One of the Park & Rec employees in Athens, AL is interested in putting on a team tourney on here later this year. We are looking for a good format for this event. Any suggestions would be appriciated.

The VA Team invitational is the model!! Everyone loves the event.

Heres how it works.
4 open players, 2 master players (or anyone rated below 965 b/c it cn be tough to get masters), 2 adv golfers (or anyone rated below 955) and a woman.

Everyone on thier team is seeded (i.e. open 1, open 2, etc).

Then there are two divisions set up - each team plays a team in thier division once - the same seeds from each team play each in match play format. If you win a match, you get a point for your team. A tie is worth a half of a point. Most points wins the match.

Then after all the matches, the top 2 teams from each bracket meet in a 4 team playoff with the winner of that taking home the trophy.

This is a lot of fun and really suggest using something along this line.

The VA Team invitational is the model!! Everyone loves the event.

Heres how it works.
4 open players, 2 master players (or anyone rated below 965 b/c it cn be tough to get masters), 2 adv golfers (or anyone rated below 955) and a woman.





Everything is right except the ratings cutoff for masters. The Master's division can be any master's age player (regardless of rating) or any player rated below <font color="red"> 975</font>.


It is one of if not the best tournament of the year in my opinion, and I am sure 99.9% of the participants would echo this sentiment.

Here's how John Houck runs Texas Teams.

http://www.circularproductions.com/content/view/44/57/

The VA Team invitational is the model!! Everyone loves the event.

Heres how it works.
4 open players, 2 master players (or anyone rated below 965 b/c it cn be tough to get masters), 2 adv golfers (or anyone rated below 955) and a woman.





Everything is right except the ratings cutoff for masters. The Master's division can be any master's age player (regardless of rating) or any player rated below <font color="red"> 975</font>.


It is one of if not the best tournament of the year in my opinion, and I am sure 99.9% of the participants would echo this sentiment.



agreed. it's the most fun event that i've played and i don't imagine there'll be many that might top it.

but i gotta disagree with the masters rule. it should be kept to folks over forty.

We set up a team tournament this year, that (I believe), offers a fair AND fun alternative. When putting it together, we wanted to offer the tourney in order to get large numbers, so this could be fun for more people, and eliminate exclusion�.so keep that in mind.

Format: Include Divisions, even if you have to use more than one course!
- For each division, set a MINIMUM number of players, and set no limit for a maximum, and make sure that the end number is an even number of players.
- Each division plays amongst their respected division, two rounds. One doubles (thus the even number), one singles.
- Each round is scored separately using �cross country� scoring, where you score a certain amount (probably the minimum amount you required up front) and the lowest score wins the division. (so the better a team/person places, the fewer the points.)
- In the end, you add up all the division totals after each round, LOWEST NUMBER WINS!

Small details:
- This format allows as many players that want to play, to play, and actually HELPS the team that brings more players (just giving them more opportunities to score better).
- If �sandbagging� is in question, use PDGA guidelines for keeping divisions, and if someone is on the border�MOVE UP! The doubles format for one round should keep people within their divisions.
- The reason for making a minimum amount of players is to eliminate �shark play�. If there is a set amount of players, then you have to score at least that amount, the more players you bring just gives more chances. (So, a team can�t just bring one or two STUDS in each division, and expect to walk away with it�because you�ve made a minimum amount already)
- If a team cannot field enough participants in a division, they score the WORST point value that another team scores, for each person missing. (again, eliminating �shark play�.

I�m not saying that this is the best way, I�m just saying it�s a great way to encourage bringing a lot of players, and getting more people involved. We�ve used this format for �dual competitions�, and had 72 people show up for a one-on-one battle between two clubs. Its great. We used it as a fund-raiser, and collected money for another course to go in the ground.

but i gotta disagree with the masters rule. it should be kept to folks over fourty.



I don't understand why anyone would want it to just be players over forty. Age protected divisions are a lot more unfair than ratings-based divisions. Look at the 2nd place team...they had Gangloff and Myers (both well over 100-rated players) playing against many teams with younger players that were rated 30-100 rating points lower than them...and guess who won in 90% of the rounds? The guys over 40. If anything, it should be strictly ratings-based divisions to make it fair for everyone. I'm not complaining at all...I am fine with the way the tourney is set up as it is now. I just dont understand how it would be better if there were more occurance of stacked teams by making it non-ratings based.