2024 Southeast Regional Recap: The good, the bad and the ugly

In today's episode, we take another look at the 2024 Southeast Regional held at the Forest City Gun Club in Savannah, Georgia. We look into various aspects of the event, including the targets and their levels of difficulty, the weather conditions, the course layouts, and any logistical backups encountered during the competition.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:53):
In this episode we're going to talk about the
Southeast Regional.
There are a lot of people thatleft there scratching their
heads.
We're going to talk with someof the guys involved with the
tournament and find out theirthoughts.
Is it what they expected it tobe, what they thought about the
targets, the backups, and wouldthey do anything different if
they had to do it again?

(01:13):
Welcome to Shotgun Sports USA.
On the phone with me today, Ihave Zach Garettas and Chip
Dekel, the two guys that set themain event at the Southeast

(01:37):
Regional at Forest City Gun Clubin Savannah, georgia.
I also have Zach Keenbaum on,which set the Thursday prelim at
the Southeast Regional, and Ihave one more, dominic Grossi, a
shooter.
We're going to all talk aboutthe Southeast Regional.
There's a little controversyabout this shoot how hard the
targets were, the backups andwe're going to address it all on
this episode.

(01:58):
I think we need to call it thegood, the bad and the ugly.
Zach, what do you have to sayabout the tournament?
I had a good time.
The weather was great, the foodwas good, the targets were hard
.
What do you have to say?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
I would say that we dodged a bullet early on in the
week.
You know the tournament gotstarted with feed task on
Tuesday.
Feed task targets were fairlydecent Tuesday and
Wednesdaynesday.
Wednesday, the wind startedpicking up um it blew a storm in

(02:33):
um started storming about, Idon't know, one o'clock in the
morning, 11, 12 o'clock in themorning on on uh thursday
morning and it didn't reallystop raining until 10 in the
morning.
So solid, solid, 10 hours ofrain, nine or nine or 10 hours
give or take.
Um, there's estimated between.

(02:54):
You know the.
The area got between four andseven inches of rain and the
ground took a pretty good hardhit.
Um, for those of those of thefolks that actually came to the
shoot, they probably seen it.
They seen some mud, but itdried out rather quick, believe
it or not, by the end of the day, I think.

(03:14):
Chip, you can correct me if I'mwrong, but I think it was about
3 o'clock in the afternoon.
We started all along the radioabout a water truck, didn't we?
Yeah, yeah, about 3 o'clock.
So you know the grounds driedout fairly quick.
Some areas stayed underwaterfor the remainder of the shoot,
just some areas.
It doesn't drain that well.
That was kind of it didn'thinder the shoot at all, but we

(03:40):
were kind of because we did adelay on Thursday.
But we were kind of because wedid a delay on Thursday we had
to do two massive rotations ofthe Thursday prelim, which is
Zach's course.
We had to do two big rotationsfor that event to get it through
through the day without havingto do anything.

(04:01):
Friday morning that event wentpretty well.
Friday morning that event wentpretty well.
We had some massive squats onthere and it did take a long
time.
I think everybody expectedbackups on Thursday.
We rolled into Friday.
Friday ran pretty decent.
There was a few backups hereand there.

(04:22):
You know normally and I think Ithink the good shooters that we
have on here would agree thatyou know the Thursday and Friday
prelim and most big majorshoots is not only for the
shooters to get ready as, but itis for the trappers as well.
You know cause you're pullingthese trappers from all over the
place that may may not have asmuch experience.

(04:44):
So the Thursday and Fridayprelim is a good experience in
introduction to the prelim andto the sport.
Saturday we had some majorproblems as far as backups.
In the main event, all of themanagement-wise, we were
scratching our head trying tofigure out what the heck was
going on.
All of the management-wise, wewere scratching our head trying
to figure out what the heck wasgoing on.

(05:05):
Rick Hemingway, myself, chip,just everybody management-wise
trying to figure out what in theworld was the backups.
You know there's Zach says itthere's a lot of other people
that say it's three-day main,three-day main.
But you know this club, we throwa lot of tournaments for the
youth and we do maximize therotations and we throw a lot of

(05:29):
charity shoots that are way morethan what we had out there on
the course over the weekend andit doesn't take near as long
with 100 birds.
And we were just trying tofigure it out.
We finally figured out theissue.
It took us a whole day,unfortunately, but we figured
out the issue.
Um, it took us a whole day,unfortunately, but we figured
out the issue and made sunday alot better for everybody what
was that issue that you figuredout?

(05:52):
we had it.
We we have always, always usedour own employees to load traps
for the main event in theprelims and we had some college
kids that were helping us out,that were experienced, that had
worked at a lot of other clubsin Georgia, and there was just a
little bit of disconnect thatwe really wasn't getting that

(06:13):
message relayed to us.
So we were just thinking thatyou know, the courses were too
crowded, the pairs are too slow,you know, four pairs stacked on
top of one another, but they'reall true pairs.
But we weren't really pointingthe finger that it was a loading
issue and what was happeningwas the loaders were just

(06:35):
keeping the machines full anddoing whatever it took to keep
the machines full, whether it'sstopping a squad interrupting,
touching that machine more thanonce or twice in a rotation.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, just just some.
You know, like you said, it wasjust communication.
You know that.
And y'all got that fixed forthe for Sunday, for sure.
I mean it was.
I never had an issue with abackup.
Really, I mean I had a coupleof backups but it wasn't that
bad.
So let's start with Thursday,because I I got there Thursday
but I didn't shoot the Thursdayprelim at Zach Keenbaum set.

(07:09):
But the only person on thispodcast right now that shot it
was Dominic.
So kind of give me a rundown,zach, I guess, of how you set it
and Dominic, and what youthought of the targets.
Were they too hard?
Were they just right?
I heard a lot of good thingsabout it, but let me hear what
you have to say.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
I said it.
You know I've I've shot andtaught at Forest City a lot, so
I tried to set something thatsome of the local people hadn't
seen in some of those spots, butthat's kind of impossible.
As much as we changed thatcourse, but I just tried to keep
everything visible, tried toreally take in mind the

(07:47):
background and keep the bird ina consistent background so
people can see it.
I definitely threw some speedand some edge, but none of the
edge was past 25 yards so it wasprobably the least distance of
any course of the week if I hadto guess.
But it was good.
Good, I thought it was good.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
I don't see what Dominic says yeah, I mean, in
most of these courses that yousee that are on the more
difficult side, you add abouttwo of the four difficulty
factors being speed, angle,distance and edge.
When you get to three, youtypically border on making a lot
of people angry and I thinkzach did a good job of balancing

(08:30):
.
You know some speed with alittle bit of distance, but no
angle.
Or you know angle with someedge, but it's like 20 yards.
You know there was a good mixof everything.
I think you shot just aboutevery different sporting clays
presentation you would want tosee in a 15 station course.
Um, there were, I mean, justdue to the the nature of where

(08:52):
some of those stations are, Imean a little bit of visibility
depending on, you know, thelighting at a particular time of
day, but that's true ofprobably any course you shoot.
In the southeast that has awoodsy sort of environment to it
, you know.
Know there's, there's alwaysgoing to be, trees and shadows
that you're working through, andthat's something that I think,
in my opinion, is just anacquired skill more than

(09:15):
anything, to learn how to shootin those conditions, because you
know, for a Texan like myself,we shoot in a lot of flat open
spaces, trying to see things,strobed through shadows and, you
know, hit highlights with thesun coming through the trees in
certain spots.
It changes the way that youthink about those presentations.
Again, I don't think that's.
I don't think that makes itnecessarily any more difficult.

