Keeping everybody interested

[Bnorman58]

first of all, I don't want to offend anybody but I know I will. I feel the tour is losing a lot of interest. I hate to be the a hole to bring this up but somebody has to be. Every week we have to compete against the player that has reached that pinnacle of their game where they shot 15 strokes below their handicap. Nothing against the great rounds that were shot this week by ruslow. It is impossible for a near 0 handicap player to beat a 75-80 by a 20 handicap. I knew I was out of contention before I hit a shot this week, though I know I knew I played horrible , and I'm not trying to make an excuse for that. I know I am going to come across as an ass but I don't care, somebody has to be. I am perfectly happy to just play a round on a nice course but like I say I like for it to mean something.
Keither brought up something about a fed ex cup based on gross scores. I will let him expand on that but something needs to be done. A lot of others have gone to the jnpg tour. I do not have the option, I just want this tour to get better. I mean do you guys really want to win an event shooting 160 when somebody busts their ass to shoot a 135? This is called a tour after all, you should have to earn your way a bit. Again, I'm perfectly happy to not be on here but if I am, I would be happy to say what others have not, people are losing interest ... obviously.
So, I know I will catch some flack and I really don't care, I speak for the ones that have already quit giving a sh-- months ago. Let's do something.
maybe 10 max handicap. maybe increase the rounds played? Something....
throw your ideas out there!!
again personally I couldn't care less but it would seem in best interest of everybody to do something.

[Ryan5508]

I personally could understand your position if you were actually winning money or something.

Not to mention we don't have enough people to really create a scratch tour for the few great players here. Though I would gladly play with just the guys as inconsistent as my self. In the end you are really just playing your self and should look at it as self improvement/practice.

[Cashmir123]

Yea. I just started to learn the ins and outs of how to use the Skytrak. My handicap was high to start, but now that I have figured out how to putt and chip on this set up, my scores will be much lower. I don't feel I deserve a win last week and was quite surprised it's low net that gets the win.
Ryan makes a good point though, I really got this system to help my real life game. In the one month that I have owned it, my rl scores have been much better. I'm over 50 Y/O and can't compete with someone who can blast a drive 300+ yards. That being said, I joined the tour to just have fun. Just another way to practice. I don't expect to win and honestly don't care about my ranking. I took 38 bucks from my regular playing partners last week in RL shooting lo 80s. Now they all want strokes. HaHa.

[Lgnir]

I think if the tour did what you suggested, you would see even more of a decline in participation. That's why there are handicaps. Yes, some days people get hot and shoot below their handicap. Heck, I'm a 18 handicap in real life, but on rare occasions I can throw out a low 80's score. in my opinion, it really depends on the course I'm playing. There are some courses I play that I will probably never break 90 on, because of the difficulty.

Having handicaps gets more people interested. I probably would not have ever joined the tour if it was a scratch tour. Not that I think I will ever win WITH my handicap, but it's nice to place in the top 25 or better occasionally, if I can put a couple of good rounds together. Think of it like bowling. What fun is it to constantly play against someone that carries a 200 average when you are a 170. Your never going to win, and you'll lose interest in the competition.

In your example above, what's the point of playing a tour if you are shooting 160's and there are others always shooting 135's? If you want more people to play the tour, you've got to do something to give them a chance at winning. Are there not rankings based on scratch scores? Doesn't that do what you're looking for?

[jrz]

The handicap system for people that are new is broken. The bar needs to be set higher in regards to how many official rounds are required before getting a tour handicap.
Take a look at the leaderboard for this week's tournament - the new guy (no disrespect Cashmir123) is already at 16 under. A win is pretty much out of reach for anyone with a more established HC. I agree this isn't as fun as it should be.

[Jtangm04]

Trying to find the perfect balance to keep everyone happy will never be achieved. Handicap system gives everyone a chance but understand the frustration if a high handicapper takes a tournament on a really good round. I would perfectly be fine having someone with a high handicap to not score lower than a certain net negative score like - 3. However where do you make that cutoff of a high handicap and what about the golfers right below that cutoff.

It will start looking like our tax code.

[jrz]

Perhaps we add additional requirements before someone gets a tour HC. For instance, in addition to going through TGC Q School they would also be required to complete five TGC tournament rounds before before they get a tour HC.

[aja]

Since this is a bit of an invitation to an "open mike" session I'll add my 2 cents.

Topic is "keeping everybody interested". Not sure if that is the aim of the tour. We all have our own reasons for participating, if we participate at all. The number of participants certainly seems to be increasing just from looking at the leaderboard. That runs counter to the "keeping everybody interested". More people are getting interested. More people are playing.

