Inductees

It would be no surprise if fellow sporting clays shooters happened to spot his prowess, looked at his remarkable scorecard and assumed he had had been around since the first shotgun was forged from steel.

However, the story goes that Dr. Troy Major, despite growing up hunting and fishing and enjoying all that the Ozarks outdoors has to offer, took up sporting clays only in his mid-30s.

“As I got a gun that fit right – and outstanding instruction – I worked my butt off,” Major will tell you. “Practice is only valuable if you’re doing it right.”

Now 75, Major has been doing it right for the past 40-some years, developing a reputation as one of the best in the Show-Me State, and it’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is proud to induct him with the Class of 2019.

In other words, one of the nation’s top shotgun sports champions lives in the Missouri Ozarks.

A graduate of Springfield’s Parkview High School and Drury University, Dr. Major was named an All-American in 2001 and 2003 by the Sporting Clays Association. Additionally, he has been appointed to the Missouri State Open Team, which features the four best shooters in the state.

But just how good he is? Put it this way: Only about 10 individuals have carded perfect 100 scores at the Ozarks Shooters Complex in Walnut Shade, an elite sporting clays complex about halfway between Springfield and Branson. Major has turned the trick 20 times.

In recent years, he also has competed in the Hall of Fame’s Sporting Clays Classic sponsored by Killian Construction and presented by Bass Pro Shops. He has yet to card a score lower than 93.

In essence, “the hard” is what makes it great.

Unlike trap and skeet, which are games of repeatable target presentations, sporting clays stimulates the unpredictability of live-quarry shooting, offering a great variety of trajectories, angles, speeds, elevations, distances and target sizes.

“Sporting clays is such a difficult sport,” Major said. “Every course changes every week, and every course across the country is different.”

These days, Major competes with a Beretta 400 XCEL semi-automatic shotgun. That’s a bit different firearm than what most other use, as the preferred is the over-and-under.

“I just didn’t shoot (the over-and-under) as well,” Major said.

Major says the Ozarks – and he personally – benefits because of two premier sporting clays locations: the Ozarks Shooters Complex and the Bass Pro Shops Shooting Academy south of Branson.

“If I lived 200 miles from a sporting clays complex,” Major said, “I couldn’t do it.”

For Major, he developed his skillset over two years before ever entering a competition.

That’s why he is quick to thank a number of instructors who readied him. They include Gerald White, Don Carlisle, Bill McGuire and Wendell Cherry and have risen AA level or Master class.

“(Cherry) is still one of the top shooters in the world,” Major said. “He taught me a lot.”

Asked what Cherry taught, Major laughed and joked, “That’s like asking, ‘How did you learn to read?’ He was just a very good teacher.”

Major began as a C class shooter, and he became so mesmerized by the sport that he was, more or less a man on a mission. He is now a Master class shooter.

Even he will tell you that “I didn’t like to lose,” and that allergy to losing is what has driven him to be among the best.

“I’ve had a lot of big wins,” Major said. “But sporting clays is an individual sport. You’re not competing with anybody else. It’s just, ‘How many clays can you break?’”

Of course, Major isn’t the only one in his family who knows how to handle guns.

Son Bryan is a Master Class sporting clays shooter, while Troy Major III is experienced in pistol, rifle and shotgun shooting. Dr. Major’s wife, Jean Suzanne, is also a capable shooter.

“It’s just a special type of focus,” Major said. “It’s a demanding sport but one that you can do for fun. I’ve met a lot of good friends, and the people who are shooting make it to where you shoot better. You can learn from them. It definitely pushes you. I have been blessed.”