Golf with a Gun

Sporting clays has often been referred to as “golf with a gun.” I’m not so sure how similar the sports are. Could you imagine Goethe or Beethoven playing golf?  Neither could I, but I sure could see them hunting.

Today it is quite common to sojourn on a cast & blast outing where you can fish a little and do some shooting. I can see that. Grouse hunting with a break for some fly-fishing would be delightful. In New Brunswick I can heartily recommend following a woodcock hunt with some salmon fishing.

But golf also has poked its nose under the tent with the occasional golf & gun weekend. Golfing and gunning? Are they kindred? Is sporting clays really golf with a shotgun?

I live in a golfing community with more than 500 holes of golf at our beck and call. I even play the game, after a manner, so I thought that a comparison of golf and sporting clays might be in order.

Did you know that there are more shooters than golfers in the US? A 2006 study of sports participation showed 18,800,000 shooters, whereas the latest golf number I could find was only 13,200,000. To be fair, the almost 19 million shooters include rifle, pistol and archery as well as shotgun, but the numbers will cause a raised eyebrow or three at the 19th hole. Without archery’s 6,633,000, the numbers of golfers and firearms shooters are about even.

There are significant differences between sporting clays and golf. When shooters miss a clay, they usually just shake their heads and try harder next time. When golfers miss, they cry. Perhaps it has to do with wearing a uniform of pink trousers with little embroidered yellow whales.

In competitive shooting, the sure sign of a newbie is the “I” word. “I missed this” or “I muffed that,” etc. As Rhett said, “Frankly, Scarlet . . . .” As a shooter matures, he quickly realizes that no one else cares, so he shuts up. You never hear the good shots whine about their misses.

Not so in the self-centered realm of the little dimpled ball. I once suggested to my golfing foursome that the first-person singular personal pronoun be struck from our vocabulary for the morning’s round. There followed three hours of silence punctuated by grunted curses.

And then there is the equipment. A good shotgun is a work of art. It is comprised of carefully designed little bits and pieces that interact with amazing complexity. You can take it apart and fuss with it. You can lavish attention on it. A golf club is like a fork. It’s just there. Glaring at you. Smirking.

But golf does get some things right. Their handicap system is marvelous. Would that competitive sporting clays had such an arrangement instead of classes. Of course if that were the case, a normal person might actually win a shoot instead of the usual range owner’s son or teaching professional. That might cause other normal shooters to enter competitions and wrest even more victories from the sponsored shooters. Can’t have that, can we? Give trap credit for their 16-yard handicap setup too.

In defense of golf, you seldom hear the “It’s too hard” whine. Due to their excellent handicap system, golfers of all abilities play the same course. Not so with sporting clays shooters. In the big NSCA shoots the bulk of the entries are in M, AA and A classes even though there are far more NSCA members in B, C, D and E. The little guys don’t play registered because they feel they don’t have a reasonable chance. And of course they are right. Wouldn’t it be nice if sporting clays had as good a handicap system as golf?  And don’t get me started on sporting clays permitting a pre-mounted gun.

There. I’ve finished venting. What are your thoughts? Boots off. Beer open.