I have a suggestion for the folks at WGT which would effectively negate any future sandbagging (which I am going to define as the practice of not playing ranked rounds so as not to tier up, while taking advantage of the level system to obtain the best equipment). Simply put, only grant Experience Points for RANKED ROUNDS. If a player chooses to play only MP, Alt Shot, Practice Rounds, etc..., that's fine, but they would get no reward for it. Since equipment unlock is based solely on level (except for the Callaway Legend+ balls) and tiers are based on Ranked Round average, it is a win/win as far as solving the problem of the Low Tier/High Level player.
While this would obviously do nothing about the people who have already taken advantage of the system, it would put an IMMEDIATE stop to it in the future. I have read various ideas in other threads over the time I have been here, and while I have read some really good ones, they do not really address the problem. For example, going back to tier-specific clubs. While this sounds fine in theory, since WGT cannot permanently remove equipment a player has already purchased, all they would be able to do is temporarily remove it from the player's ability to equip it in his (or her) bag, which would probably cost them customers.
The second part of my suggestion is to make it impossible for a player to play for credits below a certain tier (probably Master), which would somewhat level the playing field since there would not be quite as much disadvantage for a lower level Legend when playing against higher level Masters/Tour Masters. For the lower level players (TP and below), if they play in and win a tournament, they get equipment (balls, lower level clubs, etc..). This would stop sandbaggers preying on gullible individuals and winning credits from them, as well as prevent them from taking away legitimate wins in open tier tournaments.
I have been a player (addict?) of WGT since April of last year, and have read many, many posts complaining about/offering solutions for this problem. While there have been some good ideas, it seems to me that most of them overlook the fact that there are legal constraints to what WGT can do (I am ignoring financial considerations since most people do understand this is a business) that effectively negate any possibility of their suggestion ever being implemented.
As far as implementing this suggestions goes, while I do not even pretend to be a programmer, I cannot believe it would be that difficult to rewrite the code which controls the awarding of Experience Points, and since the basic mechanism for restricting entry into paid games/tournaments is already in place, this should also be fairly easy.
How about WGT, any chance this could happen?
Marks84