Sasso, McMaster star at Driftwood

Christian Sasso was crowned overall champion while Wendy McMaster took the women’s crown at the Driftwood Sporting Challenge, which ended at the Murphy Hill Estate in Ocho Rios on Sunday.

Sasso topped the shooting competition with an impressive score of 90 to beat junior class winner Toby Hugh, who fell just two short of his total. Last year’s winner, Bruce Duquesnay, was third in the A Class category, six shots off the winner.

But despite outshooting a top-class local field to take the championship, Sasso was even more impressed with Hugh’s 88 score.

“This is my first time winning the Driftwood tournament, and it’s a good feeling. Driftwood (organisers) always go all out, so it’s a really good feeling. But I also would like to congratulate the women’s champion, Wendy McMaster, and junior champion and my brother-in-law, Toby Hugh. He doesn’t shoot that much, and he was runner-up to me with a score of 88, and that was very impressive. That 88 was very big. It was a big score for him,” Sasso said.

Sasso added that he was on a roll throughout the competition and said that he knew that it was going to be one of his better tournaments.

“It was a very difficult course. The breeze was challenging, but it was a very well set course as Driftwood guys go all out. It was just that it was windy and made it more challenging. But despite the wind, I tried to keep my gun as steady as possible. I kept my head down, followed the birds and just moved with them,” he said.

But as impressive as he was, Sasso thought he could have shot better.

“I was on form, but I could have done better. I missed some of the easier birds. I missed three rabbits, and when I was younger, it used to be my favourite, but shooting is a mental game,” he said.

In the ladies section, McMaster, the dominant female shooter for 2018, was too good for defending champion Toni Barnes. McMaster shot 67 to top her class ahead of Renee Rickhie (62). Barnes was third in the category with 57.