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Default Green Speeds for CC Tourneys—we are begging

• Woodie312 671 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 8:12 AM

  WGT please for the love of God give us the option to set the green speeds to default in our private CC tournaments. 

  My CC and several others that I know of have regular tournaments that are open to all players with cash prizes put up by the club owner or other members of the club, in our club we call these tournaments “Majors”. Now we are a small club that has made it to be a level 19 club despite not having more than 85 members at any time over the last 3 years. Now you can’t do that unless your members play and are active. 

  Having said that we just held one of our “Major’s” using our normal format of 3 rounds played on the same course with varied conditions. The set up was for Merion (slickest greens we could think of the Augusta in honor of the Masters) playing a full 18 from Default tees each round, with the following conditions:

  R-1—Low wind, Easy hole locations, and Very fast (10) green speeds

  R-2—Moderate wind, Hard hole locations, and Tournament (12) green speeds

  -----cut line of 15 strokes plus ties to play final round------

  R-3—Moderate wind, Medium hole locations, and Championship (13) green speeds

   

  I know these settings are nowhere near perfect, but they are the best we can do with the present settings available. We had a 33% participation rate meaning that of 76 members at the time of tournament set up 25 played in the tournament. It would have been closer to 70% after hearing several comments made by long time members but for 1 thing everyone already knew who 3 or 4 of the top 5 would always be. And guess what it turned out that the top 5 (a TC, 2 Champs, and 2 TL’s) have all been in the top 5 of the last 8 JMCC Majors. Why…. because there is no way for us as a CC to set up a tourney that everyone can competitively play in. 

  Default tees are great, but the scoring is done on the green! You can give Pro-TourMaster a 20 or even a 50 yard advantage from the tee, but on slick greens that are not their playing norm this does not help them be able to accurately place a ball inside of 15’ for a chance to make par or better. The only thing that can help that is for each tier to be playing Default Green Speed’s, that way their individual ball control is each players normal. 

  I guess we could put the green speeds at even slower speeds for everyone but that would just move the bar down instead of up. I think the speeds are as follows for tiers, these may be off some as it has been awhile since I played in some of these tiers:

  amateur      7.9

  Pro              9

  Tour Pro      9

  Master         10

  Tour Master 11

  Legend         12

  Tour Legend 13

  Champ          13

  Tour Champ 13

   

  So why do we have to force Amateurs-TP’s to play above the normal settings that WGT sets them up in just to keep the rest of the field in check.

  Please I am begging let us have the ability to set green speeds to default to a player’s tier. It won’t be perfect but it will be a lot better than it is now.

• DoctorLarry 4,310 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 10:03 AM

  Woodie312:

  Please I am begging let us have the ability to set green speeds to default to a player’s tier. It won’t be perfect but it will be a lot better than it is now.

  Got to agree with this.

  CC tourneys either have to be separated into several with different tiers for each  (expensive) or we need more leveling of the field.  We can't get lower-tier players to enter tournaments they know they have no chance of placing in.  It is a vicious circle that keeps lower-tier players from even checking the CC tournaments since there is rarely anything competitive for them.

• Woodie312 671 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 11:18 AM

  DoctorLarry:

  Woodie312:

  Please I am begging let us have the ability to set green speeds to default to a player’s tier. It won’t be perfect but it will be a lot better than it is now.

  Got to agree with this.

  CC tourneys either have to be separated into several with different tiers for each  (expensive) or we need more leveling of the field.  We can't get lower-tier players to enter tournaments they know they have no chance of placing in.  It is a vicious circle that keeps lower-tier players from even checking the CC tournaments since there is rarely anything competitive for them.

  Thanks Doc.

  You hit the nail on the head about lower tier players not playing if they know there is almost a zero chance of compeating. Another argument for the single tourney vs multiple tourneys broken down by tier groupings is that a club our size and demographic spread of tiers is you would only have about 4-6 players for some tiers of the tourney.

  W

  PS on a side note I think our 70-80 member range is actually slightly above the norm for clubs with 90% or more playing more than 5 days per week. In other words although those multiple tourneys might be worth the effort for clubs like the "G", Amigo's, Bushwhaachers, Peoples, etc. in a club our size they defeat the purpose of the tourney because the field becomes so small there is no competition. 

  And let me state that is not a detraction from or complaint about any of the clubs I named, I happen to know Pete, Ed, & CE. And I can tell you that they are amongst the cream of the crop of club owners, and I am sure there are many others that I could name, I just thought of those first.

  W

• Robert1893 7,719 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 12:16 PM

  @Woodie312 

  I agree. This is a great idea.
  
  One of the reasons I stopped playing CC tournaments is I got tired of playing different green speeds. I'd much rather just play my default green speed. 

