TUCSON, Ariz. — Trapshooters will close the 2026 Amateur Trapshooting Association Satellite Grand season in the Sonoran Desert in November at the 23rd Annual Autumn Satellite Grand American, which runs Nov. 4-15 at Tucson Trap and Skeet Club. Preliminary week fills Nov. 4-8, with championship week following from Nov. 9-15.
Preliminary week opens Nov. 4 with the Old Ajo Highway Singles, Handicap and Doubles, none of which count toward High-Over-All. From there the program tightens. Thursday brings the Premier Singles, Flagstaff Handicap and Double Adobe Doubles. Friday adds Class Doubles, Class Singles and the Pre-Handicap Championship. Weekend shooting belongs to the Tucson Singles Championship at 200 targets on Saturday, then the Tucson Doubles and Tucson Handicap Championships on Sunday. Events 4 through 12 make up the 1,000-target Preliminary Autumn Grand HOA, with the three Tucson championships forming a 400-target High-All-Around.
Championship week kicks off Nov. 9 with a pair of warm-up events, Preliminary Singles and Preliminary Handicap, neither of which advances a shooter's class. Classification holds steady until Event 15, the Ben Avery Singles on Nov. 10, and from that point forward a class winner moves up. Prescott Handicap follows the same day. Casa Grande Doubles and Pleasant Valley Handicap run Nov. 11, with the Tucson Singles and Doubles Class Championships on Nov. 12.
Friday, Nov. 13, carries the Autumn Grand Doubles Championship and the Caesar Guerini Preliminary Handicap Championship, which awards trophies five deep. Saturday belongs to the 200-target Browning Singles Championship, and the week ends Nov. 15 with the Winchester Ammunition Handicap Championship, where the ATA hands out trophies through seventh place and the Hall of Fame Contributor Award is decided by Lewis class.
Two aggregate titles ride on top of all of it. Autumn Grand High-All-Around covers 400 championship targets across Events 21, 23 and 24, with trophies from Kolar. High-Over-All spans 1,100 targets across Events 15 through 24, with trophies from White Flyer. Winning the HAA carries a second prize beyond the hardware, because Satellite Grand High-All-Around champions become eligible to shoot off for the 2027 Kolar National Satellite Grand Championship Trophy during next summer's Grand American. That shoo-toff pays $1,000 to the champion and $500 to the runner-up.
Money on the grounds is heaviest in the Martin Lewis Challenge, funded by a $20,000 donation from LeeAnn, WD and Denton Martin. Four multiple-event Lewis purses carry $5,000 added apiece: a High-Over-All Lewis across 1,100 targets, a Multiple Singles Lewis across 400, a Multiple Handicap Lewis across 400 and a Multiple Doubles Lewis across 300. Shooters can enter all four or pick and choose, but timing matters. Multiple Lewis options have to be played on the first entry in Singles, Handicap and Doubles, meaning Events 15, 16 and 17, and the HOA Multiple Lewis must be entered at sign-up for Event 15. Purses pay five groups, 60/40 in each.
Silver is on the line twice. Greg Pink’s SOS Clays Silver Shootouts return as a $10 option on Events 7, 8 and 9 on Friday, Nov. 6, and on Events 21 and 22 on Friday, Nov. 13. Each option played counts as an entry into that night’s drawing, 20 names come out of the hat and the shoot-off runs 10 targets from a shooter’s assigned yardage until somebody wins the three-ounce bar. Second place takes one ounce, and two half-ounce bars go to random draw. Shooters must be present for any of it.
Shoot management will throw White Flyer Western orange targets over Pat Traps with voice pulls, all facing north, five per post with the option to move to 10 if entries demand it. Daily fees are $4 ATA and $4 ASTA. Reloads are welcome, purses are not compulsory and Elite Shotguns returns as the Satellite Grand Signature Sponsor. Shooters who have not registered 1,000 targets in a discipline over the current and two previous target years face penalty class or a minimum 23-yard handicap assignment, so a stop at the classification desk before Event 15 is worth the walk. Wheelchair shooters have trophies in every Autumn Grand championship event and the High-All-Around, and anyone who runs 100 straight in a scheduled 100-target event can claim the club's Thunderbird pin in turquoise and silver.
Off the line, full hookups with 50-amp service are available at every pedestal by reservation, a dinner is planned for the evening of Nov. 13 and cross-registration to PITA is offered, with the Arizona State PITA Championship and its $5,000 added Lewis money following Nov. 16-17 at the same club.
There is a farewell buried in this program, too. ATA President Joe Sissano, of Leonardo, New Jersey, used his letter to note that this is the last Satellite Grand program he will write, and he spent most of it telling shooters who have never made one of these tournaments to put a Satellite Grand on the bucket list. Twenty-three years into the Autumn Grand, Tucson is a solid place to start.
Pre-squadding opens Sept. 12 at sosclays.com. Reservations run $2 per person per event, though shooters who buy the SOS Clays premium app can pre-squad free. Pre-cashier forms are available for download at tucsontrapandskeet.com, and squad positions are held until 30 minutes before the first event of the day before they are released to the line. Target and option money stays refundable until Nov. 3, which is also the day the grounds open at noon for classification and cashiering.
Learn more about the Amateur Trapshooting Association at shootata.com.
Most Popular