(09:39):
It just makes it different andit's a skill that a lot of
people don't necessarily have,especially at an entry level.
It different and it's a skillthat a lot of people don't
necessarily have, especially atan entry level.
So if you haven't experiencedthat before, a moderate set of
targets with that added in canmake it, you know, probably five
or six targets more difficultfor an average shooter Zach.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
what was, what was HOA on that course and what did
you expect?

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Brandon Powell shot a 96.
I was expecting I was thinkingof something around 95 96, so he
, uh, he definitely hit that youknow, uh, we'll get into friday
the friday prelim, in the mainin just a second.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
But uh, we talked about this.
We've been talking about thisfor the past few days and the
target difficulty there.
I I had a problem with it, okay, but I don't shoot a lot or as
much as I used to.
I don't even practice.
So when I go to a shoot, Iexpect myself not to shoot that
well, but I still get mad atmyself.
You know what I'm saying.
So I know I can hit this, but Ididn't hit this, and I think a

(10:41):
lot of people that arecomplaining about the targets
being too hard or have mentionedthe targets being too hard are
probably in that same boat.
Would y'all agree with that?

Speaker 6 (10:52):
Sure, it's worth keeping in mind that you know
you have to.
You have to understand that thedifference between you know
somebody that doesn't go out andpractice versus the people that
are doing this prettyfrequently in their lives as a
quote-unquote professional, thatgap gets wider and wider every
single day that we shoot.
It's really hard to find acourse that is set to be able to

(11:14):
cater to somebody that hasn'tshot in two years or just goes
out and practices once everymonth or two, with a person that
is shooting every week andshooting.
You know the upper echelon oftarget setting on the
championship tour on a regularbasis.
You know trying to find amiddle ground there is getting
harder and harder as time goeson, because people like Zach

(11:35):
Keenbaum continue to get betterand better and better.
Brandon Powell is makingeverybody in the sport better
and better and better, and theperson that hasn't shot is still
going to shoot exactly the waythey would have shot, you know,
know, 10 years ago versus now.
So being able to find thatbalance again is going to be
increasingly difficult as timegoes on and at some point

(11:55):
there's going to need to be aconversation about, you know,
regional championships being forthe masses or being for
determining the best shooter inthat region, and I mean, we're
trying to find the best of bothworlds, but again, it's just
becoming a very hard task to dosuccessfully.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
How does it, when you have a regional like this and
you have, like Dominic wassaying, the masses come to this
because they want to come to aregional, but the targets are
set stiff because we're tryingto determine a regional champion
?
What does that do for the club?
Or what does that do forbusiness, as far as setting them
too hard and several peoplegetting aggravated with it?

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Well, I can honestly sit here and tell you that you
know I knew that the targetswere going to be a little bit
stiffer, but you know, I'm, I'm,I've been a shooter as well for
13 or 14 years, maybe even 16,16 years, and, um, you know, it

(12:54):
has always kind of been me as ashooter.
Know that, I know that when I'mgoing to a regional um, that
the target's going to be alittle bit more difficult than
they were, like, let's say, theSeminole cup or or something
like that.
You know, um, because there isthere's, there's a little bit
more at stake, um, you know, yougot people chasing all American
points.
You got people trying to make,make the team, the all state,

(13:17):
all that other stuff.
That's a big weight factor whenyou throw a regional or a world
championships or a nationalchampionship.
So the difference between youknow, if we were to have our own
standalone shoot, versus whatwe set for everybody to shoot, I

(13:38):
mean, in all honesty, I think Ireally did tell Zach that I
thought that his Thursday prelimwas right, in line with, you
know, if you think that theprelim is supposed to get you
ready for the main event, zach'sprelim did a really good job at
that.
It's just the thing of it.
You know, there was enoughseparation where there were some

(14:02):
targets that Zach didn't throwon that.
But then Rick did throw them onFriday, um, and it was
unscripted.
Zach didn't know what we werethrowing and Rick didn't know
what what we were throwing aswell.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I shot the Friday prelim going into Saturday and
Sunday.
The targets just felt like theywere harder, like they were
bigger targets, like you know.
It wasn't like they were fastor or age, it was just like they
were way out there, wasn't likethey were fast or or edge, it
was just like they were way outthere.
And some of the true pairs noneof them were bad, but some of
them were like really bigtargets and I can remember the
people that I was shooting,shooting with, they were just

(14:34):
missing all of them.
So it's, it's uh, I don't know.
I mean it's, there's a fineline there, I guess.
I mean you want to, you want tocrown a regional champion and
you want to have challengingtargets for those guys that can
shoot, but in the same breath,do you make it easier so that
the guys that are there for funhave fun?

(14:55):
I don't know.
I'm glad I don't have a gunclub, I'll tell you that Because
I don't know what I would do.
I don't know if I would justget mad at the people that were
mad or if I would like.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
I mean it comes to a point where it's I don't know
what I would do, you know Well,I mean I could, I could speak
for myself and, and Chip, youcan speak for yourself after I
say this, but you know, I thinkthat my intention wasn't to make
people not have a good time.
Um, there's a fine line as atarget setter.

(15:40):
I think that we were reallyclose to having a really or set
of targets that I felt like Iwould enjoy as a shooter.
So for me personally, I don'tlike as much lollipop like that
give me.
You always hear the saying agive me station, a give me
station, a give me station.
But realistically, you can missjust as many targets on a gimme

(16:05):
station.
I mean, I remember just a fewmonths ago at the seminal cup
shooting the easy go prelim andthere was a lot of gimme targets
that they had set on thatprelim and I've missed more of
them than I did the harder stuff.
Um, and and it was, you know,lack of focus had a lot of stuff
going on on that Fridaypersonally, but I like a course

(16:29):
that's going to have myattention and I think that if
there was not as many backups onSaturday, maybe the scores
would have been a little bitdifferent, but there was targets
out there.
I remember Anthony and I forgetwho I talked to about this, but
Anthony made a comment to me atthe US Open when it was at

(16:50):
Backwoods a few years ago and hesaid the best thing that I can
do to tell you how to shoot someof these targets on this
specific course was justdouble-tap, the easy one on a
true pair.
You know, and I didn't, Ididn't ever want it to get to be
that way.

