Local trapshooters hear from international champion
The trap range at the Tehachapi Sportsman Club on Sand Canyon Road is kept busy three days a week with shooters who hone their skills with a shotgun.
About a dozen of those enthusiasts gathered at Denny’s restaurant on Saturday morning to hear from a woman who won the trifecta of English, British and world championships in international trap in 2009.
Lesley Goddard was raised in the midlands of England near the town of Lincoln. She spent 18 years with a police force and didn’t get into shooting until she was 32 years old. Only about 20 years later did she retire from competition at the top of her game in 2009.
Tehachapi resident W. W. “Buzz” Wells — a member of the Tehachapi Sportsman Club — met Goddard three years ago while he was visiting his oldest son in Montana. He, his son and a granddaughter were shooting trap at a club and Goddard volunteered to coach his granddaughter.
“We became friends and kept in touch,” he said. When he learned that Goddard came out of retirement last year, he invited her to speak in Tehachapi.
“The kind of trap shooting she does is far different from what we do,” Wells said in an introduction for those gathered at the event Saturday. “It’s a lot more challenging. The targets are faster. The presentations are different.”
He said he was especially impressed with Goddard’s disciplined approach to trapshooting.
“People are fascinated by perfection — and in this sport perfection is possible,” Wells said. “You can learn the mechanics of shooting in 20 minutes — but what Lesley teaches is how to approach the sport from the mental standpoint.”
He said her approach — called PDOSR for perfectly
disciplined one shot routine — is based on the theory
that if you reproduce the routine, the results will be the same.
“She does that relentlessly,” he said.
Goddard said she began coaching in 1995 and continued after she retired from competition. She coached the Kuwaiti Olympic trapshooting team from 2010 to 2012 and Finland’s Olympic trap shooting team.
Following a move to the United States about 10 years ago, she first lived in Battle Ground, Washington. In April 2020 she moved to Stevensville, Mont., a very small town south of Missoula.
When she starting competing again she was initially disappointed by her performance.
“I thought, ‘what the heck am I doing? I’m just going through the motions, there’s no heart,’” she said. But after a good night sleep, she said she woke up very determined.
“Very determined Lesley was back,” she said. “I walked off the last line and everybody was applauding.”
She will compete in the Amateur Trapshooting Association’s Spring Grand Championship at the Tucson
Trap and Skeet Club later this month.
In addition to shooting, Goddard is a hypnotherapist and is developing a sports performance enhancement business.
Copies of her book, “Shooting Secrets: What Winners Want to Know and Coaches Don’t Tell You,” were on hand during her talk. She’s at work on another book, “Coaching for Coaches.”
“What I learned from coaching and the mental side, I’m very lucky to have the ability to be able to pass on. It’s almost like it’s a gift,” she told members of the local sportsman club. “So I love what I do and I’ll say it straight too if you’re making a mess of it.”
Following Goddard’s presentation, she joined club members at the Tehachapi Sportsman Club to shoot and offer guidance.
People are fascinated by perfection — and in this sport perfection is possible.”
— W. W. “Buzz” Wells, member of the Tehachapi Sportsman Club