World Sporting...Better Luck Next Year

The action began on Thursday and it was clear from the early scores that it wasn’t an easy shoot.

- Don Brunt

Richard Faulds led the way on the Blue course with a 90 ahead of John Lee on 89. Out on the Red course it was Aaron Harvey who set the pace with another 90 with Arnie Palmer close behind on 89. Initial feedback from those taking part was that the course was rather “edgy”, and featured a high percentage of quartering and going-away targets.

Wind-affected

Friday morning saw a change in wind direction, which led to something akin to chaos out on the course. Stand 8 on the Blue course featured a teal with a tough looper which was thrown from a 60ft tower located outside of the wood. On Thursday the wind meant that, on occasion, it simply never showed itself from behind the trees that were between the cage and the tower, and it had to be altered to compensate at least once. With the wind change the looper was judged to be too dangerous to shoot, despite the best efforts of course setter Clive Bramley, who reportedly spent more than an hour trying to sort the issue.

The jury then made the decision to remove the stand from the event, dropping the total number of targets from 200 to 192. There were more problems yet to come elsewhere on the course; stand 3 on the Blue course was an extremely tough sim pair of low-ish teal. A midi and a standard crossed, making neither of them easy to lock onto quickly, and on Thursday it was estimated that the second of the pair was being taken at about 60 yards, while on Friday with the wind change both were being shot considerably closer with the second target landing just 15 yards or so from the cage, making it far easier than it had been previously. The jury now decided that all shooters over the four days would be awarded a 10-target straight on this stand, but confusingly it would still be shot.