(17:10):
You know, I think when played alot, of, a lot of heartache in
it.
I'm not going to use it as anexcuse because you know you do
set targets based on the weatherprediction or the wind
prediction, which the windprediction failed us
tremendously.
For this event.
It's supposed to be awest-northwest wind and they had

(17:32):
been calling that for overeight days.
There was going to be awest-northwest wind at 12 miles
an hour and it didn't take itvery long, on Saturday morning,
the first day of the main event,for it to be a south wind,
which is, you know, total wrongdirection.
On some of the sides, of mycourse, it made the targets a
little bit easier and on theother side it pushed them out,

(17:55):
but it wasn't supposed to be asouth wind.
That's not an excuse.
That's just an observation.
That's what happened.
It was supposed to be awest-northwest wind at 12 miles
an hour on Saturday, all daySaturday and all day Sunday.
That did not happen.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wasn't the wind blowing the same direction the
whole day for the most part.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
The wind was blowing the same direction the whole day
of Saturday.
It was supposed to be awest-northwest wind.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
But everybody shot the main in the same wind.
That's what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Everybody shot the wind.
Everybody shot everythingThursday, Friday, Saturday and
Sunday, and and about the sameamount of wind speed.
You know give or take thedirection, whether it was West
or East or South, but we reallydidn't get a north wind, like we
were supposed to, but it wasall 12 miles an hour or more

(18:49):
yeah, still had 90, 95, 96 ashot well, and justin, if I can
chime in here.

Speaker 6 (18:54):
I mean I think there's a lot of people that are
under the impression that hardand fun targets are mutually
exclusive things.
But there is absolutely noreason in my opinion that a very
hard set of targets cannot alsobe entertaining.
I mean, if I were to come allthe way to Georgia from Texas,
for example, and shoot the samekind of stuff that I shoot on

(19:17):
the soft course on the course Ishoot back home, I don't feel
like that trip is worth it forme.
I know a lot of people hadsimilar experiences with, for
example, the Western Regionalthis past year.
Like I have no desire to shootthat type of target.
If I'm traveling all this way, Iwant to shoot something.
That's kind of going to test myability and I don't know if

(19:38):
it's just a general perceptionthat if people aren't hitting
targets they're not having agood time.
I don't really ever think of itthat way.
I mean I honestly shot prettypoorly this weekend in my
opinion of my own performance.
I was not very happy with how Ishot, but it was by far
probably the most fun that I'vehad shooting a tournament in the

(19:59):
past six months.
And you know, again I get.
People want to hit targets.
They want to shoot up to thebest of what they think their
ability is.
But there has to be someacknowledgement of the fact that
you're traveling to an event toto see what you know that
region of the country is like.
In.
The Southeast region isprobably the toughest one to
shoot in in the United States.

(20:20):
You should not be going inthere thinking that it's going
to be a cakewalk by any means.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
I mean I, I'm saying I'm agreeing with you, uh,
although I disagreed with youwhile I was shooting.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Dominic, I think I think what you, what you said,
kind of you know, think back.
I I become manager here in 2013and um you know, just the prior
clubs that I had managed.
I really didn't get to go outand see different sets of
targets.
I just had to go and settargets that I felt like my

(20:59):
members or my customers wouldlike to see.
And when I got to Forest City,they kind of challenged me to go
out to these nsca shoots andand shoot them, compete at them,
work them and bring home adifferent set of of style um to

(21:19):
this club to make our shootershere at the club better, um to
get them more involved in nscashoots, you know, and that kind
of thing.
And I think, to be honest withyou, that helped me a whole lot.
So what you said makes a lot ofsense because you know, you
take, I guarantee you that youcan talk to a target center that

(21:40):
you know in Texas and say, man,they threw this target and I
would really love to see thistarget here so I can get better
on it.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
I mean, if I were to go up to,you know, my local gun club,
which is greater Houston, andtell Mike Boyer, henry Velasquez
, you know, hey, I I got toshoot a bunch of true pairs
where I got to shoot the firstbird in a spot that's slightly
uncomfortable, which was a themethis past weekend, and it
exposed a massive hole in mygame that I really honestly was

(22:11):
appreciative of, like, I mean,you know we're going into the
World Championships here in Mayand June and you know we want to
be as prepared as we possiblycan.
And shooting this weekend did alot for me as far as telling me
where I needed to improve.
And it's shooting stuff in aposition that's slightly
uncomfortable and where I mightnot normally choose to shoot it

(22:32):
if it were a single or a reportpair.
And that's what I'm going tolook to shoot the next four or
five times.
I get out to practice at GreaterHouston, whether it's them
going out to set that particulartype of pair for me or you know
me just trying to, you know,make it based out of the stuff
that we have at the club.
But either way, you know, youknow, to Zach's point.

(22:53):
You know you're going out andtrying to find stuff unique to a
particular target setter orregion or whatever flavor that
you have for that given eventand you know adapt your own
shooting ability to be able toaccommodate that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, it's a Zach Keenbaum.
I mentioned this to himyesterday.
Team USA right, or?
Or the U?
S as a whole is right up therewith the best in the whole world
.
Do you think, zach, that ifthey didn't shoot targets like
we shoot at these regionaltournaments or or the U?
S opens and stuff like that,that they would be as good as
they are?

Speaker 5 (23:28):
Definitely not.
I think, this being a part ofour championship tour and the
process that picks our US teams,this tour is the best tour in
the world.
I mean, the Western Regional weshot last month was also very
difficult, but very difficult ina different way.
It was a lot bigger, a lotlonger targets, but you're out
in the desert and then you know,we come to the Southeast and

(23:48):
we're shooting in the pineywoods of Georgia.
I mean, every one of theseshoots is going to have a
different flavor, a differentflair, and that is what.
That is what breeds the levelof competitor that we have in
America today, and this is allpart of it.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
When you're talking about the youth some of the kids
that don't shoot much, or someof the people that don't shoot
much and came to the tournamentand they shot very poorly.
What do you say to them aboutthat?

Speaker 5 (24:17):
I've told several students Sunday evening and
since that they are a bettershooter today than they were
before that tournament started,whether they realize it or not.
Um, it's not.
I.
I'm a big believer in ingetting better at we're not good
at, and learning and learningfrom the mistakes we make.

(24:38):
And if they have an open mind,that's exactly what's going to
happen after an event like this,after you go home and think
about it and you actually go andwork on work on that stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Well, we know, Rick always sets difficult stuff, or
and I don't even know if it'sdifficult, it just tricks you.
You know, on the Friday prelimwho set the main?

Speaker 3 (24:57):
um, I set the, I set the late course chip set the
woods course, All right.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
My opinion, Chip.
He won the trophy for the mostdifficult.
I don't know if y'all thoughtthe same thing, but did y'all
give him a trophy for that, Zach?

