Tuesday was a scheduled practice day with everyone given the chance to check their zeroes etc, at 800 to 1000 yards. No surprises there, the elevations were pretty much as expected. Everyone took turns in the butts and I found the target mechanisms to be well- made and well-balanced. The target faces were made of vinyl – probably a sensible precaution in view of the Irish wet weather!
Wednesday was the first day of the Irish Open; conditions at 800 were pretty reasonable requiring a mean of just 3 minutes, as the day progressed the mean increased, though still only modestly to about 4-5. It was overcast, so mirage was not much of a problem and good scores could be expected. At the end of day one, the top man was Bob Bock of the USA with 219.23v having dropped just 6 points on an unfamiliar range. The top non-American was the Irish Team Coach, Liam Fenlon with 217.20v
In F/TR, Irishmen dominated first, second and third places with John O’Donoghue establishing an impressive lead with 209.14v closely followed by Stephen Doyle and David Comerford.
Day two and conditions were still fine - cloudy cool weather with only moderate winds over the left shoulder. Today was to be Larry Bartholome’s day, he finished an extraordinary 5 points ahead of his nearest rival Jim Murphy with an excellent 222.19v By way of comparison, the nearest Irish shooter was another of Ireland’s coaches, Paul Cassidy on 216.16v.
In F/TR there was a complete change of fortunes at the top, with the main places all now going to Americans, Captain Darrell Buell taking the top slot on a comfortable 212.15v.
The aggregate of two days of individual shooting determined the winners and, by a clear margin, Larry Bartholome of El Paso, Texas was the winner of the Irish Open in the F Open Class with 440.36v. Larry used a 284 Win. with very moderate loads, demonstrating that horsepower isn’t always the answer.
Over on the F/TR side, it was equally decisive and Darrell Buell’s better second day enabled him to take first place with 415.24v ahead of Irishman Adrian Casey on 406.19v and in third place, Jeff Rorer on 405.21v.
With the Individual Irish Open over, it was now time to turn to the USA versus Europe Challenge Match on the Friday - the Ryder Cup of F-class shooting - with the best of Europe taking on the USA. Taking the scores
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Creedmoor Cup THE
won in the Individuals, I took advice and simply based team selection on those scores, making selection pretty objective and rational. On that basis the team comprised seven Irishmen and one UK shooter. Our F Open coaches were Dave O’Hara, Liam Fenlon and Paul Cassidy.
Conditions were now not just cool but quite cold and foreboding, wind was coming over the right shoulder - not too fierce at first but, as the day wore on, it became progressively stronger and rain threatened. Team Europe used a mixture of 6.5s and 7mms on the F Open side, naturally all used 308s on the F/TR side. To cut to the chase, the Americans had sent over what amounted to a full-size, full-strength team, comprised of many of the same shooters who shot in their World Championships team. In fact it might be fair to say this was effectively a World Championships class team.
With that in mind, the Irish – oops - European Team put up a valiant fight and ended up losing by just 33 points. A loss of course but a surprisingly narrow one, considering the relative strength of the USA squad. It may be justifiably claimed that with even just a couple of the ‘big guns’ from the UK, then Team Europe would quite possibly have prevailed.
Our F/TR colleagues did not fair quite so well, the margin there between victory and defeat was a rather larger 80 points, again their opposition was of World Championship class, so all credit to their valiant fight.
It says a lot about the rate of progression and development of Irish F Class in so far as the Irish can now field teams on their home ground capable of standing up to teams from the USA and giving them a good run for their money. Should this rate of improvement continue at the same rate, the Irish will indeed be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.
And so to the final event of the week - the main event - the Creedmoor Match between Ireland and America.
On Friday, the weather took a turn for the worse. It seemed like the March winds had arrived three months late, the wind strength grew and grew until - as the Irish put it “It was blowing a hooley”. The winds were quite simply diabolical. As the day progressed, it became pretty much pot luck as to which way the wind would switch as the flags had all ‘maxed-out’
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