As for being able to "compete" or to "win" - is that why we play? I'm a high handicap and my game is improving. I sometimes play in the tournaments and once was lucky enough to score well and place relatively high in the net. I have no illusions about being able to "compete" or place as well in the future. I also have other things that keep me more than busy so I don't have time to play the tournaments that often.

Don't believe there is anything stopping people from setting up their own little "mini" tournaments. You could tailor these to certain handicaps if that's what you want in order to be able to "compete". That takes some effort and to ask the organizers of the current tour to do more work is unreasonable.

Seems a little bit like people wanting "participation ribbons" just for showing up...

[ganders75]

Hi guys, thought I would chime in. I don't think we need a separate tour or anything, just a solution for the current one to make it fair for everyone. Here in the UK we generally only ever play 2/3 handicap in tournaments. The whole handicap system is different over here, but the nett result is pretty much the same:

• better golfers shoot closer to their handicap more often and thus are in contention for a nett "scratch" score more often;
• golfers with high handicaps are more sporadic - they shoot low scores occasionally but also shoot very high scores. The rest of the field needs to be protected from this inconsistency to keep it fair for everyone;

It should be dead easy to modify the current system of handicapping to use 2/3 handicap for tournaments. It feels fairer to me, not sure what you guys think?

What about a concept like that Bnorman58?

[KerrHughes]

We use divisions at our local club. Div1 0-9, Div2 10-18 and Div3 19-28 (UK) works well so that higher handicappers can still have an excellent round and nett score but not walk away with the whole purse.

[DirtyGarry24]

Flight the tournaments.

[Ports]

I agree, I'm a high handicapper and almost feel guilty if you were to apply my handicap to last weeks tourney. I hadn't got my rounds in, but still didn't seem right to me.

[keither5150]

Perhaps, we need to increase the minimum number of rounds from 5 to 10. Many new players are excited to join the tour. Let's face it... it's a lot of fun. Your first 3-5 rounds will be somewhat of a learning curve where chipping and putting will see big improvement. So maybe increasing the min rounds to 10 will help even things out.

The tour is a net tour, and that is not going to change. This provides everyone with an equal chance of winning. Ok..... maybe not so equal as a net tour favors the most improved player which is not a bad thing. The scratch golfer has a very difficult time placing high in the leaderboard. Occasionally on a very difficult course they will do well but then those are few and far between. So how do we encourage more consistent participation from the best golfers as well as the new golfers.

First off..... we keep the current tour the same. We simply add another incentive called the FedEx cup. FedEx cup points will be separate from tour points as they will be based on gross score and not net. The season long race for the FedEx cup will provide some incentive for golfers to compete and not miss an event. Meanwhile the tour runs as usual. So after 52 weeks of playing, we enter the FedEx cup playoffs. This is where the top 100 or 125 ( at this point numbers don't matter) will enter the 4 event playoffs. These events will be gross events. After event number 1, the top 70 of the field moves to the 2nd event. After that event the top 40 of the field moves to the 3rd event. After that the top 20 move the final round where the winner is crowned.

Because we don't want to exclude anyone from playing. Everyone who doesn't make the cut for the Fed Ex cup will play in the Web.com tour championship. Here , you will play the same courses at the same time but the top 100 will be removed from the field as they will be playing for the Fed Ex cup. The top ten on the web.com championship will be automatically sent to the following year's Fed Ex cup playoffs regardless of season points. The FedEx cup champion will also get sent to following year's playoffs regardless of points collected.

So this will mean that 4 weeks out of 56 will be scored on your gross score rather than your net. Net events could still be planned for these 4 weeks if the masses want it.

Over the last 18 months I have seen numerous great players lose interest in playing on the tour as they have little chance to be high on the leaderboard let alone win. This idea of the FedEx cup and Web.com championship will provide a season long incentive to compete every week. Everything else will remain the same. Net winners will be crowned every week along with the season being split into 4 or 5 mini tours. Year over year, this could provide a nice incentive for players to improve and participate in every event.. as everyone will try to go farther than last year.

I personally think that trying to make the cut will be exciting and add more to the current tour.

[aja]

From my point of view the "Fed Ex" points approach doesn't address anything except the need for some participants to compete all season... Is the "tour" any worse if people play when they are able and don't play every tournament?

Setting up divisions in a tournament, based on handicap (once a proper long term handicap has been established) would be fairer.