Speaker 4 (25:10):
I'll gladly post it on my shelf.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
But I'll tell you this where was the big tall
tower?
I mean big tall tower back up?
I thought it was going to be adriven stand.
Who set that?
Was that you, chip?
That was mine that was uhstation nine awesome I love.
I love that missed the wholefirst pair.
Love the love station thank you.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
That was kind of my whole goal for the whole weekend
was just to try and giveeverybody a new experience, not
necessarily be hard targets, itwas I wanted to make sure they,
the birds, were visible.
You could see them, they.
I didn't put a whole lot ofspring on everything, I just
kind of I really beat them morewith the technicality than I did

(25:55):
anything else.
So and my, my main goal wasafter people were done shooting
was I wanted them to step backand be like what did I do this
week and what did I do wrong?
And I want them to fix it, getout and shoot more.
It was mainly my goal behindthat.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
But that stuff right there, I don't remember seeing
that anywhere.
Yeah, you know, I liked itbecause I thought it was
different, like I thought it wasgoing to come over my head and
it didn't.
I liked that kind of stuff.
So you know, even though it wasdifficult, I still liked some
of the stuff that I saw.
Zach Garetta, let's go to yourcourse.
Uh, you said it.

(26:33):
All right, what did you expectto expect it to to do, and what
did it do, and what kind offeedback did you get from it?

Speaker 3 (26:42):
so you know, um, they're my general, my general
opinion.
As soon as I got to station 15,and chip and myself we always
do this to each other as soon aswe get done set, that's like
all right.
What do you think?
What do you think the high isgoing to be?
You know, and um, and I toldhim that I thought a 96 was

(27:02):
going to win it.
I thought a 96 would be thehigh and Anthony shot a 96 on it
.
We did the same thing with hiscourse and you know we didn't
factor in the wind and wethought a 95 would win it and 93

(27:26):
was the high.
You know, looking back on it now, if you could just kind of
rewind and do things over again,I think that on my course the
reason why I got to 96 wasbecause I chickened out and
didn't throw an 85-foot lift onstation 14.
I didn't like the way that itwas coming across the pond, I

(27:49):
didn't like the positioning andwith the wind playing a factor,
it would have been really closeto a shot fall problem if
somebody chose to shoot itreally early.
But I wanted to try and make itwork there and just with the
prediction of the wind it wasgoing to allow me to to throw it

(28:11):
there and not have an issue.
And then when we got theresaturday morning and raised the
lift, we had a, we had a backuppair ready to go.
But when we got there, um, Ijust completely chickened out on
it.
I said we're not going to use,we're not going to use it, we're
not going to do it.
We thought about moving thelift to another station and I
said let's just not do it, youknow.
So I think I reached my 96because of not putting the lift

(28:35):
in.
Because if I had put the liftin, I feel like mine and Chip's
courses would have probably beenidentical.
It was going to be a difficultpair.
Mine and Chip's courses wouldhave probably been identical.
Um, it wasn't a, it was a, itwas going to be a difficult pair
, um.
But I mean, in all honesty, youknow you can go, I'm sure Chip

(28:57):
can walk through his course, butyou know, zach and I we've
talked the last few weeks aboutit and, um, you know it, it kind
of almost where, where youstart, you know you could it
could be a mood setter on whereyou start.
So like if you started onstation seven, which was a true
pair of just belly cross orincome or slightly quartering in
that.
You see that in my opinionthose are give me.

(29:19):
Um, somebody told me that thoseweren't give-me's, but it's a
25-yard target showing fullbelly quartering towards you.
That's a very easy target.
You had all day in the world toshoot either one of them.
If you started at that stationyou probably had a good pace.
If you started on station 12with a true pair of teal going

(29:46):
up and away and quartering tothe left, you didn't have time
to shoot an easy pair before youstarted.
That's what's still differentabout our game in America is we
all don't start on the samestation.
We do for five stand, but wedon't do it for fee tasks.
We don't do it for sporting orsuper sporting or anything else

(30:07):
that we do, unless you'reshooting like a European sub
gauge where you start on one.
But you know that in my opinion, I think that plays a little
bit of a factor in it too.
So you know you go back to someof the comments that we've
heard.
You know there wasn't.
We didn't get to, we didn't getto an easy station, we didn't
get to an easy station.

(30:28):
But if you factor in.
You know 20 squads being onthere with 15 station.
Where is that?
Easy station?
Because somebody is going toget the short end of the stick,
because they have to right.
But you know.
You go to station one.
Station one was a pair of trapbirds that were report.
One was a middie, one was astandard.

(30:50):
You go to station two.
It was a scissor lift, twostandard targets true pair out
about 40 yards, showing fullbelly With a south wind probably
made them just a little bitfurther than 40.
With no wind they were about 35yards.
Get to station three had amiddie peeling up going left and
a standard target on edge.

(31:12):
You get to station four.
You had a Raboo true pair witha middie that climbed a big oak
tree that was on the dirt berm.
A lot of people said that thatwas their favorite station on
the course.
Some people said that theycouldn't hit the Raboo or they
thought the Raboo was too fast,but the Raboo was 10 yards in

(31:36):
front of you, going away like atrap target and then peeling a
little bit left to get tostation six and there was a big
Shondell there with a standardtarget.
It's you know it.
Just it didn't, it doesn't.
I guess it doesn't matter whereyou start, there's going to be

(31:56):
some difficulty in there.
You know, for the longest timewhen I first started shooting I
felt like I always started onthe hardest station.
But then I got over that.
You know, some folks tend topractice, but for me here in the
last five years I don't like topractice and Zach kind of gave
me some advice on that and Ikind of followed suit.
But you know, we did have mycourse, had some give me targets

(32:20):
or, and then on some of thereport pairs, the one of those
birds was easier than the other.
You know, um, if I was to saythe two give me stations, that I
gave you um pair of rabbitswhich I thought were very fairly
easy, um, there wasn't a wholelot you could do in that hole,

(32:41):
but it was a pair of rabbits,you know, and and Joe, joe
Fennesey told me he said Istarted on that station, I
missed two birds there, um, andand Joe shouldn't have missed
two birds there.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, I think I ran that one.
There's another rabbit onsomebody's course that went
along the wood line.
That was chips.
That was a great rabbit, niceand slow.
Yeah, that was Chips.
I'm telling you, I missed ittwice.
My son hit it every time but Imissed it twice and I thought
I'll just kind of walk outshaking my head.

(33:12):
But yeah, zach Keenbaumquestion when you go out, what
was your scores on both courses?

Speaker 5 (33:21):
I shot 87 on the woods chips course and 91 on.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Zach's course, the lake, okay, when you shoot in
the eighties, say example forthat course, what is your first
thought?
Is your first thought I shotterrible or those were hard?
What's your first thought?

Speaker 5 (33:39):
I shot.
I was very upset with myselfbecause I was actually shooting
very well.
I was down seven birds withthree stands to go.
I felt like I was burning itdown because I had gone through
a lot of those hard ones andshot very well and I dropped
three on 15, three, three on oneand two on two.

(34:02):
The math doesn't work on that,does it?
I was down five.
Yeah, I was down five.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
So I was just trying to figure out what your mental
state is when you come off thatcourse.
Are you thinking like I justgot beat up by myself and I'm
going to be so far behind thatit's not going to even be funny?
Is that kind of the thought youhave?

