How many Grands do we need???

How many Grands do we need.We have the Great lakes Grand,Heartland Grand Northeastern Grand.Autumn Grand,Dixie Grand,Southern Grand,Empire Grand,Northeastern Grand just to name a few.Also 50 state shoots .There are just so many trap shooters to go around,You can just wait for some big shoot to come to your area.If I lived in Florida or in the south I would just attend the Southern grands.I think that what a lot of shooters do.I attend a few state shoots that border Illinois.Vandalia was as far east as I have been.MO.and Iowa for being west.Florida and Vegas when I was on vacation...When Vandalia was largely attended we didn't have as many Satellite grands.Vegas was the big draw.The Casino's put up a lot of money for some big purses.Then they figured out they would rather have you in the casino gambling And not shooting.A lot of trap shooters went to sporting clays.Trap is a miss and out game now.Maybe the young high school shooters will save the sport.

 

And none of those will resemble a grand as in the big one in Vandalia.

I never thought the day would come....I agree with Palos. Could a mod please check to see if the ip address matches the username or could be 1 too many vicodins today.

 

Family Guy,Tramadol for the back pain.Old age is not for sissys.

 

We have deluted the grand with many satellite grands.It is like having soup for supper and company shows up and you just add more water.Is it still soup?

 

There are many of us that love to shoot !! That said we`ll take all of the Grands that we can get.

 

The terminology "grand " is mean't to imply something larger than life or larger than the ordinary, we all know that the name it self has been grossly over used and applied to many, many (way to many) shoots to the point where its watered down ... Tucson should change the Autumn Grand and Spring Grand to Autumn and Spring Grande to separate those shoots from the rest of the pack with the over used and saturated name grand ... The ATA only cares and concerns are that they collect the daily fees, the name being secondary ... The grand is no longer the grand with the exception of in name only and it cannot, does not, and never will draw a crowd let alone break any records to the plus side ... If you can shoot a grand a week, its not much of a grand anymore to my way of thinking ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

To further dilute the pool,we have the state zone shoots and the ATA Zone shoots.Add in the State shoots and it a wonder that the attendence is pretty good.Illinois has a northern.central,and southern shoot.

 

The ATA would add more grands if there was more time in the year. They receive about $15,000.00 for each grand event. That is just for the holding of the shoot. Does not include daily fees. Also they get free travel and expenses to attend. Now do you really think they will ever reduce the amount of grands?
If a shooter wants to chase AA points you will never see him at a small local club. Add up the state shoots, zone shoots, Grands and many of the other large shoots that carry AA points and you will see why the small local clubs are sinking. They are the life blood of new shooters and they are drying up due to miss management of the ATA for the last 15+ years. Roger C.

 

Ahhhh.... To the victor goes the spoils.