Jumping in the deep end

[ray1970]

Lol, I see you got a 6 and a 7! What did you throw?

I went straight up putter only during the tournament. I just threw my Envy the whole way and it worked pretty well and kept me in the middle. The 6 and 7 came into play as I got near the basket and found myself in a bad spot.

I have played the course a couple of times since the tournament and have changed up how I play the hole. I still go putter off the tee to stay in the middle but then I blast an overstable fairway for my second shot, passing the mando and skipping left out into the field where I'll have a decent look at the basket for my third shot and hopefully be putting for four.

 

[autocrosscrx]

If their rating goes over the limit more than 2 weeks away from the event they will be made to move up, if within 2 weeks they will not.

Not that I didn't believe you, but I looked for myself today, since there was some local discussion regarding rating day.

My tourney is 2.5 months out, but I looked at a tourney for Feb 19th. One of the rec players moved up to a 903 rating and he was bumped to intermediate.

So definitely something to keep in mind if/when I outplay my division rating.

 

[klodkrawler05]

Not that I didn't believe you, but I looked for myself today, since there was some local discussion regarding rating day.

My tourney is 2.5 months out, but I looked at a tourney for Feb 19th. One of the rec players moved up to a 903 rating and he was bumped to intermediate.

So definitely something to keep in mind if/when I outplay my division rating.

Around here you're pretty likely to get bumped even if the tournament is just around the corner. With the tournament being still 3 rating cycles out I'd think they'll move folks ineligible for the class.

Worth keeping in mind that anyone can play in MA4 for their first tournament, especially unrated players. So that includes the collegiate baseball player who picked up DG during covid with a buttery 450' forehand, the old guy that never misses a putt inside 40' etc. There are certainly other folks in MA4 who are actually MA4 skill level, but lots of folks pass through MA4 as their first tournament before moving into other divisions.

The plus side to a wooded course is not everyone mentally handles tree kicks the same, even more so folks who are in their first tournament, suddenly a bad bounce seems like a way bigger deal instead of making a joke about it like a casual round. So good mental prep can go far.

3hrs per round is usually a fast tournament round, I'd expect 4hrs in the woods and if it's less be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Dcinmd]

Not that I didn't believe you, but I looked for myself today, since there was some local discussion regarding rating day.

My tourney is 2.5 months out, but I looked at a tourney for Feb 19th. One of the rec players moved up to a 903 rating and he was bumped to intermediate.

So definitely something to keep in mind if/when I outplay my division rating.

Just keep in mind you are playing the course, not other members of your division. You can only control your performance.

Still good questions you are asking.

 

[autocrosscrx]

Just keep in mind you are playing the course, not other members of your division. You can only control your performance.

Still good questions you are asking.

Like I said, first reason I even looked at this is that I wanted to access the chance of being in a group of 5 all playing in their first tourney. So I started clicking profiles. And I noticed one of the dudes in novice without a rating shot something like a 960 rated round in his first tourney. So that set me on the how all this works path. And that turned into, I wonder how many of these people will be novice rated by the time we get to the tournament.

 

[ru4por]

These are the guidelines we follow for all tournaments....sanctioned or non sanctioned.

Players are allowed to enter a ratings-based division they would otherwise be ineligible to participate in only under the following circumstances:

• If approved before the event by the PDGA Director of Event Support.
  
• Players who have become ineligible for a division due to a ratings update may participate for two weeks following the update, provided they are pre-registered for the event in question, at the discretion of the Tournament Director.
  
• If competing in an applicable points Series (see 2.02.B)

.

https://www.pdga.com/rules/competition-manual/202

 

[BillFleming]

I remember seeing somewhere, sometime (I think it was on the PDGA site) where it gave division suggestions based on how well you made shots. It was intended for people who didn't have a rating yet. So a novice might have been:

Throws a fairway driver 200 feet or less
Makes 4 out of 10 putts from C1 edge.

Things like that to help a person decide which division to sign up for....wouldn't stop "sandbaggers" though, but I thought it was a pretty nice guideline. I just wish I could remember where I saw it.

 

[klodkrawler05]

I remember seeing somewhere, sometime (I think it was on the PDGA site) where it gave division suggestions based on how well you made shots. It was intended for people who didn't have a rating yet. So a novice might have been:

Throws a fairway driver 200 feet or less
Makes 4 out of 10 putts from C1 edge.

Things like that to help a person decide which division to sign up for....wouldn't stop "sandbaggers" though, but I thought it was a pretty nice guideline. I just wish I could remember where I saw it.

https://www.pdga.com/divisions

Down in the "amateur" division section.

Although with the gaining popularity of internet tutorials and good information available to the covid golfers I feel like you have to add about 50' to any given division for the players that actually show up (at least at our local tournaments) but it is a pretty good reference to see what the PDGA considers your level.

 

[EarthRocker]

My first sanctioned event, I was advised to play MA40 by a friend. He said I'd be comfortable there. (I was over 50 at the time. Still am, actually...)

I learned that weekend that I should play MA50 whenever possible. I'm pretty good for 54 years, not so good for a 40-year old. Plus, 4 rounds over two days made me *feel* like I was 60. So there's that.

 

[ray1970]

My first sanctioned event, I was advised to play MA40 by a friend. He said I'd be comfortable there. (I was over 50 at the time. Still am, actually...)

