Sport: Skeeters

During World War I, the marksmanship of U. S. soldiers amazed Europeans. Should the U. S. be invaded during World War II, enemy parachutists may have more than U. S. soldiers to reckon with. Sprinkled all over the country is an army of 100,000 amateur sharpshooters (20% of them women & children), developed in the past decade on the skeet fields of U. S. country clubs.

Had a fifth columnist been at Syracuse, N. Y. last week, he might well have been uneasy. There, at the Onondaga Skeet Club, 270 sharp shots met in the sixth annual tournament of the National Skeet Shooting Association. First crack out of the box, in the 28-gauge event, two youngsters — 15-year-old Bobby Parker and 18-year-old Dick Shaughnessy — after tying three other contestants (at 99 out of 100) fought a breathtaking, shoulder-to-shoulder duel for five 25-bird shoot-offs before Parker finally missed a bird. It was the longest shoot-off witnessed on any skeet field since the sport was invented 14 years ago.

“All you have to do to win a national championship,” muttered one disgruntled also-ran, “is shoot 100 straight in the match and another 100 straight in the shoot-off — after which you’re knotted with six other guys.” As the week wore on, it seemed almost so. Even the women began to make perfect scores look like child’s play. First, Mrs. M. L. Smythe, a 96-lb. Aurora, Ohio housewife, broke 100 straight — the first century ever chalked up by a woman in a national skeet tournament. Then, 19-year-old Patricia Laursen, a Rollins College junior, often called America’s most beautiful athlete, scored another.

In the 250-target, all-gauge championship, main event of the tournament (all others are at 100 birds), another precedent came perilously close to being smashed. Entering the 50-target final round, Miss Laursen was tied with three men at 199 x 200 (99 in her first round, 100 straight in her second), just one shot behind Perfect Marksmen Dick Shaughnessy and Charles Poulton. But, at the final 50, Miss Laursen got jittery, wound up with 246 x 250, had to be content with the women’s championship (for the third year in a row).

In that nerve-racking last round, even dead-eyed Dick Shaughnessy hobbled one, finished in a three-way tie (at 249 x 250) with F. S. Hawkins, Dallas druggist, and Alex Kerr, Los Angeles sportsman. After two shoot-offs, Dick finally shook off his rivals, was crowned national all-gauge champion, skeet’s No. 1 title.

Dick Shaughnessy is known as bit of a miracle. Nine months after he shouldered his first shotgun, he smashed 313 consecutive birds in recognized skeet tournaments.

The following year, at 14, he floored the skeet fraternity by winning the national all-gauge championship with 248 out of 250. Since then, he has won more titles than any other skeeter. Last year he averaged .9910 out of 1,000 in tournament shoots, highest average ever recorded. No one has ever bettered his long-run record: 564 straight targets.