Team Challenge

[Schoen-hopper]

Bill had an idea that sounds like it would be a fun side competition to our oz tour. I used some data from last year and thought on some options. Here is what I propose we use as a format.


*We'll use our 6 2-day events.
Glass Blown Open, Emporia, April 26 & 27, PDGA
Doo Dah Open, Wichita, May 31 & June 1, PDGA
The Rock, Salina, June 28 & 29
KS Championships, Beloit, July 19 & 20
Frontier Open, Hays, Septempter 6 & 7, PDGA
Shunga Nunga, Topeka, October 19 & 20, PDGA


*There will be 6 teams.
Emporia
Wichita
Winfield
Salina
West KS (or another name)
Northeast KS (or another name)

Each KDGA member (you have to be a KDGA member to participate) will be assigned to one of these teams. I would propose that Wellington gets joined in with Winfield. Everyone SE goes to Emporia. Everyone N of Newton goes to Salina. Topeka, Lawrence, Kansas City, and surrounding area are on the same team. Everyone west of Wichita other than Wellington plays with Hays on a team. There could be a couple of people who aren't sure which team they would go to. We just want to make it as fair as possible. The biggest factor will be how many KDGA signups each team can get.


*Each team will have 5 divisions.
1) Open
2) Masters, Grandmaster, and Amateur Master
3) Advanced Amateur
4) Intermediate, Recreational, Novice, & Junior
5) Women

For each team division, all players on a team who are playing this player division in the tournament will be competing with other players in the same team division for the best score. (KDGA division does not matter, so it is possible for a player to compete in different team divisions at different events.) The best score for the team is used for each of the 5 slots. Then, after each teams results are recorded, the results are given points. 6 points for the 1st place team. 5 for second, and so on. If there are any ties, half points will be used. The total team score will be rounded up if there are any half points. Also, if there are multiple teams with no players in a particular team division, the total of the open places will be averaged together for a number of points for each team with an empty slot in that team division.


This idea is mostly for fun and possibly to help gain membership for the KDGA. I'm sure its open to ideas on a prize or prizes for those particiapating on the winning team.

[Ruder]

Hays is home to the world's best casual golfers.

I've tried and I don't see a lot of members coming out of Hays, which would put our region at a huge disadvantage. Especially considering Emporia, Wichita, and the Topeka region can host up to 5 Open players a piece where as I'm the only person playing open.


It's a shame we don't have more people interested in tournaments but it is what it is. Hays in particular has 2 ams that could be the best in the state.

[scarpfish]

Interesting idea. Can you go through last year's results Mike and see how this would have played out?

I've always thought a one-day four man team tournament with mixed formats (best shot dubs in the morning, singles in the afternoon) would be a good idea, particularly if we could pair it on the same weekend with a regular tournament. We could even have ratings based divisions.

[ronconversjr]

whose team do the Ponca guys end up on?

[Schoen-hopper]

Interesting idea. Can you go through last year's results Mike and see how this would have played out?

I've always thought a one-day four man team tournament with mixed formats (best shot dubs in the morning, singles in the afternoon) would be a good idea, particularly if we could pair it on the same weekend with a regular tournament. We could even have ratings based divisions.

You do have some good ideas there Scott. Bill also had an idea to do something similar to what you said with several teams competing in a team vs. team tournament. We were going to do this at Newton a couple years back, but it fizzled out before it started.


Yes, I did go through last year's results and get a general idea of how this could play out.

First off, the biggest wildcard is the women's division. Last year, Wichita was pretty much the only team that brought any players to these events. This year is looking more promising. I thought about this in terms of 3 options.

First, you could put the women in with the amateur divisions. Or you could bump the juniors down to fill out the womens division for those teams who don't have any players (might still not have any players).

Second, I thought of only making this divsion worth half the points as the other 4. Doesn't sound very good.

Third, was to use the womens division equal to the others, just as it is mentioned in the first post. One thing that really equalizeed the situation is choosing to keep the point totals intact for each division, regardless of how many players show up. Example: Wichita is the only team with a woman to show up to an event. Instead of giving all the other teams a "0", you average the other 5 spots. 5+4+3+2+1=15, 15/5=3. So each of the other teams would still get 3 points for the womens division. The other divisions would work this way as well. In this way, blank spots wouldn't be quite as damaging for those teams not fortunate enought to have big numbers.