Speaker 5 (34:26):
I didn't really know.
I knew 87 wouldn't be like wayoff and it wasn't after the
first day, but at least on thatcourse, um, I was just upset.
I really misread, or and I madea bad plan on on that first the
number 15, where I dropped thefirst three and then I was just

(34:47):
kind of shell shocked and missedmore.
Um, the targets were just toughenough, um that if you weren't
planning do putting a lot ofthought into it before you got
in there, you were gonna have aproblem and and we've talked
about the wind but for thosethat weren't there, this wind

(35:07):
was.
It was the most wind I've evershot in it for a city, and that
includes the 2018 hurricaneregional that we had there um,
the wind was crazy.
I mean, there were gusts ofover 35 miles an hour and that
was like that Thursday, fridayand Saturday.
So when you're going out there,event after event, and you're

(35:30):
making good moves and you'remissing targets, it plays a
definite factor in yourconfidence and I promise you
there wasn't a soul on thatproperty that's confidence
wasn't a little shaken.
And when your confidence isshaken and the winds keep
blowing, you're doing stuff thatyou normally wouldn't do and it

(35:52):
puts you just in.
It can be a negative mindsetfor a lot of those folks and
that only that just adds to it.
So a tough course.
Add in some really, really badwind over multiple days and you
get what we got.
So what?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I'm one of those folks.
Do you think that if there waszero wind, how do you think the
shoot would have played out?

Speaker 5 (36:16):
So I shot, I taught on Monday, all day Monday, and I
shot both courses yesterday,both courses.
It would have made a hugedifference on every I don't care
who you are, everybody's scoreIf they could have shot that
without wind it was.
They were very differenttargets with, with with still
conditions.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, so the wind has a lot to play, has a lot to or
has a big part in theperformance from everybody.
You know, that's what, noquestion yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:45):
So in my opinion I mean when I get a lot of wind I
tend to start closer to a lot ofbirds and treat them almost
more like rabbits.
Because they're hopping around,they're doing things that
require a little bit moreaggressive move in a lot of
circumstances, like if you'resitting out there in front of
the bird a significant amountfour or five, six feet or more,

(37:06):
you know and that bird takes adive.
You got to move a lot tocorrect that at that point.
But when you got a lot ofdistance and speed on these
birds to begin with, you shouldbe starting out pretty far in
front.
So when you combine those twothings you can put yourself in a
really bad spot really quick.
It wasn't a good plan on my partto treat that course that way,

(37:27):
because even though there was alot of wind, I was starting far
too close to all those birds andended up shorting a lot.
And again, you know I went outand shot the course again Monday
and didn't have nearly as muchof a problem.
But my approach was verydifferent.
So the wind probably had athree to five bird swing on that

(37:47):
course.
In my opinion it could be morethan that.
More than that for some peoplefor sure.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, zach Grettis.
What are some of the commentsthat you've heard from shooters
about the tournament and whatwould you like to say?

Speaker 3 (38:00):
I've heard all kinds of different comments.
I've heard comments that it'sover the top.
I've heard comments that mayconsider not coming back.
I've heard comments that saidthat it was great.
Like I said earlier, it wasn'tour intention to make you guys
or anybody there to have anegative feeling towards me as a

(38:22):
target setter.
Chip as a target setter RickHemingway, jake Spangler, eric
Dorsey, any of those folks MikeBichaud, when did play a factor,
but it's not.
It's not.
I'm not even going to I willtake the blame.
I mean to be honest with you.
I feel like if I would havegiven you one more give me
station on my course, I wouldn'thave heard anyone say on the

(38:45):
late course that it was over thetop.
I think that if Chip would havegiven you two give me stations,
nobody would have complainedthat his targets were over the
top.
The other part of it is and Ihappen to coach a very, very
successful SCTP team the mindsetof people this day and age is

(39:09):
they're trying to comparethemselves to a Zach or an
Anthony or a Brandon or aDominic or somebody that wins
tournaments not necessarilyplaces in the top five or ten,
but somebody that winstournaments.
They compare themselves to themand they forget that they're
shooting against people in theirclass.
You know, I remember there wasa shoot three years ago or two

(39:32):
years ago that all of us herebesides Chip were at, and I
remember going up to Zach andsaying I just threw it away on
the first day of the main eventand he said what did you shoot?
And I said I shot a 58.
And he said you shot a 58?
And I said yeah, he said you'renot off the hunt and I'm always

(39:56):
the type of person that I'm notgoing to look at scores.
You know I get eager not goingto look at scores.
You know I've changed mystrategy a little bit.
I look at scores, but that 58was four targets off of what the
highest score was shot on thatcourse and it was.
It was an even score with Zach.
It was one score under Brandon.

(40:20):
But in myself, in the moment, inthe 30 minutes that it took me
to go talk to Zach, I thoughtthat I had just ruined my
chances of competing amongstthem for the rest of the weekend
.
Um, you know, I'm not a, I'mnot a two or a three day main
event holder, I'm more of a.
I'm going to do good on one.

(40:40):
So you know that was the onlyday that I held my ground with
them.
But sometimes you just got totake a step back and realize
that you're not just you're notshooting against those guys.
If you're a math class, you are, but if you're in a class
double A, b, c, d or E, you knowyou're shooting against people
that are what one haven't yetshot, or two.

(41:04):
You haven't seen their scoreyet and you don't know how well
they did.
So when you're on that courseand you start shooting bad, you
gotta, you gotta grind it out.
Um, and those courses were agrind out course.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
What do you?
Zach came on, what do you thinkwhen you've you get a?
Uh, I'm just going to example a, a, b or a a or b class shooter
that goes out there thinkingthey should shoot 90s and they
start getting mad at this at thecourse.
Like they, like they will, likewe've all done, what do you?
I mean the shit.
They shouldn't be shooting 90s.

(41:37):
You know what I'm saying?
That's kind of what I tell myson.
Like you know, the guys thatI've told you all this before,
the guys that win, miss, theymiss all the time.
You don't very, you very seldomsee somebody straight, of
course, it's a game of missing.

Speaker 5 (41:50):
It's a game of learning how to learning how to
manage failure, because we allfail, everybody does.
Um, you just got to keep it inperspective for them and let
them know.
I know a lot of people talk,they, everyone has this 90
number in their head.
If you go through the nsca, ifyou go through the shooters,

(42:14):
there are not, there's not muchmore than than 10 people in the
country that average 90 for theyear if they're shooting the big
, the championship tour.
So what you shoot at home isnot what you can expect to shoot
on tour.
There's, it's just managingexpectations and and it takes

(42:36):
time for people to understandthe game and understand that
there's a lot to it and there's,and people don't know what they
don't know.
They don't know the shots theydon't know they, they're gonna
see birds that they've neverseen, and that's just part of it
.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
It's just part of the journey you know I'm sitting
here looking at scores and thethe winner of ed of double a
shot an 86 on chips course and a77 on mine.
The guy that was in secondplace tied his score shot an 86
on my course and a 77 on Chip's.
I mean that's a nine targetdifference where each one of

(43:14):
those guys didn't shoot the samescore on either course.
And then you come up to the topand that nine-target separation
isn't there.
Now Brad Sutton Jr shoots a 93on Chip's course and an 86 on my
course.
I just so happened to be at thestation when Sutton finished

