The 77-year-old Jamaica Gun Club hosted a massive sporting clays shoot of 148 shooters from across the island at its base in Salt Island in the Clarendon valley recently, and the McMaster family took full advantage of it.
The shooters battled extreme heat and wind on an unfamiliar 17-station course, that only heightened the competition among the shooters but the McMaster family stamped its class on the day with Ray McMaster (92) taking the top spot by way of ‘long run’ tiebreaker over runner-up Chad Ziadie (92) and A Class winner Brett Thwaites (92).
His wife Wendy (78) topped the Ladies’ section and in-form daughter Aliana (69), bagged second place. Another daughter Abigail (62) was just off the podium in fourth place.
Ray started very well by picking off five of the six birds on the first station and was perfect on the next station. His scorecard showed 11 of 17 stations where he bagged all the targets on offer. His only bad station was number 14 on which he got only three of the six targets.
He was happy with his performance after walking away with the ‘Highest Overall’ trophy for the second time. “Awesome, awesome, awesome. I actually didn’t think the 92 would prevail,” Ray said.
He was not sure what was responsible for the win though. “I don’t know but I just come out and do the same exact thing, come out and execute. For one, the breeze wasn’t blowing too much and I think that helped with the course. Shooting is like that, you just come out and everything happens for you on the day. I must say I am happy that I prevailed but the score could have been better but I am very happy.”
He was especially happy that his family made it a “clean sweep” and they plan to celebrate the win. He praised the Jamaica Gun Club for putting on a well-organized shoot that included trophies, prizes and gift bags full of sponsors’ products.
The Ladies winner Wendy said, “I feel really good. My confidence level is going back to where it was. I was struggling back in several shoots before and I worked on my weakness and I have discovered how to correct it so right now I am in a good place, just to work on it a little bit more so I can always be on top.”
Wendy spoke about the pressure of her daughter Aliana defeating her several times recently but said she is over that now and plans to stay on top.
The shoot was one of the most competitive among the club members for a very long time as seen by the many podium positions that had to be decided by long-run tie-breaker (LR). Notably, three shooters ended on 92, 91, 87 and 72 and there were many scores in the eighties even though many of the shooters said that the course was hard, coupled with searing heat throughout the day.
The top three shooters in the various classes were: A Class: Brett Thwaites, 92, Shaun Barnes, 91 (LR) and Jordan Thwaites, 91 (LR); B Class: Najeeb Haber, 79, Craig Davis, 77, and the immediate past president Evan Thwaites, 76; C Nathan Chin, 90, Paul Burke, 82 (LR) and Ricky DuQuesdnay, 82 (LR); D Class: Gordon Bucknor, 87, Justin Samuda, 83, and Richard Todd, 80; E Class: Noah Vaughn, 81, Matthew Grant, 77 (LR) and Carlton Davis, 77 (LR); Hunters or Beginners: Kashka Jones, 72 (LR), Lucas Thomson, 72 (LR) and Anthony Ayoub, 72 (LR); Ladies: Wendy McMaster, 78, Aliana McMaster, 69, and Tara Brown, 67; Juniors: Nathan Chin, 90, David Wong, 87, and Mark Desnoes, 82; and Sub Juniors: Christopher Lee, 50.
Two shooters, Noah Vaughn and Kashka Jones were promoted D Class and E Class, respectively, after winning their classes on the day.
Geoffrey Ziadie, president of the Jamaica Gun Club, was very pleased with the day’s proceedings. “It was a great team effort of the whole club, especially the managing committee, but most of all I need to just single-handedly thank Bruce DuQuesdnay, who set a fantastic course and made it a very successful and family-oriented great day, and as it turned out we had a husband and wife who won which I thought was extremely gratifying for them, more importantly for the club that they did it. My son (Chad) actually tied for first and lost in the long run which we are good sportsmen. We are happy to say congrats to the McMasters but we have next time to look forward to so it was a great day had by all and the weather held up for us. We had a fantastic day.”
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