Phil Mickelson got a lot of attention for a tweet that showed him spending time on a firing range to prepare for the Ryder Cup. Mickelson wrote, “How is today’s long-range sniper shooting preparing me for the Ryder Cup? Meditation, controlling my thoughts, breathing, heart rate and connecting with the target are critical for both!” While it ultimately didn’t do him a lot of good in France, the theory was a sound one. The roles of equipment, technique, and mindset are almost identical in shooting and golf. These crossovers exist between golf and most shooting sports, but Phil should have been practicing at a sporting clays course instead of a sniper range.
Per the National Sporting Clays Association, sporting clays is the fastest growing sport in America. The sport dates back to England in the early 1900s but gained in popularity with the introduction of low-cost clay targets and automatic clay target throwers. It’s recently become known as “golf with a shotgun,” and for good reason. As in golf, sporting clay facilities are arranged as courses, with between 10 and 20 stations comprising a course. Each station has machines that launch clay discs into the air and participants attempt to hit the clays using shotguns. Each station is unique, with varying levels of difficulty achieved by combining various speeds and angles of flight of the clay targets. And like golf course architecture, the quality of a sporting clays course is determined by terrain, course conditions and the imagination of the course designer to engage and challenge the player.
I first had the chance to try sporting clays a couple of years ago at a golf resort in Florida. It did not go well, partly because the coach was a post-divorce emotional wreck, but also because I sucked. While I was not afraid of guns, I was definitely unfamiliar with them so there was a steep learning curve. But eventually I did hit one of the clays, shattering it into a gazillion pieces. The tuning fork had gone off, just like the first time I hit a golf ball well. I was hooked.
My second opportunity was at Gleneagles, the posh resort in Scotland that has hosted everything from world political summits to Ryder Cups. I was determined to redeem myself, but I got off to a bad start, hitting only one of the first ten or so targets. Just like when your confidence leaves your golf swing, I had the feeling that I had no idea what I was doing.
Alan Dickson, the Director of Shooting Sports at Gleneagles, is a former British Marine who has been involved in shooting sports his whole life and has seen a lot of bad shooters. He stood behind me and asked me to shoot at a target that was arcing upward from left to right. After three of those, all misses, he asked me to shoot at the same target going in the opposite direction and I hit two of three. Dickson took a roll of black electrical tape from one of the 200 or so pockets in his shooting vest and covered the left lens of my protective eyewear with black tape. He gave them back to me and had me shoot the same six targets…I hit all six. It was like one of those days on the golf course when you figure something out and suddenly everything works.
From that point on, I took the opportunity to shoot whenever I could, and just like golf, I had good days and bad days. On a visit to The Omni Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, the Director of Shooting Sports David Judah explained to me that part of the reason that I had been erratic was that I hadn’t had a gun that truly fit me. “It’s just like with a golf club,” Judah explained. “Shotguns have different weights, dimensions and balance points. If you don’t have a tool that fits you, you will struggle to control it. With a tool that fits you, you will make a much more natural move to the target”. He had me try a number of shotguns of different brands, sizes and configurations before finally settling on a Beretta Silver Pigeon, a 12-gauge shotgun with a 35” over/under barrel. It felt just like a fitted set of irons. I took the Beretta out to the range where Judah had set up several stations with clays going everywhere. With a shotgun that fit perfectly I hit nine out of the first ten clays, “powdering” most of the them (powdering is when you hit the target so perfectly that it turns into a cloud of orange powder, and the feeling is identical to hitting a 3-iron on the center of the clubface). I shot at 50 clays that day and hit 44; for me, that’s about like shooting a 69 at Congressional from the tips. I was determined to carry my rhythm from the shooting range to the golf course. I played a round of golf in the afternoon on the beautiful Cascades course and I shot a 78. I was convinced that the rhythm and timing that I had developed earlier in the day on the shooting range was the reason.