(43:37):
and he was kind of down and hesaid that he just leaked too
many targets.
I had a member that wasshooting with him and he just
said he shot really good today.
He was leaking targets but hefigured it out the next day and
shot a high on it.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, it's something that you have to experience and
I don't think y'all can answerthis question.
I don't think that it's goingto change.
As far as getting easier atthese regional tournaments, I
don't think that the clubs wantto throw them easier and I don't
think that the shooters thatare going to shoot them want
them thrown easier Is thatcorrect.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
I know the top players, the guys that are
actually going out there tryingto win and make Team USA and all
that Everyone that was atForest City of those guys
absolutely loved it.
Everyone that was at ForestCity of those guys absolutely
loved it.
In fact several Joe Pinchin,joe Finesi they thought it was

(44:32):
the best tournament they'd beento in a long time.
So it's just, you're nevergoing to make everyone happy.
But that's the big question.
I mean, is this tour for themasses or is it?
What's the goal?
What's the goal?
I mean, maybe the NSCA needs amission statement for the masses
, or is it what's the goal?
What's the goal?
I mean maybe the NSCA needs amission statement for the tour,
or even a target vettingcommittee.
I don't know, but as theseevents get bigger, we may have

(44:58):
to talk more about this.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, I mean they get bigger because of the masses.
You know it's the same 10 or 15people like you're talking
about it'll be at all theseshoots.
But if you can, I bet you zachgaretta's won't put on a
regional knowing 150 peoplegonna show up.
You know what I'm saying, right?
So I don't.

Speaker 6 (45:18):
I don't know the answer to that yeah, but the
thing of it is is theseregionals keep getting harder
and more people are still coming.
We still get more people everyyear.
The attendance has been up on Imean maybe not from one shoot
to the next, but if you takeyour five-year average or you
know, whatever you want to callit we are climbing up in terms
of participation every year.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
So either everybody out there is just a glutton for
punishment or people areactually trying to get better I
mean like in all honesty, I meanthe goal wasn't to make people
shoot a bad score, um, you know.
But I mean there's, there'speople here that compete.
And then when I say here, theywere people here last weekend

(45:57):
that compete, that came tocompete and you know, even
though the targets were, youknow, I mean, zach, be honest,
how far?
I mean I hate the word over thetop but how far off were we as
far as that perfect score?
Would you say a pair of 95s, apair of 96s, a pair of 97s?

(46:21):
How far?

Speaker 5 (46:22):
Yeah, I think if you can keep your top guys at 190,
that's probably about theperfect difficulty and you
weren't off by much.
Like I said, the win played amuch bigger factor than anyone
wants to admit and I meanoverall, I'd say the pace, some

(46:43):
of the pace on some of the pairs.
If they were just a report pairor um, what I would say is is a
lot of the birds required youto shoot it just uncomfortably
fast and there's, there's,there's a lot of people that
can't do that, so they'reshooting that bird slow and
they're not getting a good shotat the second bird.

(47:03):
But that's only a few stands intotal.
I don't think you guys werethat far off.
I think I think the weather wasa factor and then multiple days
of the same story is what justaffected their planning and
their mood and that that thatwas all part of it.

(47:25):
But how beautiful is forest city?
I mean, come on, do you haveany people?
Do you have any people comingup to me, people in town, all my
I call them my kids, butyounger college age guys that
I've coached over the years thatcame over to savannah for the
time and they're like we get it.
We get why you moved here.
This is beautiful.
This is awesome.

(47:46):
Um, the club was shined upbright.
It, it, it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Zach that grass right there by the clubhouse.
I wanted to go just like do oneof those snow angels in the
grass.
You know what I'm saying.
Like it was, like the grass wasamazing.
That's the first thing I saidwhen I got there.

Speaker 6 (48:05):
Look at that grass so yeah, I'll put it to you this
way, justin.
I mean the masters was going onthat same weekend.
That's kind of what this wasfor.
I mean, in my opinion, I feltlike I was going to a really
pristine club as far as the, theviews and everything are
spectacular.
The club is immaculate in everyregard from a view standpoint.
And you know what, if I go playAugusta National Golf Club

(48:27):
tomorrow, I don't give a crap ifI shoot 91 or 136.
I'm playing Augusta Nationaland that's kind of the viewpoint
I had that whole weekend.
I mean I enjoyed the targets aswell, but I mean I would have
enjoyed shooting everything at80 yards with those views.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
But yeah, man, I liked the course, the food, all
the restaurants we talked about.
You know I heard a lot ofpeople coming up to us saying,
hey, appreciate you telling uswhere to eat.
You know, all those places weregood and, uh, I had a good time
, you know, just had a had adifficult time on the targets.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
You know, I mean this is, we hadn't really let Chip
talk a whole lot.
But you know, chip, I mean howlong ago did we start getting
ready for this?

Speaker 4 (49:13):
And how excited were you to have this shoot come here
.
Oh gosh, we started.
We really started trying toprep for this back in like
December, where it's just doinglittle things here and there.
But we've been getting readyfor it for a long time and as
soon as Zach told me he wasgoing to let me set a main event
, I was ecstatic.
I was ready.
I mean, this is really my firstbig tournament setting a main

(49:37):
event and I was excited for it.
I wanted to do somethingdifferent.
I wanted to give people targetsthey'd never seen.
I tried to run a rabbit up theside of a tree but I couldn't
get it to work.
Um, I just I was ready, I'mready to do something new for
people and I was hoping peoplewould come out and just have a
good time you can tell thatthere was effort put in the

(50:00):
targets.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I'll give you that.
You can tell that there wasthought put in the targets.
For sure it's not like youdidn't try.
You know what I'm saying.
He's he's.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
He set this rabbit up a tree, and I forget who it was
.
They said, uh, you need to gocheck it out, and so we go over
there.
What did?
What did I tell you chip?

Speaker 4 (50:20):
um, I think you said about, I think you told me like
this is a cool target, but yougot to think that 720 people got
to shoot this.
You got to be consistent everysingle time.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
And you're going to blow the tree up too.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah, that too.
Yeah, they were going todestroy the tree.
It'd be like the beaver that'sbehind Chip's house right now
went over there and knocked on atree about 40 yards away.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, chip, you got any negative comments towards
your course?

