Am Worlds 2013: Only 2 slots in FJx divisions?

[jenb]

edit

I'm curious what that was. PM me if you want.

I think people may have a hard time realizing how upset the 40+ ladies are because maybe they haven't given any thought to what it's like to see tournament after tournament, all year long, offer amateur men's age protected divisions but not amateur women's age protected divisions. There's really only a handful of Supertour events that offer any age protected amateur women's divisions. We already feel excluded. And it's not fair to expect us to have to ask to be included at every tournament. Valerie Jenkins puts it nicely:

I think they should ALWAYS offer it. if they don't offer it then no one will ever know if the division could have been (the ladies that would want to play masters may have been turned away because they didn't wanna play "up")..

And then to have Am World's offer only 8 spots that fill in 4 days, it's really too much. There's no way it's accurate to describe us as "equally disappointed" as the men's divisions that already filled. They get to compete all year. Am Worlds is one of very few opportunities each year for us to compete in our division.

I can only imagine what juniors are going through.

 

[Karl]

Karl, Am Worlds only has age based divisions, none based on ability.

Oops, sorry; I thought there was an INT division at Worlds. My mistake.

Karl

 

[grodney]

Valarie, not Valerie. Easy to remember because of the double a's.

 

[chris deitzel]

Just get rid of age protected divisions all together. Just an idea. What about AM worlds for am players. one division. Seems simple. Same for pros. It's time to get rid of these age protected divisions.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Yep, those bagging 10 year olds should be competing against those 16, 30 and 60 year olds.

 

[chris deitzel]

Yep, just like everyone will always get a 3 on hole 15 at Moraine.

I was kinda teasin here Chuck.

I just want to play with people who know the rules and play by them

 

[SteezeOG]

edit

Are you threatening me, Rob? opcorn: My middle name is edit it could be some rooster dance to call me out into the fighting circle.

 

[LegoRules]

Looks like they have expanded some of the divsions before they have even filled. I sure hope they also expand the ladies age protected divsions as well.

Cindy


4/2/13 3:45pm EST Note: The ADVANCED Master Women (FM1) division has filled.

4/5/13 4:30pm EST Note: The ADVANCED Sr Grandmaster Men (MS1) division has filled.

4/10/13 11:00pm EST Note: The ADVANCED Grandmaster Women (FG1) division is nearing capacity. The last spot will be filled from the WAITLIST -- 1st person to sign up.

4/18/13 3:00am EST Note: The ADVANCED Master Men (MM1) division is nearing capacity [POOL EXPANDED]. The last spots will be filled from the WAITLIST -- as they come in.

4/18/13 3:00am EST Note: The ADVANCED Grandmaster Men (MG1) division is nearing capacity [POOL EXPANDED]. The last spots will be filled from the WAITLIST -- as they come in.

4/18/13 3:00am EST Note: The ADVANCED Women (FA1) division is nearing capacity [POOL EXPANDED]. The last spots will be filled from the WAITLIST -- as they come in.

 

[Karl]

While I don't know if there is any correlation to, say, the % of GMs in the PDGA vs. the % of slots at Worlds for GMs, the PTB should understand the availability of each division's entrants and tweak the numbers accordingly. Point: a lot of GMs, SGMs, Ls, etc. are retired and/or can take the time off (and have the money to do so) to attend such an event...and thus do so!

And as a side note, I hate shutting out ANYONE so that - especially for AM Worlds (which seem to draw more than Pros) - the PTB also need to ensure that there are enough courses to accommodate a LOT of people. Yeh, I know, easier said than done, but if this is not considered (in the future), the same 'stuff' is going to happen time and time again.

Karl

 

[Cgkdisc]

After observing the course flow with fivesomes at the packed GBO, they have decided it would be okay to go with fivesomes in some divisions at Worlds (not MA1). So several divisions like MM1 and MG1 have been expanded up to 18 more players and subdivisions in the women and junior pool increased proportionately.