• lonniescott711 4,206 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 1:18 PM

  Question . If the tournaments are set up under random conditions then arent the tees and greens default settings for all tiers ?

• Woodie312 671 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 5:26 PM

  lonniescott711:

  Question . If the tournaments are set up under random conditions then arent the tees and greens default settings for all tiers ?

  Lonnie good questions and a thought that flew right over my head, so I set up a test tourney and only picked 9 holes at StA's left everything else as random and got......... 

  Moderate winds

  default tee's

  easy holes

  and a random greenspeed of (10) very fast

   

  So I guess it picks a green speed for everyone to play on...Bummer

  Great Idea though, thanks for the input.

• YankeeJim 25,827 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 5:41 PM

  Woodie312:

  So I guess it picks a green speed for everyone to play on...Bummer

  There are other ways to level the playing field that work quite well, you just need to take away the strengths of the stronger players and make them earn their wins while giving the lesser players half a chance.

  One of the ways I do this is to have a no GIR tourney. GIRs would cost the player 3 strokes but a birdie would get  2 back. Another one is a no fairway tourney. Fairways in regulation cost 2 strokes. Force players to play from the rough.

  A fun team event can be created by having a regular tournament and then, depending on the number of entries, the top 2 pr 3 are made captains and the teams are created using the leaderboard. With a 24 person leaderboard, the top 3 scorers would each captain a team of 8 that would come from the order of finish. #4 goes to team 1, #5 goes to team 2, #6 goes to team 3, #7 got to team 1, etc. Then have a regular event where the combined scores determine the winner. 

   

• Woodie312 671 Posts

  Sun, Apr 28 2019 7:20 PM

  I appriciate the advice Jim and may try some of your ideas, but honestly they do not address the matter of the request. I am trying to get WGT to see the need for being able to set up a prize tournament in our CC with a somewhat level playing field so that the participants can both have an equal shot at the prizes and be able to recieve tha prize. 

  I am not trying to increase my workload, in fact I am trying to get WGT to give us something they already have witch in the process will lessen my workload by allowing everyone to play in 1 tournament without a bunch of hoops for everyone to jump thru reprorting cards and such.

  Without the ability to transfer credits directly player to player (which is a dead deal that will never be and IMHO should never be addressed due to the various legal ramifications) the only way for a player to recieve a credit prize is from the prize pool.

• HackWilson1930 1,437 Posts

  Mon, Apr 29 2019 5:38 AM

  There are a number of issues that come to my mind. The basic premise that CC tournaments are allowed to have green speeds as tier default sounds great at first blush.

  But reality steps in. IRL, whether country club or public course, green speeds are going to be the same on any given day for all of the players on that particular course. Variations will occur given grass growth and moisture conditions, but any group playing together will face the same greens.

  The idea that a top open tournament gives lesser players an advantage just to gain a few more lower tier players  might just cause top players to boycott. Certainly the pride of winning a watered down tournament might lessen. The thought that " I won because of my tier and not my ability" might cloud the mind of a lower tier winner. Imagine a club pro winning The Masters because he played the Augusta course that was set up differently from what the touring pros faced.

  Yes, I agree that small clubs face participation issues. Again, in real life, clubs formulate handicap programs to address this. The idea of using different green speeds over the course of a tournament can be a part of the handicap. Default tees address equipment differences. If a club wants to have lower tier winners for open tournaments they need some kind of handicap beyond tees. Giving strokes is generally the method chosen.

  But the biggest issue to me is why anyone would  have a tournament and be upset when the eventual winner is a superior player. I would not expect a Division 2 football team to win over Alabama. I would not expect a Premier League team to lose to an EFL1 team. What is wrong in recognizing the "best" by crowning them champion? And when the underdog wins there is a great celebration. (Hello Florida Gulf Coast; Goodbye Georgetown)

  The fairest way to challenge  WGT  country club members in a tournament format might come down to setting up play using all "starter"  or the "set of the week"  equipment with the same tees and greens speeds. This would certainly determine who the best player is. No ball or equipment advantages. Just knowledge and skill.

• alosso 21,070 Posts

  Mon, Apr 29 2019 5:50 AM

  IMHO, the skills adaption is in the tee selection. Default tees let ev1 play from his tier's tees, which is well known from real golf. Tee selection in a CC tourney is no good - it invariably favours the players with better equipment, which means higher levels + higher tiers.

  /methinks that all players may and have to learn the different green speeds, be it for A/S and other MP games. Other than that, you'll have to set up different tourneys. We did so in primary rounds of a big CC championship, to give lower tiers a better chance to contend. But in the finale, all must play on the same turf.