Nicole161106: I appreciate that it's easy for someone like me, who knows nothing of databases etc. to suggest that when a player achieves earnings of, say, 1000$ (100,00 credits) e.g., that they are automatically promoted (regardless of number of ranked rounds played) and each subsequent 1000$ sees them moved up again. (i'm just using those numbers as an example) You could even make that information public as there would be no way for them to avoid being promoted then. As it stands, with the top 3 only being paid in these monthly 200cr tiered tournaments players are looking at the same handful of entrants taking the prizes over and over and realise that it's pretty pointless to enter, hence the very low number of entrants in relation to the credits paid out. Maybe widening it up to say, top 10?, would encourage more entries?
A couple of points.
Earlier you mentioned Mags suggestion, an important part of it was this:
Forget about the idea of 'career earnings' the way WGT lists it now. This is a red herring. I'm talking about net profit (winnings minus entry fees, even minus ball usage if WGT want to go that deep) for every type of event/match played. If you leave any loopholes or types of events that aren't counted, these are what the cheats will exploit to make, sell, and move their credits.
I have over $5,000 of 'earnings' but still spend on the game. It wouldn't be fair to penalise players just because they like playing rg's (or whatever) and wgt count 50c back from a 100c rg as 'winnings'.
You quote some numbers for the premium monthly tornaments but they are misleading. There are as you point out few scores showing on the leaderboard, 15 now in TC, but that isn't how many entered. It now takes a 54 to have a chance of a prize so a few pars and many will quit, this will be the majority. Even before the low scores are posted folk know they will be and quit when things go slightly wrong. We have no idea how many enter.
How about instead of changing the format of a tournament some enjoy just starting a new one along whatever lines. Even without that there are plenty of rg's, with varying entry fees, where the top 10 win.