In weather conditions that the TT organizers would have killed for, shooting resumed at Greeba on Sunday. Only eleven archers turned up to enjoy the sunshine and various rounds were shot as part of the Club’s Handicap League. A handicap round allows archers of all ages and bow types to shoot against one another on a level footing. If an archer shoots exactly to his handicap, the tables will adjust the score to 1440. Anything above or below this will indicate how well or not an individual is doing.
The two week break due to TT was a mixed blessing, it allowed those with niggling injuries to recover, but meant a loss of form for most. The round of the day was a WA 1440(90/70/50/30m for the gents-70/60/50/30m for the ladies) but only five archers could shoot for the whole day. Danny Cowin was obviously under the weather and did well to even finish. His score was nowhere near his best and it was no surprise that he came bottom of the table after the handicap was applied.
Rhys Moore took the scratch honours as far as the Gents Compound was concerned with a sizable victory over Pete Mumford who was breaking in new arrows. After handicapping Rhys took second place, while Pete finished in sixth. Joy Gough had recovered from her shoulder injury and started well, but a mix-up over her 60m sight mark cost her valuable points. A miss at 50m did her no favours either, but she finished strongly over the final distance to take third place overall.
Barbara Harris had a bizarre shoot. She mis-counted her arrows in the first end at 70m and only shot five of them. At the shortest distance she was unhappy with her timing and tried to come down off the shot but forgot to hold on to the arrow and so had another miss. Barbara managed to injure herself taking the lid off her pen while scoring; and had a panicky moment when she thought she was locked in the toilet at the break. (She was pulling the door instead of pushing it!) In between times Harris felt she shot averagely and it came as a surprise that she ended up recording her second highest scratch score of the season. It was even more of a surprise, that after the handicap was applied, she had taken first place.
Ralf Mitchell shot a Long Metric I(70&60m) for the first time to finish in fifth place overall. Juniors Toby Young and James Hill, finally free from exams, shot a Short Metric(50&30m) in the afternoon session with Toby taking scratch honours. After the handicap was applied James secured fourth place while Toby came in seventh.
Also shooting were Kristen Joughin and Chris and Dylan Addy. Kristen shot a Short Metric to complete her third and so gains her Outdoor Handicap. Chris Addy added a terrific 105 points to his pb for the Short Metric III(30&20m) and requires one more round to gain a handicap. Dylan who was shooting outdoors for the first time also shot a Metric III.
Results Metric Handicap- 1.B.Harris 1447 (142/1132/19/6), 2.R.Moore 1409 (144/1309/55/14), 3.J.Gough 1399 (143/1211/29/6), 4.J.Hill 1395 (70/420/0/0), 5.R.Mitchell 1394 (63/316/3/1)pb, 6.P.Mumford 1368 (144/1223/34/8), 7.T.Young 1353 (70/439/7/2), 8.D.Cowin 1248 (140/891/8/3)
Short Metric- K.Joughin 46/249/1/1pb. Short Metric III – Gents Recurve-C.Addy 72/537/5/2pb. Jnr Gents Recurve-D.Addy 45/186/0/0pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 