Wow! May was a busy month in sporting clays. I wasn’t sure if this year was going to be as good as last which was pretty epic. The sport just keeps getting better. The quality of events keeps on improving, the bar being set higher. I would argue a lot of entry fee’s have followed suit but that’s another story all together. The shooters seem to be soaking it all up and coming back for more. I can’t blame them, there are some truly great events at fabulous facilities on offer. May was a great month for the sport which saw some great shooting at the TargetLine Cup, M&M Master’s Cup, The All-American and the big event in FITASC, the European Parcours de Chasse Championship. (post coming soon)
Masters Cup
While I was attending the TargetLine Cup in Texas, the other big event of the weekend was the M&M Master’s Cup. A bit of a shame that these two events overlapped, both with great facilities and with great shooting to be had. I was concerned that the Master’s Cup, being a Team USA Qualifier, would draw all of the top talent away from the TargetLine. Not so, the TL saw it’s share of top shots in attendance. Let’s just say the events shared the crowed and both did well.
The Master’s Cup held at M&M Hunting Preserve and Sporting Clays in Pennsville, NJ is in it’s 13th year. The event benefits from being held at one of the great clay shooting grounds in the country and targets set by one of the worlds top shots Anthony Matarese Jr. "M&M is a first class operation and every shoot they hold is really done top notch." said main event and prelim champ Christian Suter who won with a 184ex200. "Everything, from the small stuff to the big stuff, everything they do is first class. Donna, Anthony Sr., Anthony Jr. and all the staff there always do a great job."
Suter praised Anthony Jr’s targets in both the prelim and the main as being excellent. He singled out station 7 on the prelim, "…a crosser and a high bird off a platform which was a great challenging station." and the battue in the main on Saturday as being particularly good. "We had a high battue coming from the right and the way Anthony set it, it forced you to shoot that battue dropping at a good distance."
Suter trains at Bradford Sportsman’s Club in Rhode Island which he says, "…is a great little club, we don’t have a course, just a 5-stand with about 18 traps." He goes on to explain, "It’s a great club because all the members are equal so we can go down there, say on a Saturday, well we can drag the traps all over the field, set the springs, change the angles, so we can set all of our own targets." Look out for Suter on the leader board. He is expected next to attend the U.S. Open.
SoCal’s Zach Kienbaum won the FITASC event with a 93ex100. "it’s definitely coming around." says Zach of his low gun moves, "I’ve had to incorporate some move, mount, shoot into my FITASC game. Teal, trap and long quartering shots." Of the main event Zach had this to say, "Awesome targets, awesome weather! I should have won the Main by 4 or 5 targets but dropped 8 birds on my first three stands Saturday. They weren’t even that hard…brain dead for about 30 minutes." He continued, "Suter’s score in the prelim was outstanding. I came off with 92 thinking I left three out there max and he shot 97."
All-American
The next weekend the action moved to Illinois’ Northbrook Sports Club and the C.S.M.C. All-American. The All-American is a new event that combines 200 English Sporting targets and 200 Parcours de Chasse targets. A LOT of shooting in a weekend! Especially with targets set by Richie Frisella Jr. which means you’re in for a workout to build a good score. The event was sponsored by shotgun maker C.S.M.C. and had two very nice shotguns on the line as prizes.
Andy Duffy…what more can you say. A classic American sports hero. One of the first to blaze trails into the European sporting scene and go head to head with the world. We can all be eternally grateful. Umm…but he ain’t dead yet! In fact he mounted a near sweep of the All-American winning the Sporting, FITASC, 5-stand mains and tying HOA for the 5-stand prelim! He was definitely in his element, he likes that part of the country and as he puts it, "I’ve shot a lot of Richie Frisella’s targets so I’m comfortable with what he does."
"I’ve been really working on my game a lot. I had a really good shoot down at Fossil Pointe [ed. the TargetLine Cup]. I won several events there and I’ve shot pretty consistent all year and it just came together right there." said Duffy of the All-American. Duffy who is currently shooting a 525 he imported from England said, "It’s esentially my old 325 kind of re-incarnated, I’m real comfortable with it." He singled out the all battue parcour as being an intriguing one, "…every target was a battue so if you didn’t like to shoot arching targets you were screwed. I thought it was really well done." He pointed out that, "Anytime you shoot something different, it’s gotta be good. I love battues and I love chondels and anything that’s got a funky line I tend to do really well on. I only shot a 21 on that, it wasn’t the high score but a nice steady score."
A "steady score." Here is where Duffy says the key to the win was, "My philosophy wasn’t to go in there and win everything. I just wanted to shoot steady. Because normally somebody who goes in there and has a really good run on the FITASC will screw up the sporting and vice versa. My whole thing was to just be more consistent than everybody else." Duffy pointed out that at one point Ben Slome was ahead but that he was just more consistent throughout the weekend to secure the win.
To sum up the event Duffy said, "Richie Frisella, they give him a free hand up there and it was well done. If they keep that up it will eclipse all the others [events around the same time].
All-American Scores at CH Shoot Results
Photos © Andrew Smith, 2010
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