Bernie,
VERY similar to what we do. We typically have four "Home and Home"
matches a year, total of eight rounds of golf for our "senior" group.
Like you, this is for about 20 golfers. We might have an one club that
is far enough out of town that we spend the night. On those occasions
we might have a "bonus" round the day before for those who want to come
up early.
We get special rates and breakfast/lunch as well. Generally we get
their guest day rate, or lower. Sometimes the pot is taken from the
green fees, sometimes there is an additional buy-in. Never more than
$10. The "game" is up to the home club. Always there is a low team
score, but sometimes there are separate closest to the hole and skins games.
All in all it is a great way to play different courses and to meet some
wonderful people.
/Ed
Bernie Baymiller wrote:
Ed,
We had a "home and away" event with a local country club for a few
years, about 20 players from each club, and handled it much like you
are...2 low net. We had two players from our group and two players
from their group in each foursome. Each player kicked in $10, I think,
and we paid 3 places. What kept it fair was a knowledge captains from
both clubs had of all players...who was playing good and bad, who was
sandbagging of sorts, who played fast and slow, etc. The captains got
together and made up teams based on handicaps and their knowledge of
players. Each club threw a buffet lunch for the other at their home
course (Nothing fancy...burgers, dogs, beans, potato salad, etc. and I
recall their home baked cookies were great!). Greens fees (including
cart and range balls to warm up) were a special rate $25 for the
visitors. Lunch, golf and a lot of fun for $35...didn't even need to
win to have a good day. Home players kicked in some bucks to cover
visitors' lunches...think usually about $20. But, even with only $400
in the pot, it was always a somewhat spirited competition.
Bernie
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Reeder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "clubmaker online" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 7:50 PM
Subject: ShopTalk: Re: Tournament Pairings Help
Dave,
Absolutely great questions.
1. The competitions are individual foursome events.
2. A foursome's 2 best net scores per hole. (2 * 18) = Total Team
Strokes
3. Net scores, handicaps are monitored and are trusted (but sand
baggers will exist to some small degree).
4. "Fair" was probably the incorrect term. Equitable might be
better. Dean Knuth's web site has an article on picking a partner
http://www.popeofslope.com/guidelines/picking.html
There are certain handicap combinations that have an advantage /
disadvantage. I would want to avoid those combinations if possible.
Here is an excerpt from the Knuth article:
Dr. Scheid has also researched four-man teams, a grouping most often
found in a pro-amateur competition. In many tournaments, the teams
consist of an A player (handicap of 3 to 7), B (8-12), C (13-17) and
D (18-22), making each team relatively equal in strength. but when
teams are allowed to put together their own combinations, it's
possible to gain an advantage by studying Dr. Scheid's findings. They
show that a team composed entirely of A players would have an edge on
a team of C players, but would not fare as well as a team of B
players. According to Dr. Scheid, the best combination would be a
team whose composition is BBDD. Next, a full stroke behind in
potential, would be a team of AACC, closely followed by AABB and
AADD. This research is not to be dismissed lightly, based as it is on
the study of thousands of tournament scores.
Of course our fields won't have an equal distribtion of A, B, C, & D
players.
/Ed
Dave Tutelman wrote:
Sorry to disappoint, Ed! I guess I'm not a smart guy, because I don't
understand the question. Actually, I don't think I know what a fair
foursome is. For instance, first I would want to know:
(1) Does a club win, or does an individual win?
(2) What game is being played? Individual stroke play? Four ball
better ball? Something else?
(3) Does the game include handicap, or is it gross? Either way, are
the handicaps known and trusted?
(4) Could you give some examples of an UNFAIR foursome, so I know
what the metric of fairness is?
Basically I'm saying that you are asking for a precise, algorithmic
solution to a problem that is far from precisely stated. ("Fair" is
hardly a precise measurement.)
Thanks,
DaveT
At 04:42 PM 8/6/2007, Ed Reeder wrote:
>I'm hoping that one of you smart guys can help me out.
>
> From time to time I participate in tournaments with other clubs
and we
>create foursomes which usually consist of two players from one
club and
>two players from the other club. At times the number of players on
each
>side may be different, so instead of 2 from each side, it could be
3 and
>1, or even 4 and 0.
>
>Right now we do this by hand, with no real guidance on how to fairly
>allocate the players.
>
>I'd like to have a way to automatically and fairly create foursomes.
>Though we typically have only two clubs to draw from, I could see
that
>three or four could be a possibility.
>
>I've got a few questions:
>1. Is there a formula for fairly creating the foursomes?
>2. Is there a way to automate this in Excel, with the ability to draw
>players from 1 to 4 "pools" of players?
>3. Is there a cheap software package that does this?
>
>Thx,
>
>/Ed
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