So for calculating last year, I did not include the womens division. But, I didn't add up the point totals anyway. I still could do that, but I was mainly concerned with how many players there would have been who played for each team and how many absences each team had to take. One thing I messed up was Babbit. I had him for Emporia instead of Lawrence. Also, Winfield's results do not include Ron and Brendan.

Winfield: 48 player*tournaments, 3 absences (out of 6 events * 4 divisions = 24)
Wichita: 50 player*tournaments, 2 absences
Salina: 40 player*tournaments, 8 absences
Hays/Western KS: 41 player*tournaments, 6 absences
Emporia: 24 player*tournaments, 13 absences
Topeka/NE KS: 27 player*tournaments, 8 absences

Those numbers help, but don't tell the whole story. Emporia completely dominated the pro division, but the lack of players in some other divisions would have made a big difference. Also, some of the time, espescially at the teams' home events, there were divisions with 6 or so KDGA members. You only need one good player to make a good score in a division, so these extra numbers can seem misleading.

As far as general strength, Wichita and Winfield had the highest. Wichita had more players, but Winfielders hit more events and were better spread throughout the divisions. That's why you can't just do something like this by region. Wichita and Winfield would be on the same team. Regions 1 and 5 put together might not have as many players as either of these teams.

Hays is a long haul. They had a lot of participation at a few events, but none at others. That is why I'd suggest giving them Pratt, Hutch, and anything else out that way.

Salina didn't have that many members, but they used what they had pretty well. It's a little easier for the centrally located teams.

Northeast KS probably had the toughest time of it, though not near as many absences as I would have thought. If this team could recruit KC for members, it could be huge.


Ideally, each team would have few absences and the points would stay close. With more members, this would certainly be possible.

[Schoen-hopper]

The first event of the Team Challenge 2-day event series is the Glass Blow Open. That is only 10 days away.

I thought I would get a list started to figure out who is playing for which team. It'll be better if we can figure this out before the first event.

Players in region 2 that I thought were NE KS, but could have been Emporia would be Thomas Spencer and Tom Thompson.
Also, Jeremy Kindy is from Newton. Closer to Wichita, but Salina needs players more.
Darren Bottom went to Salina, but he could have gone to West KS.
When Rodney signs up, will he be Salina?
We should figure out which team these players should play for. The main question here is what is the most fair?

Austin Streit Salina
Ron Convers Jr. ?
Chris Smith Winfield
Tracy Ruder W
Kevin Babbit NE
Steve Stuber Wichita
Brendan Hickman ?
Nathan Martin Emporia
Ben Maass Wichita
Shan Mann Winfield
Chris Jones Salina
Chris Wiggins Emporia
Brett Straight W
Chad Larson NE
Michael Schoenhofer Wichita
Eric McCabe Emporia
Ryan Beisner W
Hans Coleman NE


Dave Richardson Winfield
Buddy Kassner Wichita
Randy Mattingly Wichita
Bill Paulson Wichita
Randy Brown Salina
Kevin Rorabaugh W
Bruce Clanton Wichita
Terry Burley Winfield
Kyle Klinger W
Don Mordecai W
Bart Patton Winfield
Hal Kurz NE
Iqbal Jehan Wichita
Tracy Walker NE
Steve Hostetler NE


Crispin Carrasco Wichita
Dustin Widener Winfield
Kevin Kaiser Winfield
Josh Hull Wichita
Adam Mosher Salina
Ben Wiggins Wichita
Bo Carrasco Wichita
Josh Case Winfield
Willis Williams W
Phil Schmidt Salina
Jeremy Rusco Emporia
Travis Clark Wichita
Billie Cabral Salina
Clay Houser Emporia
Devon Price Emporia
Scott Haynes W
Brady Younger W
Darrell Sander W
Bren Nordgren NE
Nick Newell W
Nils Nordgren NE
Brandon Mace Salina
Ryan Orton NE
Andy Lynn Salina
Claudio Alvarez W
Marco Moore Emporia
Kevin Lambdin Winfield