[docsmilez]

I like the idea but once a year is not enough to keep the interest. Maybe every 3 or 4 weeks to have a qualifying tournament would be more interesting. That way if you skip a week you don't qualify for the "major" for that month. I love the tour but The whole net thing is becoming a snooze.

Divisions would also be nice, as long as you are not stuck in the division. The divisions could be separated by handicap and as your handicap gets better you move up divisions. It would give me an incentive to improve and work my way up to the next division. And those individual divisions would be scored on their own gross leaderboard.

[BlechBOX]

I think this is a great idea but the frequency needs to increase. For example the last 4 tournaments of every season and the top 20 players by gross fedex cup points get to play in a playoff. I really don't need much more incentive to play as long as the gross leaderboard for the tournament exists (especially when we get to play the same course as the pros). The fake money and points don't matter. It is the pride of winning gross and then going out IRL and beating everyone you play with that matters to me.

[imflynn13]

There are already a lot of good ideas on here. I like the 2/3 handicap idea that ganders75 was saying... Maybe with a cap of 15 or something? That seems reasonable. A 20-handicapper getting 13 strokes/round. Even if he shoots 80-80 at least the scratch golfer would still have a chance.

I'm pretty new to all this so this may be a dumb question, but why are some of the really good golfers sitting at negative handicaps? Keither, for instance, is a -1.9. Seems to me that 0 should be the lowest you can go. You shouldn't be punished for being that good... It's plenty hard enough for those guys to compete against somebody getting 15+ strokes/round.

I also like the FedEx Cup idea with actual scores. Seems like that would be a good incentive for everyone to get better, and a good way for the really good players to measure themselves without sacrificing the way the weekly tournaments are currently set up.

I think there will be an infusion of new players with all this stuff, mostly because the Skytrak price point has brought in a whole new class of simulator golfers. I am one of those. And I have friends who are doing (or will soon be doing) the same. I think it would be good to try and have a better system in place sooner rather than later.

[BadEddieKit]

I am of the opinion that we shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. The real life model seems to be working, I think we have 2-3 tours total, and players can definately play their way up. The amount of sim owners is growing to support this. Net wins/leaderboards, if kept at all, should be comparatively less rewarding than Gross wins or standings. This way all players will be playing others of similar ability, plus it gives something for everyone to strive for!

[BadEddieKit]

I bet we could even get real sponsors, so instead of giving Fed Ex free advertising, Find someone else who will maybe give the season long winner of each tour a prize.. doesnt have to be big, but for example, maybe we have the CCE tour and the winner gets a new insert, or new grips, or who knows! I think with all the members and all the lurkers, we have a decent group to advertise to!

[Bnorman58]

I'm glad we got a discussion on this, that's all I wanted. Thanks for everybody keeping it civil. Believe me I thought long and hard about this and know it can be taken personally. Good ideas and I'm sure there be more. Personally I am doing horrible right now and I don't stand to gain anything other than feeling like if I put a few rounds together I might have a chance.few things came to my mind after this and some of you have touched on it. Right now q school is nothing more than throwing 5 rounds together so you qualify for the tour. Would having 10 make a difference? I don't know. Since it's called q school there should be something besides just getting rounds in. I know this isn't for real money and it's not about winning but if I'm going to do it, I do play for the competition. I am a 12 in real life but you don't see me wanting to play in the championship flight and you don't see them wanting to give 12 strokes.

[docsmilez]

Currently with a net leaderboard there is no "competition". You are only competing against your self and your own handicap (relative to how everyone else did against their own handicap). But then again, I can just download the gross leaderboard from here and use that instead of the tour site. I would really like to see some qualification tournaments every so often using a gross leaderboard.

[Thinman]

regardless of my opinions of long hitters who boost to match their home elevation...while playing courses at sea level...

statistics are the key to keeping people interested imo. the stats on this tour are lacking. with all due respect, you cannot even click and sort on earnings columns on the scoring website to sort them...because they are text fields. that is very sloppy imo.

for instance, with stuff like this...



...regardless of how somebody is placing in an individual tournament standings, there is always some category you can choose to concentrate and improve on, versus the field.

it is a great motivator and keeps interests levels higher.

[Thinman]

nothing on my side, that is just a screen shot of my stats page from the jnpg tour web site

[DukeJF]

Oh I didn't get that part.....might be a reason to make the switch....along with what is better players seeming to be flocking to that side if I'm understanding correctly.

[aja]

Thanks for glibly letting your opinion be known... gotta agree!