I became determined to make a direct connection between the methodologies of shooting sports and golf. Enter Jason Gilbertson, Marketing Director at Winchester, one of the oldest and most respected names in firearms and shooting sports. We met at Big Cedar Lodge in Branson, Missouri, one of the nation’s best destinations for golf and outdoor sports. I told Jason about my experiences in golf and shooting, and my idea that there were definite crossovers between the two sports. He asked if I had spent any time with world-class marksmen and I acknowledged that while I had played with top professional golfers, I hadn’t spent any time with the best of the best in shooting sports. With that, Gilbertson arranged for me to spend time at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the best athletes in the country go to dedicate their lives to excellence in their chosen sports, including the shooting sports.
At the U.S.O.T.C., I learned that as with golf, there are different mindsets and personalities in the shooting sports. The air pistol people are very quiet and methodical; they reminded me of great putters like Ben Crenshaw. The rifle specialists reminded me of gearheads like Phil Mickelson, always looking for just the right equipment tweak. But the trap shooters were the most interesting to me, since trap is the closest discipline to sporting clays. Trap shooting involves shooting clays that are moving much faster and at more severe angles than sporting clays. Like golf, a good trap shot “happens” before you make a move. A proper grip, balanced stance and consistent alignment assure that you will make a good shot. And like golf, it is important to keep the hands moving through the “swing” after the point of impact. And the best golfers and trap shooters in the world have a pre-shot routine that involves visualizing a desired result, slowing down the breathing, controlling your adrenalin, then executing. I had found the connection that I was looking for.
After a year of visiting first-class golf and shooting facilities I came to the Sandy Creek Sporting Grounds, the brand-new sporting center at Reynolds Lake Oconee. Located halfway between Atlanta and Augusta and boasting an established reputation as a golf destination, Reynolds recently added a shooting sports center that is among the finest I around. I met up with the director of the sporting center, Justin Jones, a decorated shooting champion who opened the very first shooting center based at a golf resort, the aforementioned Gleneagles.
There is a decidedly British feel to the structures and the landscape at Sandy Creek, with stacked stone shooting stations and lush landscaping that makes you feel like you are on the set of Downton Abbey. I shot well, bagging the easy clays on the first try and getting most of the difficult ones on the second try. Jones watched me quietly and then asked if I was willing to make a couple of changes. I was reluctant since I had been shooting well, but I remembered that golfers with bad habits can have a good day and listened to his advice. He adjusted my grip, stance and alignment; it felt more comfortable, and I turned clay after clay from disk to powder in rapid succession. Then came the final station, a pair more difficult than any I had faced. The first clay was a high lob to my right, followed by a “water rabbit”, a diabolical creation of Jones’. A rabbit is a clay that skips rapidly across the ground and is very hard to hit. The water rabbit skipped evasively across a pond for a second or two before diving under water like, well, like a scared rabbit.
“Not a lot of people can do this one,” warned Jones, which was all I needed to hear to know that I wasn’t leaving without bagging that pair. The first shot was a relatively easy one, and I powdered that clay almost every time. But the water rabbit eluded me time after time. After the fifth or sixth attempt I could almost swear that I heard the rabbit laugh as it slipped intact under the surface. I was down to my last couple of shells and feeling like Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup trying to get that 3-wood over the water. I took a deep breath and Jones reminded me, “Don’t aim at the target, point at it.” I took my stance and tried to remember what I had learned from Jones and from the U.S. Olympians. “Pull,” I said firmly, and I hit it the first clay dead center. I swung my gun to the point just ahead of the water rabbit on its third and final skip. I fired, and the target turned into a combination of orange powder and pond water, a sort of ballistic Tang. I looked at Jones, who was smiling like Obi-Wan Kenobi. I took a deep breath and bellowed, “Yeeeeeesss!!!” Not very British of me, but the feeling of nailing that pair was what I imagine a hole in one feels like. Hopefully I’ll get to make the comparison soon.
Golf and sporting clays are a natural fit, and even if you have never touched a firearm in your life you will enjoy the thrill of a shot well executed, just like golf.
Shank. There are plenty of golf-specific stories to read. If you have no interest in shooting sports, simply don’t click on the story.
Moe “Pipeline” Norman, the greatest ball striker of all time, only hit straight shots. “Why hit curved shots unless you are in trouble?”, he asked. Listen to Moe, he knows.