David Lazarus was the happiest man at the Jamaica Skeet Club recently after shooting a perfect hundred in the Tony Kelly Skeet Classic.

The shooters and small group of spectators who were present to witness the feat felt the excitement building up as Lazarus stepped up to the final station to take aim at a score that had not been seen at the club since twenty-one years ago.

Lazarus had to stay calm and focused as he prepared to hit the final target before ‘high fiving’ those around him. The last time a shooter posted a ‘full hundred’ score at the club, Lazarus was the man on the station with squad mate Tony Kelly – the man whom the event is named after.

“I am just floored that I can still actually put a hundred together in skeet. I just wanna thank the Skeet Club for putting on this tournament and for trying to bring skeet back. Anything we can do to promote the sport any more, let’s do it, let’s keep it going,” said Lazarus afterwards.

The shooter talked about his ability to perform at such a high level.

“Well really and truly skeet is a thing of repetition, you do the same thing over and over again, and thankfully, my only squad mate today Mark Harris kept a really, really good pace and made sure that the focus was always turned up to a hundred percent.

“We just took our time, saw the birds… the birds were not easy today, they really weren’t. They were all over the place. So I am just thankful that I could keep me head down and just keep focused for the hour and a half that we were out there because it does take a lot but sometimes lightening strikes and this happens.”

Lazarus looks says he is looking forward to skeet being more prominent at the club, which now enjoying more sporting clays tournaments.

Camille Wright, who was the referee on both occasions when Lazarus shot the perfect hundred, said: “It was great to watch him get one hundred.”

There were several other shooters who posted high scores, such as Brett Thwaites 97 (A Class) to cop the runner-up spot.

The top junior on the day was David Wong who shot 93 followed by Rajir DaCosta 81 and JJ Ralston 80.

The outstanding female shooter was Wendy McMaster, who shot 84 from D Class. The other female in the field was Yasmin Benjamin who shot a creditable 69 from Hunters or Beginner’s Class.The competition was shot in four rounds of skeet (25 in each) totaling 100 birds, while three skeet fields were used. Each field had eight stations.

The Tony Kelly Skeet Classic began in 2016 and is held annually to commemorate the life of the Jamaica Skeet Club founder Tony Kelly.

This year the group of Khaleel Azan, Metry Seaga, Richard Azan Sr, Kahmaal Azan and Michael Handal (not part of the original set) squadded together to honour Tony Kelly who introduced them to international skeet competition and shepherded them on several tours abroad.

They all won international skeet awards beginning in 1995 to present, with Sean Clacken (among the original squad), who shot 100 to win C Class this year in the NSSA World Champs.