flights, theory and tour practice

[Westview]

That's not a bad idea. It would stop or slow down sandbaggers who get a cheap thrill from beating players who legitimately belong in whatever Flight they're in.

Maybe to expand it further...make an instant battle field demotion, down 1 flight to any player who finishes last place in more than one flight tournament.

[Justin_I]

Though I think we all would all be about where we currently are, and could be micro managing a problem that might only be a perceived problem, rather than a real one.

I think Dennis just solved the problem!

[lstouradmin]

Not a bad idea....

Mark

[Larry_Warrilow]

dennis' promotion-up idea for flight winners has some real merit.

cheeze's comments concerning stroke control and score reporting were to the point. and the old lstrs actually used a system that was very similar to real world usga practice. only scores that were shot in lstrs counted toward a handicap. there was also a condition that threw out scores that were +10 or more over your handicap early on, and only the ten best of the last 20 (or best half of available scores) were used. culling out each week and disposing of multiple IDs created to take advantage of the lstr system went far to eliminate the most obvious shenanigans.

the honest problems arose in the first lstr event a player played, because the tour wanted to issue an updated handicap at the beginning of each round based on preceeding rounds. the total net score of the preceeding rounds should actually have been revised in light of later scores in the same event. that system would allow a skilled player to end up with a fair, if not necessarily precisely accurate handicap at the end of his first 72 holes without giving him an unfair advantage over players with long term numbers. it was the major defect in the old lstrs even when all players were playing on the up and up.

as far as playing under your handicap, how many times in a large field event irl have many of us seen a solid 18 handicapper have a career day and win? a lot more often than the single digit guys, because there are a lot more 18s, and they have a lot more room to statistically improve on a good day. when the lstrs were working properly, this was what actually happened.

unfortunately, the lstrs had a chronic programming error over most of the last two seasons and the tour had bigger fish to fry and only corrected the problem halfway through one season, and not at all during the next. that's why many members have a poor opinion of lstrs. when they were working right, they were as competitive as anything else around here. lw

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[Cheezer]

you made some good points and brought up some factual statements from previous years gone by LW. Hopefully something along the lines of using only the last twenty rounds(best ten of those) instead of carrying every round played from week one until the end of the season can be intiated hopefully. What that does is two fold, one takes out a player's bad scores if it was done intentionally god forbid and as we all know both in real life and in Links golf every one has a bad round or two on occasion and those scores would not tend to hurt a player's ranking. Come to think of it, it possibly might encourage players who are afraid to play windy rounds for fear of hurting their ranking to play them because it would very possibly not hurt their ranking much if at all.

[Larry_Warrilow]

as cheeze points out, as the standard handicap format, the former lstr handicap system was based on the best ten of the most recent 20 scores of each lstr player. and as i have remarked, most of the honest statistical lstr problems occurred in the very first events by skilled players who were not trying to intentionally gouge the system.

if all the former safeguards were retained by a new lstr event, that also included a first event net score adjustment for all players, the lstr format would not be a can of worms if it were operating properly. quite the contrary: while the very good players have complained that they are at a disadvantage in lstrs (as in real life), the very concept of the lstrs demands that they should be. the lstrs are not for the best players--the best players have plenty of events that favor their straight-up skills.

the lstrs, like the flights, are there for us middle rankers, the largest segment of the tour population. whatever the tour has done in the past and can do in the future to prevent score manipulation in either the flights or lstrs, will guarantee that these two events remain legitimate avenues for possible victory any week that one of us hacks has a career scoring spasm. lw

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[Dr_Dave]

In a way I disagree with some of your comments Larry. A good handicap system should bring players to a parity not disadvantage good players. If you want to have a a tournament for average players only that's fine, but I personally would enjoy beating the top players in a fair handicapping event. Like Cheezer said, using 20 games would eliminate those who [censored] the system and bring everyone else to a level playing field. It can be done!

[Larry_Warrilow]

doc, the best 10 of last 20 format was in place in lstrs years ago. the usga system which was the backbone of the lstr format is a "good" system. the reason scratch players had a tough time in lstrs was the same as in real life: lack of statistical room for improvement compared to the higher 'cappers. that's why stud players usually avoided lstrs, although steve gomes did a nice job one season at champ.

while a theoretically perfect handicap system that would allow all players an equal chance is the ideal case, as a practicality, we must settle for a system that works for 95% or more of the players.

in the past, the A flights had the smallest percentage of players participating. the best players tended to concentrate their time in events with large fields where they were not playing exclusively against players of their own ability. they mostly played where they had a big advantage, and who can blame them? that is also why i don't have any condolences for them and their problems in lstrs.

the stud's main advantage is not just going low, but doing it consistently. unfortunately for them (but not for us) there is an arithmetic limit as to how low they can shoot, even when playing perfectly. once a handicap gets applied to that level of scoring, only perfect play will make a dent in net par. not even the studs can maintain that level of play.

the fact is, that the studs would eat us all for lunch every week in any oddball handicap format that allowed for their natural statistical disadvantage. but even without many studs playing, winning an lstr, when they were working properly, was just as tough at every level as any other format, and there were few repeat winners. as i remarked above, with a couple of necessary tweaks, the lstr format would be the second of only two regular avenues of contention for almost all players. lw

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[Pas11]

Have you seen how close Flight A to C are
Its to early in the season to care.
I like Dennis, Now that I've seen him play ammy
I don't know if he knows any thing about this game.
Maybe Larry should try ammy to see if can play also!!
This is not a put down, But if you are not good at ammmy you don't know
the basics!!!

[Larry_Warrilow]

terry, i like champ because it supplies me with the same kind of problems (and possible catastrophies) as my real world game. and i'm still only an average champ level player after about 6 years at champ and a previous 7 years at pro.

i can't comment on current am or pro because i don't play there, but i know that a lot of players are having fun at those levels. interestingly, the trend toward pro is carrying over on the new lspn tour site. the last season of the indie tour was the first season of 2k3 that pro showed a significant increase over am as a player level preference. lw

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