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Why some people continue to cherry pick easy venues just to get a top ranking. I hope Mark can figure out a way to make the ranking as realistic as possible , not just a average score.

Chip, you don't need the stress in your life... let it go.

Besides... let them get a better ranking than you could argue they deserve, then destroy them in the flight competition.

Oh no, what if someone cherry picks the tough events to get a lower ranking, then they could clean up in the flights!

Mark found a way to give us what we want, choices!

Been that way since Links has had flights and always will be there. That is why flight events mean absolutely nothing. Flights are a joke. But on the other hand I can understand some players not playing windy rounds for instance because they just flat don't enjoy playing windy rounds and if you don't enjoy playing windy rounds then why play them. After all this game is for pure fun and a player's enjoyment. There are some players who will sit and stare at the wind gauge until the wind dies down to breezy. Try doing that in real golf and you would be playing alone because no one would play with you if you stand on the tee for two minutes waitng for a dying wind. If a player feels like playing a round in over an hour more power to em if it means that much to score well. That is another argument that has been beat to death.There has been many threads about having a clock to time a player's shot so they cannot sit and wait for windy to turn breezy. Get your stick Murray and start beating that dead horse again.

chip, cherrypicking as a ranking maintainence strategy is no big deal. on the old tour, you still had to show up once in awhile, and after enough weeks we all wound up being ranked just about where we were the season before.

my own experience playing the very toughest venue (plsas and apcds) i could play every week over the last two indie seasons was that it cost me less than two strokes in my scoring average over a season (compared to previous seasons where i played a mix of hard, moderate, and easy venues) and only dropped me from the bottom of champ B flight to the upper middle of C flight: not a life or death experience.

the admin is working on a relative difficulty course rating system that will eventually result in an adjusted tour scoring average, and cherrypicking will then cease to be a viable ranking strategy when that system kicks in. in fact, for certain statistical reasons, it may well be more advantageous to play very tough venues, and to avoid the very easy venues when that system arrives especially at the two lower difficulty levels. lw

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I so much want to post something about this topic , but Murray's stick looks deadly.

as everyone knows, flight events are far from a joke, and are the only event that most of us average players on the tour are ever likely to win.

the most important statistical fact about each flight is the range of scoring average between the best player in any given flight and the worst player. the closer these scoring averages are, the closer the competition, and the better the chances of each player of any flight to contend when he has a career week. the tour ideal has been to have flights where the difference in scoring average from the top to the bottom of most of the middle flights which contain 90% of all the tour players are fairly equal in range. lw

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Just in case the sarcasm was missed in my original reply to Chip... I'm with Larry, Flights are far from a joke, and one of the most enjoyable events on tour.

You will see me in Pro/Cl Flight F every week!!

Although I'm a better golfer than that, sure once the new season starts I'll be in Flight E where I really belong. <That was a deliberate whack to Murray's dog, sorry couldn't resist>

Justin_I wrote:Just in case the sarcasm was missed in my original reply to Chip... I'm with Larry, Flights are far from a joke, and one of the most enjoyable events on tour.

You will see me in Pro/Cl Flight F every week!!

Although I'm a better golfer than that, sure once the new season starts I'll be in Flight E where I really belong. <That was a deliberate whack to Murray's dog, sorry couldn't resist>

just so there is no confusion here.........it's a horse, a dead one at that......I don't beat my dog with a stick, besides...."Beating a dead horse" makes way more sense here than "thumping a dog with a stick"

only took until wk 4 for all the same things to start cherrypicking, flights are off, handicap system flawed, nag nag nag

So what chip is saying, if i get the jist of all this, is that a player who plays every venue each week no matter the conds gets a true ranking? And a player who picks selected venues is a cherry picker? ummm, so maybe he should mail PGA and get them to move Tigers @ss and play almost every tour event of the year like vijay does in order to get a TRUE world ranking? Sound about right? LOL

top ranked in lower levels seldom win a tourney ! I know You knew ! But ..

As Murray says this issue is beating a dead horse ..... WELL! ........dead AGAIN!

Chip_Jett wrote:Why some people continue to cherry pick easy venues just to get a top ranking. I hope Mark can figure out a way to make the ranking as realistic as possible , not just a average score.

The current "ranking" is based solely on score and is only temporary.

I have it on good authority that this "first season" will be to gather data on the various courses used on the tour, that along with the conditions, for use in formulating a more logical ranking system. "Cherrypicking" will not be advantageous and might be very detrimental to ones' tour ranking once this system is in place with the bugs ironed out.