@pumbaajk

Dont go buying guns after your first match.

Run that Glock until you have a clue what you are doing, and get to try out your fellow shooters' guns. Great thing about comp. shooting is that everyone wants you to get better and will help you get there.
You can dump a ton of money into a gun and it wont make you move faster, or learn stag planning. It wont help your reloads, it wont help your mental zen.....ok maybe it will help the zen.
I would also suggest not dumping a ton of money into the Glock other than some fiber optics (Dawson).

I tell folks to run Production for a year. You learn all the essentials  of match shooting, and your reloads are insane once you get there. Stage planning Production will make you as good as can be.

Good belt, good holster, good mag carriers.

Ammo is another factor. Heavy slow 9 mm is best mm.  147-150 gr running around 880 fps (power factor).

If you ever come to the DFW area, let me know and I will drag you to a match. We are blessed with them every weekend, all weekend. Sat and Sun matches at 3-4 ranges. Its awesome!

@TruckinAR

Thanks man! Where at in dfw are you? I'm over in the Tyler area.

Im in the Denton Area.

Tactical shooting is different from competition shooting, and many of the skill sets for either of those specialties make a shooter less able, or less skilled in the other area.  Skills that make someone a better tactical shooter will make them have worse scores in competition, and skills that make competition shooter better will put that person at risk in a true tactical environment.

Many of the skills cross over, but shooters who WANT TO EXCEL in either area, need to choose one area to specialize in.  Choosing to be reasonably good in both areas is also a valid choice, but to truly excel in either area requires working harder on the skill sets for that area.  This is no different than a competition swimmer choosing whether they want to specialize in back stroke, breast stroke, or be a medley swimmer.

ETA:  In one match, I switched the pistol from right hand on the right side of a barricade to left hand for the left side of the barricade.  Because I had trained at reducing how much of my body I exposed in various positions I didn't even realize I had switched hands until one of the other people in my squad asked me why I changed hands when it wasn't required by the course description.  It would have been to my advantage in the competition to shoot the entire course strong handed, but tactically, switching to my support hand reduced how much of myself I exposed to the "threat" .

So I’m basically about to be in the same boat come Saturday. I’ve done plenty of classes (defensive pistol, urban combat carbine/pistol etc etc) but have always wanted to try competition. So me and the Gf will be running our first competitions this sat. She’ll be shooting her glock 34 mos in carry optics, and I’ll be running my brand new shadow 2 in limited. Neither of us have ever done a competition. I’m going into this knowing I’m going to get smoked, which I know is going to drive me insane as I’m very competitive. Any tips for a noob? I’ll try and post pics/results/vid

Two most important things are be safe and have fun.

I've seen new shooters do nutty shit under the pressure of the timer. Be aware of your gun handling and don't outrun your headlights moving between positions.

If you have any questions about how things work ask someone. Everyone likes helping new shooters. There is a lot of down time at matches so take advantage of it by watching and talking to the people on your squad. Not everyone is a fountain of good knowledge but after a few times shooting with the same general group you will find the guys who know what they are doing.

One tip is don't bring too much shit. Gun, mags, holster rig, ammo, eyes/ears, water, few snacks, towel and sun screen if you need it all in a smaller bag. Leave the tools and spare parts at home or in the truck. Its a local match not a World Shoot. Less shit you bring less you have to carry and keep track of.

Help your squad reset the stage. Don't be in the back shooting the breeze when everyone else is working. Good rule of thumb is when you are "in the hole" (third in line to shoot) don't paste. Make sure your gear is all prepped, mags in pouches and ready to go. When you are "on deck" walk the stage as its being pasted for your run. Visualize where you want to be, target order of engagement, where you are changing mags and anything in particular the stage requires. It will all go right out the window as soon as the buzzer goes off but its a good habit to get into. Its ok if you make pew pew noises as you do it. Everyone has done it.

Immediately after you shoot, get your mags back, reload them and put them in your bag for the next stage and get back to pasting. No need to walk around all day with mags on your belt. Fill your pouches when you are in the hole.

