How do you get DQ'd playing within your handicap

[Tommy Briggs]

I have never been adjusted, definitely never been DQ’d. So I don’t have a horse in this race just my opinion. And yes I have ran tournaments with hundreds of players and have played in more than enough tournaments to understand what goes on “behind the scenes” when putting together a tournament of this size.

Most importantly NO ONE has said or even implied Scott and the WA staff have done anything less than a phenomenal job.

I believe a disqualification should be used to remove a player not only from the current years event but any future events as well. A DQ should be used for some issue so egregious the WA does not want this player to ever come back.

If I hear a player is DQ’d my thoughts are, “did he lie about his identity”? “Did he assault another player”? Now if a 15 handicapper shoots 72, yes a DQ might be warranted, I still think a retroactive adjustment solves all potential sandbagging issue. An adjustment could include a penalty, a retroactive adjustment to his lowest posted index, and if that adjustment exceeded a specific number lets say 10 shots an additional penalty could be applied.

As I said earlier many players save up for a year to be able to come to play in the WA. I am retired but many players use their vacation time to come. They trade family vacations for the WA. Many players travel great distances, from foreign countries, from opposite coasts. For many players the WA is an event that requires financial and resource planning that starts the day the previous WA ends. Everyone knows and adjustment means you shot a lights out round. A disqualification has a totally different implication.

I would like to see DQs removed except for the most serious of issues and revisit how adjustments are used as an alternative.

[Jeffrey Barbas]

Shealy, I was a tournament director here at home for 5 years and on the board for another 5 years. I know a thing or two about running tournaments. I ran some of the best County Am’s that our area had ever seen. And after I stepped down it was just a matter of 3 years that our Association stopped functioning. I knew it was going to happen after I left the position. That being said, it was more about real golf than handicap crap. We use to have 3 divisions. AA(Scratch) A(5.0 to 9.9) and B(10.0 and above) when I took over. After taking over and getting little to no help from our board members I had to make changes to survive. Dropped the B flight since many were shooting A flight numbers. And it was a lot better pay outs when I only had to split the pot in half. If a player had to be moved we moved them up. We played the toughest courses from the tips in our area. A couple 7,000 yard courses and 6,800 for our County Am usually. I think I had the largest Scratch Division the years I ran it. Over 50%. Got a lot of college kids to come out and play with some of the best amateur golfers in our area. And the key is I made it affordable. I left office with $1,000 to the good in the account. Pretty good for absolutely no sponsorship money the last few years.

That’s the biggest issue I see in the World Am. The payout sucks. We pay $535 to have the chance to win a $600 gift card? Thankfully that’s not the whole reason we come here. Cause I haven’t placed anywhere near enough to recoup that kind of money. We all enjoy the competition or we wouldn’t be here. Fact still remains, they need to do something more for us players than keep driving the price up. But, do you really think they are doing this for free? And yet I can assure you they aren’t losing money or they wouldn’t keep doing it.

[Scott T. – World Am]

Jeff – I’m sure you know the maximum payout for amateurs is $750. The event is not about that. In reference to ‘keep driving the price up’… this event cost $425 in 1999 (20 years ago now). We only go up when our costs go up.

We are a non-profit organization. Every dollar of your entry goes directly back into this event. So yea, aside from our less than lavish salaries and an office to answer the phone, we do this for $0. Most years are in the red.

We are thankful to be able to do this for everyone and proud of what we are trying to make it become; even when sometimes it comes with tough decision making (what this thread’s topic begin as).

To anyone who ever has questions or constructive criticism you are welcome to chat with us 24/7 about your own situations privately.

For now I will be closing this topic to shift the conversation to 2020 and how we are excited to take all feedback to make the event bigger and better yet again.

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