Josh Luinstra Wichita
Jason Adkins Wichita
Shane Crisler Wichita
Bryan Tracy Winfield
Ron Richert Wichita
Corbin Newland W
Jarod Weins Winfield
Peter Mohr Wichita
Kurt Meier Salina
Bob Hardister Winfield
Shawn Jimenez Winfield
Jeremy Kindy Salina?
Chris Tyler Winfield
Jason Skeen W
Don Zimmerman Wichita
Tyler Smith Salina
Kent Hawkins Wichita
Tim Newcomb NE
Jason Cook Wichita
Scott Carpenter W
Thomas Spencer NE?


Tom Osborn Salina
Tom Vierthaler W
Charles Dickinson Winfield
John Chapman NE
Tom Thompson NE?
Robert Decker Wichita
Steve Brown Wichita
Darren Bottom Salina?
Bill Burton Winfield


Robin Reimer Wichita
Kile Byington Wichita
Deb Imel Wichita
Liz Lopez Emporia
Debbie Laity W
Tracy Johnson Salina


Charles Dickinson Jr. Winfield
Plamen Iantchev Wichita
John Moser Salina

[Schoen-hopper]

Here are the numbers from the KDGA divisions. The points are scored from actual divisions played, though, not KDGA divisions.

pro, master, adv, int, women, total

Wichita 3, 7, 5, 9, 2, 26


Winfield 2, 5, 4, 6, 1, 18


Salina 2, 3, 5, 4, 1, 15


Emporia 3, 0, 4, 0, 1, 8


W 3, 4, 6, 3, 1, 17


NE 3, 5, 3, 2, 0, 13


? 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2


total 18, 24, 27, 24, 6, 99

[Schoen-hopper]

Wellington players (6) went to Winfield. Most of the other players out west went to W. (Hays is the biggest club out that way, so we could call it Hays instead of W. Likewise, NE could be Topeka).

Ron and Brendan were not figured in yet.

The numbers don't show the whole picture though. How good the players are in their particular division and how many will play 2 day events is just as important, or perhaps even more, than a team's numbers.

One idea would be to put Ron & Brendan in with Winfield. Perhaps a more fair idea would be to give one to Hays and one to Salina?

The strenth of the teams is fairly equal between Wichita and Winfield even though Wichita has a numbers advantage. Emporia has strong players, but lacks masters and intermediates. NE KS might be the shortest right now, but it has a potential players base to make it competitive with any other team.

[Schoen-hopper]

I'm not sure how this will all play out, but we can use this years results to refine what we think would be good for next year and try to make it bigger. Main thing is to make it fun. It will be more fun if we can make it as fair as possible.

I know the more members we get, the better the team challenge will be.

[Ruder]

What about a draft.


Captains go through and draft players round robin style. Same points setup.

[Schoen-hopper]

We want this to represent the different clubs. Some just don't have enough players. And we want everyone to be able to participate. Going strictly by region doesn't work too well either.

Original idea did involve Captains, but the format would have required a lot more maintanence and not near as many people would get to participate.

[Schoen-hopper]

I think it is about as fair as you could make it without going with fewer teams (like Emporia & NE pairing up).

We just need to make sure everyone is in the right team and figure out what to do with Ron & Brendan.

On the pro okie situation, I think after viewing Winfield as a favorite last year without the additional players from Wellington, they could go to a different region that needs pros. Since were taking the actual division played and not the KDGA division, there may be some players playing advanced in PDGA events. I'm thinking Hays and Salina could benefit from an extra pro. So could NE, but their problem could be solved with higher membership.

Would putting Ron & Brendan on Hays & Salina teams mess up what we have going here? If we did do that, perhaps we should combine Emporia & NE try to make this as close as possible.

Thoughts? I think this situation depends some on how many more members we will be getting this year.

[mrsenortyler]

Okay okay okay, us winfielders will take Ron...

[Schoen-hopper]

Is it good to be loved by Kansans, Ron?

[Ruder]

I hereby announce the addition of Ron and Brandon to the Flying Bison team!