, shoot 5 from post 1 and five from post 5. Then lock the trap for hard left, shoot five from post 1 and then lock it for hard right and shoot five from post 5. It teaches you the sight pictures for straight aways, quartering and the angles.

Phil Kiner gave me another routine, shoot a round from 16 yards, calling with your eyes closed. Call, open your eyes and then shoot. I can't run 25 yet doing this but it teaches you not to panic.

Anybody got any other routines?

Great Interview

I heard a great interview on the radio that touched on a lot of things that apply across all sports. For just the fourth time in the history of the PGA tour, a golfer shot a round of 59 in a PGA tournament. Paul Goydos did it last week in the first round of the John Deere Classic in Silvis. He talks about how everything can come together on one particular day for anybody but the best pros put it together week after week.

SIEGEL: You were four under par at the turn. That means after the first nine holes, you had five pars and four birdies, which is terrific, and then you caught fire. You birdied eight of the last nine holes. What happened? What was going on?
Mr. GOYDOS: I'm trying to figure that out so I can maybe bottle it and keep it for the next 10 or so years. Just, you know, everything kind of fell into place. You know, I played the 10th hole very well and made a pretty easy birdie there and then just Mr. Putter decided to cooperate for the last eight holes of that nine and just, you know, everything I did turned to gold. It was one of those days where, you know, if I was walking down the fairway and tripped and fell down, I would have fallen down on $100 bill.
SIEGEL: Obviously, what you did yesterday, shooting a 59, demonstrates that if you can always drive the ball in a round as well as you can drive the ball and always hit your irons as well as you can hit your irons and always putt as well as you know you can putt, with that consistency, you can shoot a better round than Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus has ever shot.
And I wonder, what do you think it is? What is it that in one round permits you to have absolutely everything under control and at your best and, you know, I don't want to jinx subsequent rounds, but another 59 would be pretty rare if you do that.
Mr. GOYDOS: Right.
SIEGEL: What is it? What happens on a day like this?
Mr. GOYDOS: You know, I think that it's a series of events that come together and merge and supernova into a round of golf. Yeah, on any given day, Paul Goydos is capable of beating Tiger Woods or anybody else who's played the game. You know, what stands Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus or the people you talk about away from me and believe me, they're light years away from me is their ability to do it every single week.
Why everything again supernovaed for me yesterday, you know, it was just I think when we die and meet our maker, that may be the first question I ask.
SIEGEL: I'm just curious, before you go, I saw you were asked yesterday were you nervous with that last putt on the 18th green, and you said you're always nervous.
Mr. GOYDOS: Yes, that's part of the fun of the game. You know, nerves mean expectations, and my expectations are very high. I think that the day that I'm not nervous is the day that I probably retire.
Now, having said that, there's different levels of nervousness. I would have to say that from a golf standpoint, over that putt on 18 was probably the most nervous I'd ever been. And a big part of my success on making that put was more or less, you know, muscle autopilot than it was necessarily a calm head or calm nerves.
SIEGEL: Muscle autopilot.
Mr. GOYDOS: I just made that up myself.

Rough weekend for shooting

St. Charles held their Illini Indian shell shoot on Sunday. I missed a single on post 3 and knew right away I was going to have a problem. I spent the next 97 shells stabbing, chasing, flinching and waving my gun around like Zorro trying to break targets. I'm pretty sure I was cross firing at them, most of the 8 misses out of 100 came on post 1 and 2 left handers. The ones I hit were often just chipped, it was very frustrating. I had gotten a poor night's sleep and that has been percursor in the past for poor shooting. Visually, I could see them clearly, but something was going wrong between my head and my hands.

I shot a 91 in handicap, which isn't good but relative to the singles performance, not a disaster. A 93 won my yardage, a 97 was overall handicap high. That's some good shooting. More on the positive side: the club had a good turnout, a friend of mine shot his best singles score ever and I saw at least one league shooter join the ATA and come out. There also seemed to be a good number of junior and sub-junior shooters.

Wobble League, Week 2

Second week of Wobble League. I shot a 47, two targets down on last week. It was overcast, in contrast to last week, and I thought it was harder to see the targets, especially the low ones. A lot of chipped birds. Shot some handicap rounds, poorly, swatting at mosquitos, probably wrecking everyone else's focus as well.

Looking forward to lots of shooting over the next few weeks including the Grand with Dad and Cal.

ATA HOF - In 1938 Bernice Billett, 23, a college student from Wisconsin became the first women to compete wearing shorts at the Grand American. Attracted a lot of attention as you can see.

One at a time

"I don't expect anything before the match. I expect to play my best every point and try to fight every point like the last. I don't think about if I'm going to have a very difficult match, I'm going to lose or win. I don't think about this. I just think about try to go on court and try to fight every point and play point by point. Not thinking any more of the next point."

~Rafael Nadal, after winning 2010 Wimbledon

Darien

Shot at Darien today. Never been there before, its about 1-1/2 hours north by Lake Geneva. Real friendly and efficient club. Where else can you sit and watch the action on a bunch of old couches set on cinder blocks? I shot 25, 25, 25, 24 for a 99 at singles. That won A class, no 100s today. It was really, really windy. I've got a 96.2% average on my singles this year, closing in on AA. I shot four 23s for a 92 at handicap. That was a struggle but at least the rounds were consistent. The high score was a 95 then a couple of 92s. I spent the prize money on fireworks in Walworth on the way home.

Butterfingers

Shot this morning at St. Charles. Ran a round of wobble trap, shot a 24 at 23 yards and a 23 at 27 yards. I've shot 825 handicap targets in the last 2-1/2 weeks so getting comfortable beyond my current handicap yardage of 21 yards. For my big finale today, I dropped the forearm of my gun in the gravel parking lot while disassembling and dinged it end to end. Jackass.

Wobble League Started...

... last night. It was a great night to be out, crystal clear, 80 degrees, no wind. The late sun just lit up the targets. I shot a 24 and a 25. I checked my shooting diary, last year I was shooting 43s and 44s out of 50.

Wobble trap is fun. It seems like good practice for ATA shooting cause it forces you to focus on the target and you get to see different elevations. Interesting web site on bunker/wobble shooting here.