Speaker 4 (50:49):
You know, actually I've gotten a couple, but I've
actually gotten a lot ofpositive comments, mainly from
the lower class shooters that Iknow, and they they loved the
course they shot.
It felt like they shot verywell, for how difficult it was.
And they, uh, I have several ofthem coming back and shooting

(51:12):
it again, yeah, and then, uh,after I got monday morning I got
a phone call and they, uh,somebody from out of town wants
me to come set their course atthe same difficulty level level
for them oh, here it starts thatstarting now well, I think

(51:34):
everybody, I think I think as awhole, I think everybody had a
good time.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
I think a lot of people left beat up, but we've
talked about why.
That is the wind, the fact thatit's a regional and the fact
that they want to put on a goodshow.
I mean that sums it up.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
If I could give anybody advice, it would be.
You know, I've been in thissport since 2005.
Started off as a trapper, youknow, and we had trappers that
weren't as well trained as theyneeded to be.
I remember the first time thatI ever trapped was in Texas for

(52:16):
the Texas State 2005.
It was my first trapping job.
Right, we went to school inSouthern Illinois, we hopped in
a van, drove all the way toTexas, started pulling for a
prelim for the Texas State, andI can tell you that I was
nervous, as ever.
You know a lot of these shootersand we are talking to a couple

(52:37):
of professionals, but a lot ofthese shooters and we are
talking to a coupleprofessionals but a lot of these
shooters kind of take that forgranted.
You know, if you have nevertrapped before and when I mean
trapped I mean for a tournamentthere's just as many jitters in
my body trapping for atournament as there is when I'm
actually leading off or shootingin a stand, because they're

(52:57):
there not trying to mess up.
We had a phone call from a guy.
He said hey look, I'm nottrying to get out of trapping,
but I'm colorblind and I'm notgoing to be able to see the
target when they're breakingthem with this tree background.
You're going to have to put mein a spot where there's a good
solid blue background, whereI've got some black-bellied
targets or something, for me toactually see chips, because I

(53:20):
can't see orange, I can't seegreen, you know.
So you know there was somenerves there and I heard some
shooters you know throughout theweekend say you know, some of
the trappers weren't as good orwhatever.
But you know I consider myselfan ambassador for the sport for
95% of the time and I don't haveany problem going talking to a

(53:44):
trapper anybody else's club andsaying, hey look, I've been
doing this a long time, I'vebeen in your shoes.
Before Settle down, here's whatyou need to do.
This is a quicker way to do ithere.
This is how you record themaster sheet and it doesn't
affect my game at all.
I heard some people saying thatthey argue with trappers for
five or 10 minutes over one bird, and those of us that are on

(54:08):
this call we know that that'snot how you resolve an issue.
The issue is if the trapper'sbeing stubborn or if you're that
adamant that you hit thattarget or your squadmate hit
that target, get the coursemanager involved and it's not
the scorekeeper's responsibilityto get them over there If

(54:28):
they're refusing.
A lot of the big guys haveeverybody's phone number and can
make a phone call and getsomebody over there in a very,
very quick time and then itmakes everybody look good, not
just on the club side, but itmakes you look like you can

(54:48):
handle something a little bitbetter and not let things get to
you.
I've had numerous situationswhere I've lost targets because
I didn't look at my scorecard.
It's cost me being on thepodium before you know.
Of course I was frustrated, butat the end of the day it was my
fault.
You know I didn't look at myscore sheet and I walked away

(55:10):
and I caught it three stationslater or two stations later, and
that's not how the game isplayed.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
You got to think all those guys could be mad, the
shooters could be mad, and thenthey got to listen to it.
Every time they come up, I mean, it's always good to be nice to
them, you know yeah, and I mean, come on, let's be honest, we
can't do it without them.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
You know, zach and dominic are at the texas state.
If the trappers don't show uptomorrow, what's going to happen
?
I mean, everybody's going tohave to step in and trap for
each other, or or their shoot'sgoing to get canceled.
We can't do it without them.
They're, they're the, they'rethey're the backbone of the
shoot, you know.
So you, you gotta, you gottaappreciate them and thank them

(55:47):
for what they're doing, becausethey're taking time out of
whatever they were doing to, toto make sure that you have a
good experience and try not tomess up.
And there's a lot of nervesthat go in with that.
And you know I'm not justtalking about the Southeast
regional I've heard stories andstories and stories of the

(56:09):
umpteen other different shootsthat I've been to, that the
trapper screwed me out of thisbird, or because they did this,
I did this.
But you know, at the end of theday, you're the one that called
pull, you're the one thatpulled the trigger and you're
the one that either lost thattarget or hit that target.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Zach, who were the trappers at the shoot.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
So majority of the trappers were from our Forest
City Junior team, either parentsor shooters on the team, and
there was just a handful thatweren't.
So there was a lot of folksthat knew how this game was
played, just based off ofexperience.
Or we threw a 21-Georgia Stateshoot.

(56:49):
A lot of the faces werereturning faces.
I felt like we had a reallygood squad of trappers.
We had some that you know werenervous or didn't know what they
were doing.
I was I forget who said ittoday, but I think Anthony said

(57:09):
that there was a lot of peoplethat knew him based off of the
video the trapper training videothere was a lot of trappers
that would look up and be likeyou're that guy.
But they were all local, theywere all tied to the club or to
the junior team in some form orfashion and I think they did a

(57:30):
good job.
I wish we wouldn't have had thedelay on Saturday, because it's
not embarrassing, it's just.
We should have found that delayand made a fix on it quick,
because it was a very, very easyfix.
I fixed it in 15 minutes onSunday morning.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
I'll tell you something else.
That was pretty neat.
I was shooting five stand andMike Bichaw and John Kent rode
up on the cart or whatever theywere riding in and I spoke to
them for a while, asked John howhis son was doing and he said
that Mitchell was coming out tothe club.
I never got.
I never got to see him, but Iknow that Beretta did something
big for Mitchell.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Yeah, they did.
Um, so thanks to Beretta.
You know Mitchell was in a very, very bad car accident coming
from the university of Alabamato shoot his mom, dad, shoot um
at the Seminole cup and uh nevermade it there, spent uh nearly
a month in the hospital.
Um, he's in a wheelchair rightnow.

(58:30):
Hopefully he'll be walking bythe summertime.
Um, but his gun, his gun gotmangled.
Just terribly bad.
I mean, you can make a necklaceout of it and that's about it.
Beretta gave him a brand-new694 to replace the gun that was
mangled.
It's pretty incredible.

(58:51):
A lot of teary eyes that nightand just a lot of fun emotions.

Speaker 5 (58:59):
It's a miracle he's here.
I mean, that was as bad of anaccident as you can get in.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
The cool thing about Mitchell is he actually showed
up Friday evening and then hecame back Saturday and he rode
around with John and since hewas going to ride around with
John at the shoot, he broughthis shooting bag to put on his
pilas and it was the first timethat he unzipped his shooting
bag and his pila case was justabsolutely destroyed from the

(59:26):
accident Pulled the glasses outand everything was fine and wore
them around and rode aroundwith John.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
There you go, shout out to pila, right?
Well, we need to get him a newcase then, don't we?

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Yeah, that's all he needs.
Everything else was fine.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Dominic's a good one to ask.
Dominic, we touch everything.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
We didn't really get into.
You know your son shooting badand I know that we said that it
wasn't the intention for yourson to shoot bad, as it wasn't
the intention for anybody elseto shoot bad, but else to shoot
bad.
But I hope that they, when they, you know they leave the core,
they, they left savannah andthey started headed home and
they got over the frustrationthat they didn't shoot the score

(01:00:03):
that they had preparedthemselves to shoot.
Um, they go home and theychallenge their local club to
throw harder targets, as long asthey have more than one course.
You know, because you alwayshave to keep everybody happy, um
, zach knows this more thanbecause you always have to keep
everybody happy.
Zach knows this more thananybody.
But you have to keep everyonehappy when it's.

