Today is truly a historic day in the long and storied history that is The Ohio State Matchplay tournament. After a very thought out and provocative post by @PersistentlyOverPar over the weekend, we’ve put our heads together with @smithburger to come up with a BRAND NEW format for our illustrious tournament. A link to the post is below if you want to check it out. New format to be announced below the jump.
The first change is a change to the timetable of when this tournament starts. In an effort to allow more players to #GetInvolved we are going to start the 2024 edition of the tournament as soon as the Finale has concluded for the 2023 edition. This idea is to allow for people who maybe have more time in the Fall to get some matches in and give them a chance to bank some matches before the toss up that is Spring weather.
Second change: there will be no more pods for this tournament. We’re taking @PersistentlyOverPar’s idea of allowing for a more free flowing system for matches to be played. This way players aren’t tied down to certain regions or areas or even people to play. You can play the same person multiple times even if you’d like! The idea here is again to get more players involved and to not tie people’s hands.
Third change: points will be scored slightly differently. Again, we’re taking the suggestion of @PersistentlyOverPar here.
One point for each match played.
One additional point for a tie or two for a win.
One bonus point for a match >100mi/>1.5 hrs from home
This gives people not only motivation to play matches, but to travel to play matches and to try and play with people who they haven’t played with before.
Fourth change: Players will be chosen for the round of 32 elimination bracket based on their PPM (points per match) number, NOT their total points. This change is in an effort to level the playing field for the players who maybe cannot play as much as other players. Making it PPM instead of total points rewards those who are playing well over those who are playing a lot of matches. Tie breakers will be total points, then total matches played, then bonus points for distance travelled being the tie breakers in that order. If needed, a coin flip from there.
THINGS THAT ARE NOT CHANGING
We will still have a 32 player elimination bracket seeded roughly by the PPM metrics and location of the competitors who advance.
You will need to play a minimum of 3 matches between play opening in the Fall and the end of group play in May. HOWEVER, we are going to institute a maximum of 6 matches total be counted between the Fall and Spring. So, chose when you play your matches wisely.
Total entry fees will be $25 with a slight change. We are only going to require each player who plays a match during the entry period to pay a $5 entry fee and then if you make the elimination rounds we will collect the other $20 to help pay for prizes/Final/charity. etc.
This will still be a net event.
Please feel free to respond with any comments/criticisms you may have about this change in format. We still have a few weeks here before the Finale of the 2023 edition of the Match Play so we want to get this out there now in case we need to make any tweaks or changes if people are not on board.
Pretty much ALL props should be directed toward @PersistentlyOverPar for this change. His post really invigorated us and got the juices flowing. Huge thanks to him.
Love all of these builds for the match play and am excited to see how it allows for much more flexibility for everyone involved. Great job @golf4miami@smithburger and @PersistentlyOverPar
I do have one question: has the proposed points system for all events been approved? If everyone else is good with it, then I defer, but as listed in the original post, the matchplay will result in less points than a standard OATW event for most participants despite taking a lot more effort. It feels almost like it should be the fourth major.
This is a question that I think we would need to route through @jgolf1. We haven’t started any formal talks on that front, but obviously we would love for the Match Play to be included in the season long Roost points accumulation.
Question on this, so once you hit 6 matches you’re done with the “first” round or you can play as many matches as you want and only your “top six” count?
If it’s top six, wouldn’t that negate the PPM? Say someone plays 20 matches and goes 6-14 but would only count their 6 wins?
I think a minimum makes sense but if you are going PPM I’m not sure a maximum necessarily does.
I was thinking about this too and the idea here is that you almost want to be strategic with your matches if you can and again having a maximum makes sure that someone who can play 12 matches doesn’t have an advantage over someone who could only fit in the minimum of three.
It definitely isn’t a “play as many matches as you want and only take six” situation.
I can potentially be persuaded to remove the cap since we’re doing PPM. But allowing someone to play 20 matches to raise their PPM if they get off to a poor start seems slightly unfair to the player would could only fit in 3 or 4 matches. At least that’s where we landed on it.
So if someone plays more than six, how do you determine which six are counted then?
I think just a straight PPM takes away the ambiguity of which matches count and which don’t. It wouldn’t necessarily favor someone playing more.
Not to nitpick, I think these changes are extremely positive and take away a lot of the pain points in scheduling matches and people no showing in pod play so kudos for being willing to tweak the format. Just seeking some clarity.
It’s like how the peeps oversea have to declare before a round starts that they are counting it for their handicap before they tee off. The thought process is that if each person agrees to play a match then it will count for both players toward their six.
This was exactly the thought process after a rough year of getting matches scheduled.
So my initial thought that i didn’t manage to include in the write up was that you could only play each opponent once. This would naturally limit the number of matches you could have.
With that in mind, i agree that win percentage is better than total points. What about win percentage with no match limits. The first tie breaker could then be points per match. A second tie breaker could be total matches played.
To @pjsutherland ’s point, I think it will come down to how @jgolf1 wants to weight the points.
As an example for comparison:
A Findlay event with 60 people would award the winner 100 points.
A non-major with 30 people would award the winner 50 points.
With the initial break out and a 32 person bracket, the match play winner would get 23 points.
If we use straight match play points, if someone played and won 10 matches and then the whole bracket, they would end up with 53 points (assuming no adjustments for bracket wins).
So, this is where I kind of took what you gave and ran with it a little. I don’t mind the idea of doing a one match per opponent rule if everyone else is on board with that. I just know for some of our Roost members that might make their ability to play matches somewhat limiting. I guess it could ALSO provide them with an opportunity to earn a bunch of bonus points for 100 mile drives as well.
My ears are very open on that and the idea of winning percentage being the way we determine the 32 with PPM being the tie-breaker.
I’m mostly just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.
Just to muddy the waters more, what about 6 matches for win/tie points and an additional single point for each match played. Then based on total points, 9 matches played and lost would be the same as 3 played and won. So three extra matches would equate to a win. That would sort of benefit both winning and participating.
I think we are not going to find a “correct” solution. We just have to figure out what works best for most people. I don’t see a scenario where there is ever a point where there are modifications between years.
no limit on matches, or make the limit high like 10-20.
Keeps things relatively simple using ppm as the metric, don’t have to worry about all the extra math and as our friends in the private club thread say never do the math.
As someone with more limited options for getting in matches, I think if you allow unlimited matches and people to play more than once, a group of guys that live in a bigger metro could basically get up a weekly game and just do 4 way matches every week and stack up massive amounts of points. How willing they’d be to put their winning percentage on the line might mitigate some of that, but it still seems like there should be a limit on some part of it. Or not, I just always default to “let’s think about what could go wrong” for problem solving
If you go to winning percentage, you’ve just eliminated the travel bonus point. (Also should limit travel point to one per day, so you don’t have someone traveling to a 4 way match and getting 3 bonus points.)
I think we can all also agree that “don’t be a scumbag” rules/etiquette is the appropriate ethos for this. It’s a friendly internet golf friends “competition”
I like this! If the match count is increased to 10, then basically all match points count? This eliminates the need to determine if you’re going to count a match towards the final tally, correct? unless of course, you play more than 10.