I learned that weekend that I should play MA50 whenever possible. I'm pretty good for 54 years, not so good for a 40-year old. Plus, 4 rounds over two days made me *feel* like I was 60. So there's that.

I'm generally an MA50 guy but my one win was in MA40.

Granted, it was a one round flex tournament and technically it was just me and one other guy in the MA40 division, but still.

 

[discerdoo]

I'll just tag along on this thread to share.

I'm entered in my first B-tier event next month. Just turned 60 so I got one of the 10 slots for MA60. Been playing for about 6 years and most of my tourneys have been local minis the last couple of years. The other dudes have mid 800's ratings like mine though their PDGA numbers are much lower. I'm looking forward to it, I should be able to compete with the codgers.

 

[autocrosscrx]

Bumping this up....

After a couple years of keeping this my fun/casual hobby, I joined the PDGA and signed up for my first tournament yesterday. It is a at a course that I've never played, but the tourney isn't until April 23rd. So I have plenty of time to get a couple of rounds in and figure out which bag I want to carry and things like that. The bad news is that I'm really excited and have to wait 2.5 months. My only real concern is that I generally don't play 2 rounds in a day.

Alright, registration opened up for a Callie McCorran C Tier the week before at my favorite local course and it doesn't conflict with any of my car stuff, so I plan to hit that.

Right now 60 of 90 are signed up. I signed up for MA4 at the other tourney, but this event has 22 people signed up for MA3 and 2 people signed up for MA4. Which kind of stinks since MA4 is $5 cheaper.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I find myself in a strange position mentally right now in regards to playing tournaments. I took 14 years off leading up to 2020, then stepped back in at MA-40 as a 47-year-old. I was motivated to prove I still "had it," and by that I mean shooting my rating from my peak physical condition back in like 2000. And I did. I even got a little better over the next two seasons and am sitting at 920, right where I was back when my game was totally different.

In the meantime all this practice rubbed off on my kid. I've given a shout-out to Sidewinder22 several times thanking him for both his advice for me and especially for the stuff rubbing off on my son, who is 12 now and shooting over 900 rated rounds left and right. He looks amazing off the tee, better than most adults with his form, and is starting to put all the rest of the game together to see some results for scores. Beat me 9 times in 2021 out of a little over 100 rounds, but most of those were in the last five or six weeks we played regularly.

Here's a couple of videos to demonstrate this. I love this one because Zac from Crew42 came over to say hello. He hadn't seen Eric throw much and is on film here asking him what he's about to throw on a 260' ish hole at Robert Morris Park. "A Wasp, huh? Okay." Then Eric unleashed his usual bomb and totally took him by surprise. I'm up next with my smooth but old man form throwing a Z-Heat for the same result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YZ5dj-Vips&t

Here's the last night of league in town where Eric beat all 30+ adults from the same short tees. It's perhaps my favorite clip of him yet. Earlier in the night when I wasn't filming he drew metal on a 360' hole with a TL3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALVyAVLDqEo

The point of all this is to show my dilemma. I don't really care much about my sanctioned play anymore. I proved I can shoot over 900 still with this carcass of mine, and it'll never ever get better. All I really care about outside of putting league is how my son is taking to this game. I'm thinking about just caddying a whole bunch for 2022 and maybe playing a few small C-tiers locally. This is the last year I have to play MA-40 where I do fine, usually finishing about 3rd place if 8 to 10 show up, but it's all putting. I enjoy watching my son way more. We have an A-tier coming up in May where they plan on having MA-40 carcass people like me shoot the longs at ROMO and I can no longer break 60 there even though I routinely did 20 years ago. Blech. I think that's going to be my plan, to be mostly a caddy this year. We're planning on junior worlds!

 

[autocrosscrx]

Follow up here.

First tourney today. It was fun. No drama. Everyone was super cool. It rained hard for about 12 hours, then stopped just before we started playing. So the course was pretty sloppy and made for lots of casual water choices, but we didn't have to deal with rain. I was worried about fitness since I never ever play 2 rounds in a day. I was certainly beat at the end of the day, but it wasn't a huge issue. I wasn't really nervous either. Everyone outdrove me and nobody was really a great putter in MA4, so no surprise there. Everyone warned of pace. In the morning round, it wasn't that bad, but we were the last card and ended up behind the top card. And those dudes were slow as hell. Then in the afternoon, I was on a card with better players, but we were behind a mixed MA60 and FA4 card that was slow and they were behind the advanced dudes that were really slow. So we frequently had 3 or 4 card back up.

What did surprise me is I'm usually pretty consistent, but I had a bunch of blow up holes. I ended up +14, the winners were +7. One of those guys had 0 birdies, 7 bogeys. The other had 2 birdies and 9 bogeys. I had 5 birdies, 9 bogeys, 2 doubles, and 3 triples. Maybe that is where nerves show. Nobody else really made putts on my card, but they also were laying up circle's edge putts, so they never 3 putted. I made several 25+ footers, but some of the misses led to 20+ foot comebacks. I was hitting a bunch of 15-25 footers for par (or bogey), but I think that kind of got to me and I'd miss some easy shots towards the end of each round.

Anyway, took 5th in MA4 out of 9, which surprisingly "cashed". And I walked out with a Marm O Set Zen KC Roc.