EldrickCone:I was wondering when we play a stoke play game with a high level player do the parameters change? This was our first tournament with the "commissioner" being a Tour Master. I noticed he was one tee further back in distance however the green speeds were upped to 11. The wind was over 15 mph on Congressional the entire round and the hole locations were not locations I had seen before they were more difficult. We also thought the meter was much less forgiving then our practices if you didn't hit a "dinger" the ball went further off course then I have experienced.
There are changes, and they may differ.
I take it that you play private 9 hole strokeplay games, setting them up individually and keeping tabs of the results yourselves?
There are two options:
1) Games might be set up as practice games, where all conditions, including the tees, are adjustable and common to all players. Having different tees, this is not your game.
2) In ranked multiplayer strokeplay games, the general conditions are of course common, like wind and green speeds which are set after the highest tier. Standard green speed for Tour Masters (TM) is "Tourney 1" at stimp 11, while Pros play "fast" greens at stimp 9. Playing together, it will be stimp (around) 11 for all.
Each player plays from his tier's tees, "medium" for Pros, "hard" for TMs.
There are at least two flag positions on the greens and it may be that certain tiers have different "standard" positions.
In practice rounds, you may set these conditions yourself, though the flag positions may not follow through.
And yes, conditions get harder with the tier progression, and you might share "harsher" conditions with your Tour Master.
I think that there is no better setting option to give equal chances to all, version 1 brings another advantage to higher tiers by equalizing the hole lengths (think longer clubs).
One option would be some "handicapping", like amending the scores by the difference in averages. But, for "friendly" games, it may not be necessary.