Integrating New Members and maintaining competitive balance

[djdavefl]

An open letter to the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE of TGC TOURS

Before I begin with my suggestions, please note this is a long post, but I hope you read the entire post.

First, I enjoy the TGC TOUR experience, I have never been much of an online gamer, but this experience has been first rate all the way, so do not look at this as a complaint, but rather a suggestion.

Because the experience is so professionally done, many new players are discovering TGC TOURS everyday and want to participate.   The TOURS will constantly need new blood, as some more casual players find other avenues, which is to be expected.

However, I would not like to see this become like cable TV.   Where you are a loyal customer for years, while new customers are allowed to switch to a cable provider at a discounted rate which you, as an existing customer are not eligible for.

For the members who were here from or near the beginning, we patiently waited for Q-School, then we anxiously awaited the results and where we would be placed, then we patiently waited for the first events to take place.  

Currently a new member can play the Q-School in a day, and be on the WEB.COM tour the following week, with exemptions to PGA/EURO events immediately.  While I understand the need to integrate new members, I can see how some of the WEB.COM players are a little miffed that each week there is new blood that is at a higher skill level than they are, and feel that it is less likely for them to be competitive.

SUGGESTION #1
Create a four week "Challenger Series" that would run continually.  Use 4 of the Q-School courses, preferably the ones that ranked as the most difficult.

Assign points FedEx Cup style for each week.   At the end of the 4 week series, the top 20% of finishers would be given a PGA or EURO card (assigned equally like in the original Q-School)   the next 20% assigned to WEB.COM tour, the next 40% to the CHAMPIONS TOUR.    

What about the bottom 20%... more on that later.

SUGGESTION #2
Restoring Competitive Balance to all Tours:
Every 8 weeks, allow for rebalancing.  
At the 8 week mark allow for players to accept a VOLUNTARY demotion as follows:
-- Players outside the top 125 for PGA and EURO tours, may VOLUNTARILY relinquish their card and become members    of the WEB.COM TOUR.
-- Players outside the top X (x = 125 minus number of PGA/EURO players who accepted demotion) of the WEB.COM tour    may VOLUNTARILY relinquish their cards to become members of CHAMPIONS TOUR.
-- Players outside the top X (x = 125 minus number of WEB.COM players who accepted demotion) of the CHAMPIONS        TOUR may VOLUNTARILY relinquish their cards to become members of the new AMATEUR TOUR.

AMATEUR TOUR. (AMATEUR TOUR would be like the EXECUTIVE tour was going to be.  AMATEUR TOUR would work on a points system.  

-- Players who finish in the bottom 20% of the CHALLENGER SERIES would automatically be placed in the AMATEUR        TOUR.

No player would be forced to relinquish their cards mid-season, and all current promotion/demotion/exemption policies would remain in place.

Something like this can benefit players new and old of all skill levels, by allowing new players to join in an orderly fashion, and allowing the core members to remain in a TOUR that is more suited to their skill level and playing with other members of a similar skill.

I realize that this idea is not a perfect solution, nor is it the only solution.  But I am afraid that if the core players who have been here from before Q-school become frustrated, the tours may become a haven only for the elite.

Any and all comments are welcome.

[SmilingGoats]

Dave,
Thank you for your suggestions. We will consider them.

I want to say something here that is directed to everyone and not just you so please understand that as this post moves forward.

Every bit of code that has been written to create what we have here today has been written by 2 guys, in our spare time, over countless hours, for free. And really, all the hard stuff is on one guy, Tim. That's on top of the planning, organizing, rule writing, marketing, etc, that has gone in to pulling this off. I say this because we're still in the middle of working on lots of stuff to get added to the site and every time we go to change something it takes time away from what we really want to get done. We're in week 2! We haven't even started with the exemptions. I understand some of the frustrations but people aren't even giving a chance to let our system play out and that's just a little bit discouraging to me. Give it a chance, people. We'll make the necessary decisions when we feel it is appropriate to do so. Until then, just enjoy the game and try to get better.

Jeff

[djdavefl]

Jeff:

I wasn't trying to open up a big ol can of worms. Personally I enjoy the challenge of trying to improve each week, and have no intentions of throwing in the towel.

I completely understand the large effort made by a small number of people that has went into this venture. Personally, I am quite satisfied with the way things are being run, and I hope my post was not seen as criticism in any way, shape, or form.

I plan to play through the growing pains that will inevitably come with anything that is new, and be part of the foundation of these tours for a long time to come.

The post was simply to offer suggestions for a plausible method of balancing the tours, should the additions of new members create larger and larger pools of players to compete with in each tour.

Again I don't want anyone to construe anything I said to be critical in any way of the TOURS, I guess my passion to see this succeed for everyone gets the better of me

Keep up the good work, I will shut up now, and focus on practicing for the next event.

[SmilingGoats]

Thanks, Dave. I thought your post was a good one. And my comments really were to everyone, not to you. There are quite a few posts on the forums about keeping the playing fields level and I'm just asking everyone to have patience.

But your suggestions are appreciated, thank you.

[Alexander Salvator]

SmilingGoats:

Your concerns seem to be based on the assumption that there will be a constant flow of new players for the months to come. Although this game and this great website would deserve thousands of new players every day this will not happen. In the upcoming months the number of new players will decrease and current players will lose interest. So there will be the day when new players/week equals or is even lower than lost players/week. When this moment comes (and it will) many of your concerns will vanish automatically.