Good luck and have fun.

Really appreciate the feedback!!

A bit off topic but I shot my first PRS match not long ago. Now I'm not remotely competitive but my son is and has been for a long time. I wanted simply to say that I shot a match that he was in as a memory. I'm highly competitive by nature so I practiced and trained as much as I could prior to this match. I absolutely got smashed as I knew I would BUT was able to FINISH the 2 day event at 66 years old. I had an absolute blast!!! I then shot another one day match and did remarkably better. I have several more matches lined up and the wife and I are enjoying the trips out of town to the matches. For you pistol guys the dry firing syndrome is the REAL deal. It has helped me greatly in my efforts to shoot well.

Check you ego there.  You'll get your ass handed to you on the regular by the top guys.  The distance between even an A class USPSA shooter (which you are not) and a GM is 15-25%, and even if you splurge on a high end 2011 there's locap Production and SS shooters out there that will hand you your ass.

I've seen B class shooters move into M and GM territory in a year, year and a half, but they are few and far between and put in over an hour of dry fire a day, shoot matches weekly, and practice live fire at least once a week as well.

I belong to a very active pistol club. We shoot steel, USPSA, and IDPA every month. We have a large number of Master, A, B, and IDPA Master, Expert shooters. A lot of our shooters travel and go to national matches.
I cannot count the number of times I have had new shooters tell me they are amazed how bad they perform when they shoot their first match.

I frequently do the new shooter check before a match. I always tell them the same thing, "Be safe, have fun, and be safe. You will not win today. I will probably beat you with my revolver but you will have a bucket of fun if you leave your ego in the truck."

Man I hear this a lot. I live near Bragg in NC. There are green berets coming out of the woodwork around here. It is also a Mecca for shooting competition of all kinds, with World Champions at many matches (Todd Jarret, Chris Tilley, etc).

Many of these soldiers shoot competition as well. Some are world class. So they do excel at both. Last 3gun match I attended, HALF my squad was GB's! Some great and some learning. Some of these men are personal friends.

This idea that a highly trained military operator can't do both is false.
If they thought competition "would get them keeelt on the too-way range". They wouldn't do it.
Just ask one. They will tell you the opposite is true. If they have ever shot competition.

I assure everyone: Robby Gordon can still drive a basic Hmmv. And if bombs were falling all around, he'd be the guy you want driving. This is a better analogy than the swimming one.

Shooting: firing a projectile at a target. Doing it faster and more accurately is better no matter how you slice it or what your job or hobby is.
As Leatham once said: Shooting is shooting.

Learning how to clear a room, defend a position, call in air strikes is not shooting. And, competition shooting will teach you none of these things. Because it is not shooting. But if you learn these things, being an awesome shooter can't possibly hurt, can it? Of course not. It would help tremendously.

These guys are there to improve their shooting skills. Just my experience with it.

Where is the damn like button?

He also seemed to be mixing up skills and tactics in his statement. Competition tactics may not have a place on the battlefield but the skills learned and honed in competition could easily save your ass in a real world encounter.

Special forces guys don’t seek out competition shooters for nothing and time and time again competition gear finds its way onto fighting guns.

Going to proselytize a bit, but I love when the tactical crowd shows up, even though I feel bad that half won't come back because their ego is too deflated, half of the remaining will likely not come back more than a few times because even after buying a gun, holster, and belt for competition, they still get beat by "girls". Half of the other half remaining (12.5% now?), will get a DQ, break something on the clock, or otherwise do something that they're embarrassed about and never come back after a few more visits.

The last half amount will get it, and realize that even though on the surface, tactical vs competition shooting have seemingly common goals (right?), draw fast, shoot fast, reload fast, move fast. All pretty similar, except the shooting is entirely different.

Tactical shooting is a mix of mindful and mindlessness at the same time. You assess and understand the environment, keeping control of the situation in your head, knowing that fine motor skills will diminish and your vision will tunnel, etc. You shoot with your active mind, while the muscle memory and skill takes a back seat.