(01:00:23):
You know your normal day-to-daybusiness and you know, challenge
those guys to throw targetsthat are just a little bit
uncomfortable for people becauseyou can't get better by
shooting.
You know 25 yard targets allthe time, or off speed stuff all
the time you got to throw.
You got to throw stuff that's alittle bit testy and edgy.

(01:00:44):
And I think that you know Zachsaid it a little bit that the
Southeast they do do that.
I know they do that in Texas.
I know that there's clubs allaround this country that do that
.
But if you're not a member of amember of a club that is
willing to do it, just beg them,tell them to do it because
it'll make you a lot better,it'll make you feel comfortable.

(01:01:05):
Zach was out here grinding itout last night and said he
figured it out and hopefully hedoes well this weekend.
I know that here recently Zachhas said you know as nicely as
he could put it that he likesChip's targets better than he
does mine.
He's said that you know theseare the best set of targets this

(01:01:30):
club's had since I've become amember here.
You know, and it's been Chip'stargets they probably are.

Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
You know what?
Right now they are, there's nodoubt.
And anyone that wants to shootchips course next week.
I'll be back Monday.
They can come take a look,there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Go ahead, get that ZK lesson in there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
You know what my son?

Speaker 6 (01:01:51):
Hey Justin, your kid's a better shooter now than
he was a week ago.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Oh yeah.
Yeah, go tell him that I'vetried to tell him that.
You know, what he's more madabout than anything is.
He went out there and tried tocatch a.
There was about a six-foot carpon the side on the bank and he
was out there trying to catchthat carp.
I said, son, can we go?

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
And he's more mad at that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I think that he didn't catch that fish.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
There's there's some big fish in there.
There's some big fish in there,I think.
People saw him several timesthis week.
I will, I will say, you know.
So I did post on facebook thatI I actually got to step away
and shoot 20 gauge sub gaugewith with my son, mason, who's
nine, just turned nine back infebruary, started shooting for
the juniors this year, and thisis, you know, it's.
It's pretty incredible, it's.
You know, I've been waiting forthis, yeah, when, when we formed

(01:02:39):
the junior team in 2014, hewasn't even born yet, you know,
and I was doing it, you know, inpreparation for this and, and
you know, he went through andshot eric's course and it was
hard.
Um, first station, I shot afour out of six.
Mason shot a three and I waslike, oh yeah, here we go, he's
gonna shoot, good, you know.
And then he zeroed the next twostations.
He gets off of the thirdstation and he's crying and I

(01:03:03):
said what are you crying for?
And he said I'm not good, dad.
And I said, buddy, you juststarted.
I, I, you know, I didn't shootin the competition.
I think this is what.
What a lot of kids, you know,other than zach or or the, the
true kids of this sport that arenow adults or fathers.
You know I didn't shoot myfirst registered shoot until

(01:03:26):
2008.
So you know that was thatwasn't long before he was born.
So you know it's sometimes youjust gotta, you gotta put in
your time, you gotta understandthings a little bit better.
But you know it's sometimes youjust gotta, you gotta put in
your time, you gotta understandthings a little bit better.
But you know he ended upshooting an 11 and um, you know
we finished the shoot on Sunday.

(01:03:46):
We went out to the castaway, uhand, and had kind of a
celebration dinner that it wasall over and um, I was glad to
see my family for the first timefor more than 20 minutes, um,
for for a solid week, and mysister, callie that was running
registration with casey.
She said, mason, you weren'tthe last place shooter in

(01:04:09):
e-class and you should have sawhis eyes like he just sprouted
up.
I wasn't last, you know, andyou know sometimes it's not
always about shooting that highscore.
You know, especially if you'rea kid, you know I would.
Um, I would love to shootsporting clays with my dad.
My dad's a good shot, but he,he doesn't shoot sporting clays,

(01:04:32):
he, he has to work for a livingand you know I will always
remember that moment and kid ifthe kids are listening.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
You know, don't take that for granted, because one
day, either your dad's not goingto want to do it or he's not
going to be around anymore, andthat is a, that is a, uh, an
experience and a and a momentthat I will never, ever forget
as a father, and I hope hedoesn't either, and we have a
score to build on, you know yep,you know, when I shoot and I

(01:05:01):
take bryce pretty mucheverywhere with me now, maybe
not all of them, but themajority I take him with him,
take him with me, and I findmyself paying attention to what
he's doing and trying to talk tohim, and and then when I get up
there, I'm like, well, I don'teven know what's going on, and
that's fine with me.
I'd rather him try to hit themand do well, and I don't care

(01:05:25):
what I shoot, I really don't.
So that's the thing that I'venoticed about shooting with your
son is that you'll with me.
I just get up there to.
I really want him to have agood time and I'll just figure
out how to have a good time.
You know what I'm saying yeah,absolutely 100.
It's called sacrifice yeah, yeah, yeah, just let's.

(01:05:48):
Let's go have a good time andI'll watch you.
I always shoot behind him forsome I guess, because the way
they have us our names, I don'tknow what it is but I'm always
shooting behind him.
So I'm always paying to him,making sure he's got his shells,
making sure he's got his earplugs in, and this, that and
another.
The targets go out and I get upthere and I'm like all right,
can I have another show pairplease?

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Yeah Well, you're going to have.
He likes Desi better than Zach.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
Yeah, we all do.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Chip, you got anything you'd like to say?
Would you like to apologize forthrowing anything over the top,
as we heard over the weekend?

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
Yeah, I mean I apologize that the course was
over the top.
That wasn't my intentions.
I just wanted to throwsomething new, like I said, and
make sure everyone had a funtime.
It obviously came around andcome back to bite me, but I'll
learn from it and next time youcan expect some better, softer

(01:06:55):
quality targets.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
Oh, we don't need to get too soft and I guarantee you
there will be a new next time,I think.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
I think everyone wants to come back no apologies
necessary on our own yeah, well,guys, thank you for spending
some time with me and andtalking about this and uh, for
city, I mean, that's you can'tget any better, really, you know
.
So I appreciate everybodycoming on and everybody that
went.
We we appreciate you going anduh, hope to see you at the next

(01:07:28):
regional where the targets maybe softer.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Everybody comes back.
I hope you found something goodin it.
Um, we, we, we overcame storms.
We, we had a great time.
There was a lot of laughter.
You probably left with asouvenir of an ant bite, you
know I mean there was a lot ofgood came from the club.
You know the staff.

(01:07:52):
They worked their butt off.
Chip has a great crew.
We have a lot of members thathelped out and I hope that you
know someone noticed thatsomeone or all of you noticed
that you know it was.
It was an army of either staffor membership that that pulled
this thing off and we hope thatyou had a good time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Give us, give us another chance and um, um and
come join us again guys, zach,dominic, y'all shoot good over
there in texas, and and uh, zachand chip and savannah, y'all
get some.
I guess some rest or take iteasy for a minute we'll try.

Speaker 5 (01:08:28):
Good luck, zach and dom thank you, thanks guys,
thank y'all so.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
I'm not a fool.
Outro Music.