What does Golf & Trapshooting have in common

Golf has had the largest comeback since 1970, but they like the ATA cannot keep them in the Sport. This was announced today


Yours in Sport
Gary Bryant.................................Dr.longshot

 

They are both done outdoors, both done in all kinds of weather, both have some beautiful places to do it on, but both have become expensive, putting it out of bounds for a lot of young people who are raising families, buying homes, cars, and trying to save a little to send their kids to college.
Look at a typical golf course or a trap shoot, bunch of old men.
Until the economy picks up, it's going to stay that way.

 

JB63, it is the economy?


Those people from Ohio and PA that used to flock to Vandalia can tell you about bad economic times and shooting trap.

Some may remember the hyper-inflation under Nixon but Vandalia and trapshooting was getting bigger.

Carter and his malaise and double digit unemployment and the fuel shortage hit the Midwest hard. Of course it was another banner era for trapshooting.

One of the worst days for the Vandalia and the trapshooting lands was the Monday the steel mills closed in Ohio and PA. Another great year for trapshooting. One of the biggest.

Black Thursday and the stock market crash and the following recession did not stop trapshooting.

The next big crash was the dot com crash. Hurt everything but trapshooting. Vandalia hardly blinked.

We have been reminded on occasion how well the sport did during the great recession. Darn good.

All those bad times above we call the golden age of trapshooting. The good 'ole days.


Then came the move. Not even trapshooting could overcome that.

(from previous post)

 

JB63

Trapshooting even flourished during the great depression.

 

The good doctor has an answer for golf too. Go back to the way it used to be.....the golfers were tougher, the courses were tougher, the angles were tougher and all were happy. When the wimps moved in, the courses got easier, the scores went up (down) and everybody quit because it became an game for just a few dogs and everyone paid the big dogs and it was just too easy. The young golfers aren't playing the game, they are moving over to sporting golf.

 

Rob Taylor just may be right. I've never shot skeet competitively even though I own a number of dedicated skeet guns. Why? It's way too easy. American skeeters need to go to the international model as a start, then maybe things will get better for them. I quit trap a number of years ago because it became too easy. I usually played around at trap, often shooting four different guns at a 100 targets. Yes, it hurt my scores some, but it put a measure of difficulty into the game. Of course, that was back in the days of having only trap and skeet to shoot. Then came sporting clays where even though the early targets were easy, you at least got 20 to 24 different angles, speeds and distances in the mix. Today, on purpose and as the sport has evolved, the overall courses have longer, faster, and harder targets to shoot. And, if you are like my friends and me, we even try to shoot them the hardest way possible. Examples are nothing less than true pair unless we are trying for triplets with a two shells in the gun. This keeps the game FUN. Naturally, we don't break all of the targets, but those we do break are satisfying. I have no idea if harder targets is the answer to ATA trap, but I do think it should be given serious consideration.

Johnpe

 

John, you should shoot a big NSCA shoot sometime. The Carribean Cup, Gator Cup, Gamaliel Cup, or any big state shoot. The birds are ......well let's say challenging! you better have your shi7 together!

 

The actual execution of the game of golf has virtually nothing in common with the games of shotgun sports. What they have in common is the thing that makes them very difficult for many young people today:they are very, very demanding. Many young people just can't handle adversity. When the day comes when they realize that all of Daddy's help and all of his money and all of the fancy, high dollar equipment still won't buy them low scores in golf and high scores in shooting, they just fold up like an cheap tent and go home. Sitting in front of a video game makes them feel powerful again.

 

If it was easy, everyone would/could do it. Define "easy". Is carrying a 98%+ average mean it is easy? Does shooting 1, 2, 20 or ? from the 27 yard line mean that it is easy? I think not. Even Leo, as good as he was, missed targets and I would think if someone was to say the game was "too easy" it would be him. Shooting 4 different guns across 100 targets doesn't mean it's too easy, it just means you don't care about being good at the game. If it was easy, there would be no need for practice and the % of shooters in the shoot off's would be quite high and ALL shoot off's would never finish unless it was it a 100% participation tie. The shooters that make it easy or at least make it look easy, shoot alot ans practice alot. The golfers that make it look easy arer the same way and if you play golf you know it is not easy. To get to the upper level in golf, you have to pay a terrific toll physically too. Look at how many geat golfers have back and other problems due to the stresses of playing that much. NO, I think Phantom and Rosey are closer to the truth than most would like to admit. IF IT WAS EASY, we would have more participation from the younger crowd and that is not going to happen because they have grown up recieving a participation trophy in stead of a winners trophy, because EVERYONE is good and nobody can lose, it woould be unfair. AND you know who caused all of this problem? US..........IMHO

 

What about the gun culture that now exists in the US.
Growing up in the 50's was when you played outside with toy guns, got a new BB gun when you were 12, had Grandpa farm to hunt on when you were 14, Christmas Catalogs from Sears, Penny's and Montgomery Ward had pages of new guns. Even the Boy Scout Magazine "Boys Life" had great advertisements for Marlin 22's. Guns were more available and shooting, hunting and plinking were considered normal.
I can remember gathering at the town dump after it closed to shoot rats, a great fun gathering a few blocks from town, a place you'd take your girlfriend.
Guns today have an evil cast put on them, can't talk about them in school, demonized on TV, our kids won't buy their kids guns like they use to.
I think this trickles down to the shooting sports and hunting.
The only upside with guns today seems to be for self protection, lots of people are buying guns, but not enjoying them for the sport of shooting and many times not even learning how to shoot them.
Times have changed, gun culture has changed, and I think it has had an effected on the shooting sports