Just so you all know, we are listening, taking your ideas on board, and in 90% of the suggestions we did think about these ourselves during our very short window that we had to turn this thing around and get it going.
We just didnt have the luxury of time this year to make any major modifications to the tried and tested, with associated consultation with the intended audience.
Our reasons for going with the current format are as follows -
- 6 qualifying tournaments were needed, the high number means a good player could absorb a bad round and still make it.
- weekly tournaments meant people missed them last year due to holidays, so it was decided every qualifier had to be a monthly, this also meant the opens were out, as they are just a week, and the qualifier for them was out as its multi play.
- in other tournaments, suspicions have been aroused of score manipulation via restarts etc, hence why single play WGT hosted events seemed the only proven way to go.
- when we chose the monthly opens, we had no visibility of which courses the 4 events would be played on, it is just unfortunate that this month is Kiawah.
- The monthly Kiawah was added in July and September to purely get the number of qualifying events up to 6, its the only other free single play monthly tournament we could use.
- If WGT were to bring out a private tournament facility, by invite, single play and of a month duration, we would use that like a shot, and qualifiers would all have been played on CCC. They don't have that facility, so we have to make the best of what is available.
- Finally, a burning dislike / boredom / frustration with Kiawah Island is probably the preserve of all players, and not just a burden to the select few.... I think every player walks off the place feeling they could have scored better, feeling the course robbed them of a couple, but at least we all have the same hand and that is all we can ask for.
I hope this goes some way to explain why the tournament selection is what it is, this year we had to turn this thing around on a dime, we had days, not weeks or months to set it up and get it going. We will have an open forum for next years event, well in advance, where all and any ideas will be most welcome. This year please bear with us, it was the best we could do in the time available.
Cheers
Monty