Monday, July 20.

Lot of bad things happening . looks like a dark cloud is following Mike Downey and me around. Mike is an amazing shooter (came in second at the Nationals last year) and a solid performer.

Well, Mike starts out like a champ at 300 yards and smokes it! Shoots a 50 with 10V, so is forced to take 5 extra shots to break a tie in case there is one. He shoots another 5 Vs. Off top a great start. Nancy Tompkins shoots a 50 and 9Vs, Coach Mead 50 and 8Vs, Jim Murphy 50 and 8 Vs, I shoot a 50 with 7 Vs and only Mike Downey and Nancy are in the top 10! If you shoot your really good score at home matches, here people will spit at that score. You gotta to have a super performance to be up there at these meets. Now don’t get me wrong, we (USA) are very, very good and always manage to have several shooters in the top ranks. I think Jim Murphy will have a few golds, Mike Downey a few, I have a few silvers, Mid has one or two. Traylor and others. However, there simply is no room for errors.

So, then Mikey goes to the 1000 yard line and gets garbage pit service on target 31. I pull up in my golf cart to shoot my 1000 yard match after him and I see that almost every second shot, they are calling for a mark. I look at the little chalk board and jeez, I’m on 31 next up. Oh well, we will deal with it. Sighter 2 for me was a 5. Wind was 8 to 10 with angle changes, but I felt good about reading it. I converted that sighter and off I was running – well, running may not be the right word for 3 to a mound, but I think you know what I mean. I was hammering 5s, a couple of Vs and a couple of 4s. We called for a mark several times and then I took a shot. The previous shot was a 5 and the conditions were identical so I was expecting a V on this shot. Target doesn’t go down. We call for a mark and the pullers (they call them markers in England, but I will call these two particular people in the pitts, pullers) gave me a miss. A MISS? Bloody hell. They put a spotter on the top of the frame. So I challenged it. They pulled the target down, and by now they certainly had covered up my real shot hole with a paster, and it comes up with a spotter on the bottom of the frame. I challenged it again and the range officer says "what do you want me to do, go down and check it myself?" So I took a miss for that shot as I was holding up the other two shooters. Next shot, with no changes to my elevation knob, a waterline 4 then a V and a 5. I still ended up with a 43 and 2Vs without the 5 points that I lost. I will elaborate a little more about this subject after I get back.

Jeff Traylor did very well at that 1000 yard match shooting a 48 with 4Vs. I think he will get a silver medal for that. Larry Taite took 5th place.. Bailey 13th and Brewer 14th. Then Mike Downey (Mikey) shoots the 500 yards and does really well. Gives his score card to another shooter who supposedly turns it in to the range officer, only he later finds out that the card is missing. So guess what, he loses all those points from that match and he is finished for the grand aggregate. Really a crying shame because he is one of the top shooters. Wait, the dark cloud continued through the night. Someone tried to steal his golf cart in the middle of the night. They had rolled it in the middle of the road, opened up the dash, cut the wires and tried to start it. Luckily for Mike they could not start it or else two thousand British pounds!

Top 10 scores:

Times 300 Yards.

M. Downey, USA 60
J. Campbell, GB, 59
PA King, GB, 59
N. Tompkins, 58
CS Taljaard, S. Africa
M Been, Netherlands, 59
MP Plug, Netherlands, 58
LP Fenlon, GB, 58
JM De Koort, Netherlands, 58
W. Schulze, Germany, 58

Wimbledon 600 yards

Mid Tompkins, USA, 59
D. Kent, GB, 58
Bob Mead, USA, 58
Jim Murphy, USA,58
L. Taite, USA, 58
L Tomlinson, GB, 57
J. Wright, GB, 57
MP Plug, Netherlands,57
W. Scholze, Germany, 57
PT Drummy, GB, 56

Corporation 1000 yards

D. Parr, GB, 56
J. Traylor, USA, 52
A. Brough, GB, 52
W. Scholze, Germany, 52
L Taite, USA, 51
J. Campbell, GB, 51
CS Taljaard, S. Africa, 50
M Been, Netherlands, 50
PW Drummy, GB, 50
H. Mitera, Germany, 49

That’s all for this report.