Competition shooting, at least at the top level, is total and complete mindless shooting. You only activate the lizard brain because the rest of it is just dead weight. You plan and strategize every single movement or moment, how you will reload, where you will stand, how your body will be positioned, when in the target engagement you begin to move your body.

When I shoot I'm essentially creating a computer program with all the steps to accomplish the stage the fastest, and then when the timer goes off, I execute the program. Thinking just slows you down.

Unless the targets are shooting back it's not tactical . As you may know, lots of those classes seem to make you better by making you more confident.  Matches are games, and there are some gamers that are very good. Never underestimate your ooponent.

Find someone with a 3d printer to print an insert in the shape of your tactical light, minus the mount, to temporarily "convert your light bearing holster into a standard.  Then you can use your same holster, but find a way to attach it to your pants belt.  Personally I have most of my holsters on MLS plates, and then I built a couple of paddle + MLS receiver and paddle + Drop adapter + MLS receiver Kits so I can quickly swap from one mount to another, going from battle belt to competition belt to jeans and a dress belt all with the same holster.

A lot of good advise here.
OP you're not the first to get his ass handed to him by a really fast/smooth shooting old guy.

I was fortunate enough to squad with Jerry Miculek on a few matches. He’s always willing to talk.
He said “to shoot fast you have to see fast.”  Which sounds simple until you really think about it.
Do you see your front sight on the draw?
Do you see it on the second shot?
Are you looking at the target or your front sight?
Did you see where the shot went?
Are you using all your field of vision?  Are you looking at just the one target or are you seeing the next target in your peripheral vision?
Do you have tunnel vision? Especially when under pressure and time stress our vision field narrows to just 3-5 degrees.
Are you bringing the pistol and sights up to your eye or are you hunkering down and bowing you head to meet the pistol?  
Are you looking at next target in the array or still looking at the one you just shot?

Dry fire with a timer at home for 15 min everyday and record your times. Then live fire at the range and record your times.
Then work on limiting the time it takes to transition from one target to the next.
Most of the guys at my range shoot Steel Challenge which is good draw and transition practice for USPSA on the following weekend.  
Have fun OP, stick with it, the speed will come.

Competition is ruthlessly revealing of any inefficiencies. If you have a 1.2 s draw, you're behind the guy with a 1.0 s draw the instant the first shot is fired. If it takes you 0.5 to transition between targets and your competition takes 0.4 s, you're going to fall behind by a couple of seconds over the course of a match. Same thing if those are your split times on 20-yard targets. If you make 80% of your shots on steel on the first try and your competition makes 90%, that's also going to add up to a few seconds across a match. If you get to shooting positions and then raise your gun and your competition comes into position with the gun up, firing the shot the instant the sights stabilize, that's also a couple seconds in a match.

I put together a video a while back where I synchronized the start beeps of my stage runs with an A-class buddy's: video link.

You can see everything you need to see in the first few seconds. I did similar videos with my shooting and national-level competitors, and it's a similar story. The same ways I'm pulling ahead of my A-class buddy is how they pull ahead of me.

I've packed the majority of this into a one-day class that I teach periodically. Upcoming class list.

I am glad to see this topic still alive and well.

I have learned a bunch on just focusing on the basics of time and efficiency.

I find in 2 Gun and 3 Gun stage planning is one of the most important parts of the game. I won the last 2 Gun match through better planning, and my friend who usually wins had two jams. I had another friend come who's a very good shot, he's a local cop, but had never done that kind of shooting. I went through everything I did and why, he forgot most of it when the buzzer went off.

Every time out is a learning experience, I had a hard time with my PCC safety as it's a gun I don't run enough and had a couple of hiccups not fully disengaging it. I've only been doing this kind of shooting a little over a year but I've been shooting all of my life so I've picked it up quickly. If you have issues it just means you need to find more match's. It's also caused me to spend more on guns in the last year than the past 10 combined.

This match also had IDPA scoring.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDY4epHpzk8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

That's a whole lot of wow.

I think some of that was just from better planning alone from experience.