 

[Rob Martin]

Are you threatening me, Rob? opcorn: My middle name is edit it could be some rooster dance to call me out into the fighting circle.

No Sean, I was starting to rip on a poster in this thread (not male) but decided against it.

 

[Rob Martin]

After observing the course flow with fivesomes at the packed GBO, they have decided it would be okay to go with fivesomes in some divisions at Worlds (not MA1). So several divisions like MM1 and MG1 have been expanded up to 18 more players and subdivisions in the women and junior pool increased proportionately.

Good to hear, I personally don't mind fivesomes and I'm in MM1. I would like more than 72 in my division, even if I am only third from the bottom.

 

[Rob Martin]

+1..

+1 an edit?

I'm laughing but I don't know what I'm laughing about. Instead of an extrovert, sometimes I can be an extroblurt. After I wrote something, then read my post, I decided I didn't really want that on the interwebs. Sometimes having my real name hanging out there it keeps my tongue in check.

 

[puttlikeablowfly]

As the person who developed the conceptual schedules for our (Madison's) bid for the 2015 Am Worlds, this has been an interesting thread. Admittedly, I based much of my work on what has been done for past Am Worlds, especially in Ohio and Rochester, since we would likely be using a similar number of courses. If we get awarded the tournament, I don't how much of a role I / we will have in actually setting the pools and schedules, but I can certainly see the issues involved in deciding the caps for various divisions.

Personally, I would like to at least see one card of players worth in each division. I've been going on the assumption of four per card (72 per pool), but as Chuck pointed out, if fivesomes may be an option for some divisions, you could increase the capacity. However, I also noticed that the draft schedule for Emporia only has two instances where a course is hosting three rounds in a day. Plus, travel time between courses there is not much of an issue, so the (hopefully) slight increase in round times from fivesomes may not present a big risk to the tournament schedule. Now, if you have a pool of 72 for juniors, and they have 8 divisions, you're going to have some small divisions. Still, if half of those divisions had four players, you could still have something like 20, 16, 12, and 8 for the other four. The 2011 Am Worlds had 44 juniors total, although the schedule I have for 2011 showed room for 72. 2012 had 52 juniors. 2012 in Charlotte was very different, as not only did they have a lot of courses, but they combined a lot of smaller groups in different ways on different days. For example, the <20 boys had some rounds where they had the course to themselves, others where they shared it with Masters, GMs, or other junior groups. Charlotte had 89 juniors, total. Anyone know if they had waiting lists for any of the juniors groups?

 

[Cgkdisc]

I wouldn't count on fivesomes happening again. I think this is specifically an accommodation for this Worlds where they thought they would have six courses and ended up with five. In addition, there has been an initiative toward only two rounds per day per course (which Charlotte, Emporia and Lemon Lake chose but Twin Cities planning 3 per day) although that will depend on the host's preference, courses involved and distances apart.

 

[12StonesScott]

Charlotte had 89 juniors, total. Anyone know if they had waiting lists for any of the juniors groups?

On the fly, as I'm late for something, but I know there was a waitlist for MJ2 for Charlotte last year -- my son was on it for a week or two, but did get in. I'm not sure how they handled it -- if it was a cap per division or was based on the overall pool size.

I've been a non-playing parent of an MJ3/MJ2 competitor at Marion and Charlotte, so if there's any feedback or input you'd like from me, just let me know.

 

[puttlikeablowfly]

In addition, there has been an initiative toward only two rounds per day per course

That would seem to really cause problems if you're hoping to have at least four pools (288 players) for Advanced. That division would have to use three courses all to themselves every day. Plus, that division would likely play one of those courses twice (once before and once after the shuffle), which would mean that course would not get played by any other division. Chances are, that might be the best course in the rotation, and more than half the field wouldn't play it. Is it pretty well settled that no divisions will play six rounds on six different courses, or is it an available option that just hasn't been used recently?

