Good afternoons folk, I'm going to be announcing a new league to my community at the end of this week, and I thought that bringing it here would give me a chance to get feedback from people who may have tried similar formats or other team formats over the years in varied communities.
Current Status: I brought the idea to my community in November, and last night I started informing a lot of people of my intent to announce details at the end of the week. What this will serve as is a chance to get some final input to reflect on, once I announce it to my community I'm going to try to keep things as stable as possible aside from one or two possible date flips (out-of-town tournaments on a few weekends in summer, gotta identify which is gonna pull away more locals).
Format: Very similar to the collegiate play format. These will be single day, two round events. Round 1 each event will consist of the team alternate/best shot 4-person format, and round 2 will consist of each of the 4 players competing in singles with their scores being averaged to compose the team round 2 score.
This will be a 5 week season, with a team's best 4 weeks being counted toward their championship total. Each team will consist of 5 man rosters. This allows not only for each team to have players miss a week or two, but also allows for a team that simply has a week where they just can't "get it together" (either in terms of play or in terms of family/life plans interfering with showing up) to still compete for the title. Each week teams will receive 1 point for every team that they beat.
Entry Fee: The cost will be $25/man (if a group can't get a 5 man team, I will allow a 4 man team - but they know going in that if they are short they deal with the handicaps of playing with a 3 man group in the team format and taking the worst singles score in the individual format). I also wanted to bring costs down to a place where everyone in our community can participate - I cringe every time I hand over $60 for a C Tier. Somehow tournament prices in our region have increased at twice the rate of inflation over my 15 years as a golfer.
Entry Use: $10 will go toward trophy money. In year 1 up to $250 will go toward a traveling team trophy that will be re-used annually, with a solid wood base that we can handle adding engraved plates each year with winning team members. Money over the top of that will go toward small individual trophies, and in future years that $10 will go toward engraving the traveling trophy and then trophies for things like MVP and for members of X number of top finishing teams.
$15 will go toward a players party at the end of the season. I hope that the trophy you can bust out with your bragging rights is enough to motivate the high caliber players in the community, and the fact that the buy in is mostly contributing to a communal experience will motivate lower caliber players in the community. If we pull ten teams in - that's $750 toward a party, which goes a long way for a simple evening somewhere we can have a putting contest, drinks, and food in September.
I think that this use of entry fees maximizes the bang-for-the-buck out of a small entry.
Decision Making: Any money that fails to be spent would be distributed back to team captains evenly. And a team captain vote would be the arbiter on any decision related to the money that in any way veers from the plan that was in place when teams signed up (or adds to it: player party location, spending outlay for example). All teams will be required to pay before the start of the first event.
Schedule: I used both PDGA.com and DiscGolfScene.com to scout the emptiest weekends (a number of events that will be sanctioned are only listed on DGScene, and our region uses DGScene almost universally for unsanctioned events) both locally and in terms of major events within a few hours of home. I tried to avoid, for example: DGLO, Am Nats, Hambrick, Ledgestone along with all C Tiers and Unsanctioneds within an hour or so of home. I came up with the following spread of dates, following our 5 local courses:
05/30, 06/27, 7/11, 8/22, 9/19 - with 9/19 evening serving as the party.
If it appears I left some stones unturned in my planning let me know. I am open to all thoughts, at the very least for the purpose of reflection. Even if your idea isn't something I use it could be something that drives me to improve a part of my framework. Thank you for any help and time you have!
Current Status: I brought the idea to my community in November, and last night I started informing a lot of people of my intent to announce details at the end of the week. What this will serve as is a chance to get some final input to reflect on, once I announce it to my community I'm going to try to keep things as stable as possible aside from one or two possible date flips (out-of-town tournaments on a few weekends in summer, gotta identify which is gonna pull away more locals).
Format: Very similar to the collegiate play format. These will be single day, two round events. Round 1 each event will consist of the team alternate/best shot 4-person format, and round 2 will consist of each of the 4 players competing in singles with their scores being averaged to compose the team round 2 score.
This will be a 5 week season, with a team's best 4 weeks being counted toward their championship total. Each team will consist of 5 man rosters. This allows not only for each team to have players miss a week or two, but also allows for a team that simply has a week where they just can't "get it together" (either in terms of play or in terms of family/life plans interfering with showing up) to still compete for the title. Each week teams will receive 1 point for every team that they beat.
Entry Fee: The cost will be $25/man (if a group can't get a 5 man team, I will allow a 4 man team - but they know going in that if they are short they deal with the handicaps of playing with a 3 man group in the team format and taking the worst singles score in the individual format). I also wanted to bring costs down to a place where everyone in our community can participate - I cringe every time I hand over $60 for a C Tier. Somehow tournament prices in our region have increased at twice the rate of inflation over my 15 years as a golfer.
Entry Use: $10 will go toward trophy money. In year 1 up to $250 will go toward a traveling team trophy that will be re-used annually, with a solid wood base that we can handle adding engraved plates each year with winning team members. Money over the top of that will go toward small individual trophies, and in future years that $10 will go toward engraving the traveling trophy and then trophies for things like MVP and for members of X number of top finishing teams.
$15 will go toward a players party at the end of the season. I hope that the trophy you can bust out with your bragging rights is enough to motivate the high caliber players in the community, and the fact that the buy in is mostly contributing to a communal experience will motivate lower caliber players in the community. If we pull ten teams in - that's $750 toward a party, which goes a long way for a simple evening somewhere we can have a putting contest, drinks, and food in September.
I think that this use of entry fees maximizes the bang-for-the-buck out of a small entry.
Decision Making: Any money that fails to be spent would be distributed back to team captains evenly. And a team captain vote would be the arbiter on any decision related to the money that in any way veers from the plan that was in place when teams signed up (or adds to it: player party location, spending outlay for example). All teams will be required to pay before the start of the first event.
Schedule: I used both PDGA.com and DiscGolfScene.com to scout the emptiest weekends (a number of events that will be sanctioned are only listed on DGScene, and our region uses DGScene almost universally for unsanctioned events) both locally and in terms of major events within a few hours of home. I tried to avoid, for example: DGLO, Am Nats, Hambrick, Ledgestone along with all C Tiers and Unsanctioneds within an hour or so of home. I came up with the following spread of dates, following our 5 local courses:
05/30, 06/27, 7/11, 8/22, 9/19 - with 9/19 evening serving as the party.
If it appears I left some stones unturned in my planning let me know. I am open to all thoughts, at the very least for the purpose of reflection. Even if your idea isn't something I use it could be something that drives me to improve a part of my framework. Thank you for any help and time you have!
