With the sport’s governing body Archery GB revamping the Handicap system and introducing classifications for the Indoor season, everyone had to re-establish their handicap. Three rounds are required to get an initial handicap, so Sunday represented the first time that archers, or at least some of them, could take part in a handicap round. The idea of the system is to allow archers of all bow types to compete against each other on a level playing field. It also allows the individuals to see where their form is at. The, increasingly fiendish and complicated, allowance tables are designed to bring the score up to 1440 points if the archer shoots to their handicap.
On the scratch side of things Pete Mumford out shot Dave Moore and Joy Gough to record the highest Compound score of the day. The highest Recurve score went to Jonathon Gordon, but he is yet to gain a handicap so could not be included in the final result. Erin Hainge wished that she had remembered to bring her quiver, armguard, and finger tab as she had a frustrating morning trying to adapt to borrowed equipment.
Barbara Harris and Danny Cowin engaged in a private war for supremacy. It was so private that Barbara had no idea she was involved until the last end of the morning when Danny announced that he was 2 points ahead of her and it was all to play for. Shooting first in the rotation Danny’s last arrow went into the 2, which meant Harris had to score 23 out of the remaining 25 points to win. She put the first arrow into the 5 but the next three were 4’s meaning that the best she could do was tie the score – which she did after her final arrow deflected off one already in the target and went into the 5. Mr Cowin let out an expletive and was even more exasperated when it was established that Barbara had beaten him on countback as she had 23 Golds to his 19. Danny had the last laugh as he finished third after the handicap was applied, while Barbara was down in a lowly sixth place.
Colin Moore continued to show admirable consistency with his Barebow to scoop second place after handicapping. Peter Howland had a good shoot and finished top of the leaderboard. Conversely Joy Gough had another tough day at the office and ended up at the bottom of the table.
Results: Worcester Handicap-1.P.Howland 1490 (60/225/13), 2.C.Moore 1487 (60/221/11), 3.D.Cowin 1467 (60/249/19), 4.E.Hainge 1453(42/160/7), 5.P.Mumford 1446 (60/291/51), 6.B.Harris 1444 (60/249/23), 7. D.Moore 1433 (58/287/51), 8.J.Gough 1422 (55/256/36).
Also shooting: J.Gordon 60/259/26pb. D.Craine 57/173/6.
Isle of Man Archery Club 