 

[12StonesScott]

As the person who developed the conceptual schedules for our (Madison's) bid for the 2015 Am Worlds, this has been an interesting thread. Admittedly, I based much of my work on what has been done for past Am Worlds, especially in Ohio and Rochester, since we would likely be using a similar number of courses. If we get awarded the tournament, I don't how much of a role I / we will have in actually setting the pools and schedules, but I can certainly see the issues involved in deciding the caps for various divisions.

Personally, I would like to at least see one card of players worth in each division. I've been going on the assumption of four per card (72 per pool), but as Chuck pointed out, if fivesomes may be an option for some divisions, you could increase the capacity. However, I also noticed that the draft schedule for Emporia only has two instances where a course is hosting three rounds in a day. Plus, travel time between courses there is not much of an issue, so the (hopefully) slight increase in round times from fivesomes may not present a big risk to the tournament schedule. Now, if you have a pool of 72 for juniors, and they have 8 divisions, you're going to have some small divisions. Still, if half of those divisions had four players, you could still have something like 20, 16, 12, and 8 for the other four. The 2011 Am Worlds had 44 juniors total, although the schedule I have for 2011 showed room for 72. 2012 had 52 juniors. 2012 in Charlotte was very different, as not only did they have a lot of courses, but they combined a lot of smaller groups in different ways on different days. For example, the <20 boys had some rounds where they had the course to themselves, others where they shared it with Masters, GMs, or other junior groups. Charlotte had 89 juniors, total. Anyone know if they had waiting lists for any of the juniors groups?

I think a strong argument could be made for eliminating M/FJ1 -- the strongest players in each of those divisions have shown a tendency, in recent years, to play MA1/FW1 or even Open. I'm not sure there's enough inherent difference between reasonably good 17 year olds and reasonably good 22 year olds to justify a separate division. Or at least reduce the cap significantly, and up the invitation criteria. There are plenty of 17 year olds (and even younger) winning MA1 in tournaments around the country every year -- if the goal is to have junior divisions where younger kids have a chance to be competitive, I don't know that the <=19 division is accomplishing anything. In Ohio in 2010, the average rating of the MJ1s was 927, vs. 922 for the MA1s. For MA2s, it was 878 (892 if you throw out one particularly low outlier). Eliminating those divisions would allow more spots to be made available in other divisions during the early part of registration -- if they go unused, and there's ways to accommodate more players in other divisions, great.

I absolutely believe there should be at least 4 spots available initially in each offered division, and that there ought to be some mechanism for giving the highest rated/highest point-earning players a greater opportunity to secure those spots before opening it up wider. Former world champs (in any division) get a spot held in the division they're eligible for until the first deadline. Limit invitations to 1.5x or 2x the available spots until that deadline (right now, that'd be the deadline for registering in the division you qualified for on points). For the second deadline, when in the current system any invited player can register for any division they're eligible in, allow a second round of invitations if there are still available slots.

 

[Cgkdisc]

That would seem to really cause problems if you're hoping to have at least four pools (288 players) for Advanced. That division would have to use three courses all to themselves every day. Plus, that division would likely play one of those courses twice (once before and once after the shuffle), which would mean that course would not get played by any other division. Chances are, that might be the best course in the rotation, and more than half the field wouldn't play it. Is it pretty well settled that no divisions will play six rounds on six different courses, or is it an available option that just hasn't been used recently?

Yes, that's how it would have to work if you only have two rounds per day. It's not a requirement to only do two rounds per course per day. For Am Worlds, it's mor of a luxury when enough courses are available. We're toying with a 6 MA1 pool rotation next year to allow up to 432 Adv/MJ1/MJ2 all playing the same course cycle. Yes, one course would only be played by these pools 3 times per day for four days.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I'd say M/FJ1 is there as a placeholder for a World HS Champion for the time being. Plus, outside the U.S., they don't have strong amateur participation in favor of Junior competition until they turn pro.