The evolution if the Southern Shoot Out has been interesting, to say the least. I've been attending since before the Parker/LCS thing started, but missed it this year in favor of the National Decoy Show and Sale, much closer to home. Thus I am relying on the websites to inform me of the results and the usual grumbling (some may call it soul searching).The first year of the shoot-out, the organizers were just thankful that there was sufficent support to call it a success...but as things progressed, I noticed the ex post facto "jockying for position," mentioning buzz words like "ringers" and "borrowed guns" and thinly veiled trial ballons about new exclusionary rules to make losers into winners, bar "state champions," etc.
The point of this is that I, and I'm sure others would like to know who comprised the teams, and who were considered ringers, and why. Last year, my friend Malc Mc Gregor (possibly on my recommendation, enthusing over the event) flew to Florida from his winter home at Stanial Cay, Bahamas, borrowed a car, drove to Sanford, and, being that his home is in New Hampshire, had to borrow a gun. Did that make him a "ringer"?
Other people technically qualify as "professionals" by virtue of their employment in the guns and ammo industry, without regard to whether they have ever shot a registered round of trap, skeet, or sporting clays. Back a hundred years ago, an aging H. Carpenter, Parker's office manager was classed pro, and barred from competing for prizes at his local gun club by virtue of his employment, while Mr. Lyon, who ran the business as trustee for his daughter's and niece's controlling shares was classed amateur on the technicality of being trustee versus having a beneficial interest. Wouldn't it be something if Messrs. Conrad and Archer started writing additional rules to plug this sort of "loophole."
My feeling is that if someone wants to compete as an adult, he stands to the score and demonstrates his proficiency, full well understanding that others may be more proficient. I attend certain flyers shoots, not to even imagine that thru a stroke of luck I might win anything, but merely to stand to the 31-yard mark in competition with the likes of the top guns in the country. When they run 5 birds, the best shooters step back a yard, and another yard for each subsequent run of 5. I don't recall stepping back very often.
The most successful event which appeals to we of the double gun persuasion is the Vintagers. I was there in RI for the first one, and afterward there was much hand wringing given that a genuine sponsored professional won the Vintage Cup (Andy Duffy with his father's old Parker GH). But Ray P., to his credit, let the sleeping dog lie, notwithstanding calls for exclusionary rules by those who would bar participation by everyone more proficient than themselves, and voila! the following year a 16-year-old kid won the Vintage Cup...and now we are comming up on the 11th year's event, and I don't recall any "ringers" or "borrowed guns" or "state champs" being a topic of discussion. Why anyone would even think to utter the words is a puzzlement. This is a critique, not criticism, and there's a difference.
The unofficial motto of the Grand American Handicap has long been: "Who will be right at the right time?" In other words, the GAH is an elaborate lottery of handicap advantages or disadvantages and rules that exclude. I would hate to see the Parker/LCS shootout decided on the basis of technicalities rather than a bunch of like minded sportsmen standing to the mark with period correct Parkers and Elsies and showing their stuff. And any mention, even in jest, of ringers and borrowed guns and personal shooting credentials earned at state and national shoots comes across wrong in the context of the "Fun" template that began with the first Vintager shoot at Addieville RI in 1997. Nuff said. EDM