[RJ_Daley]

The “Fight Night” thread got me thinking... always a dicey proposition, to be sure.

What if a large tournament were organized, featuring “matches” with hole by hole commentary/narrative, along the “fight night” format?

The tournament could be run as a side button feature of GCA.com.    

Some variations of “fight night” competition would need to be made regarding seeding and scoring.  But essentially the format of pitting one similarly situated golf course VS another, would be scored as a 10 point per round- maximum, and 7 point- minumum.  No course could be knocked out in any one hole or round to end a match.

First, we need a commissioner, or commission of 1 to 3 people to select-seed and bracket a match up of the contestants.  Let’s just say for discussion sake that 1 commissioner schedules the matches, we’ll call him, Ran.  He will have a field of perhaps 200 courses that somewhere appear on the current major magazine ranking and rating top-lists.   He will exercise judgement to pit courses in something like weight divisions, in that coastal, dunes, links-like courses will be pitted against, similar.  Or, resort style, woodland, heathland, older or newer courses of  similar yardage and age/era would be pitted.  An effort would be made to match similar style privates, or modern privates, modern resort, etc.  Granted, this seeding process would take time and dedication to develop a great field of competitors.  Thus, it is more likely that a commission of at least 3 dedicated people would have to do the initial bracketing.

[RJ_Daley]

A list of these courses scheduled to “fight” each other could be posted on a side button of GCA.com.  Then, GCA.com participants who have played both courses will submit their names as scoring judges.  For example, lets take a Merion VS Oakmont match.  A list is received for potential judges who have played both scheduled combatants.  3 to 5 scorers/judges are appointed by the commission.  For Merion VS Oakmont we might end up with a panel like; TEPaul, Tom Doak, John VanderBorght.  (don’t be jealous if you weren’t picked, you will be considered for other scheduled matches that you apply to judge   )  An effort is made in selecting judges to get diverse points of view.  An architect, a skilled and competive player, an enthusiastic player of experience but not necessarily a top competition player, etc.  All will have to have previous expressed interest and knowledge of design, as demonstrated by dedicated participation on GCA.com, and can not be simply an “agent provocatuer” type poster, as determined by moderators.  They have to be accepted for sincerity to do a good job, not soley or necessarily an elite player, or design pro.

The scorers then describe their fight hole-by-hole and post their entire holes/rounds match scores for the enlightment of the GCA.com body at large.  These narratives of the hole-by-hole fight are posted as discussion group fodder, not revision.  

The final scores of the three to five scoring judges panel are tabulated and posted.  The winner goes on within the championship tournament, the looser goes into a consolation bracket to be scored by a different panel of judges.  Perhaps the panels of judges can be 5 in early brackets of competition, then whittled down to 3 as the tournment progresses, to refine the judgements and decisions as the competition gets tighter and closer to a champion.

[RJ_Daley]

Like large wrestling tournaments, there are wrestle-backs, or play backs in this case, where a looser knocked out in an earlier match can still play its way back to some sort of consolation bracket.  

Eventually, we get a ranking of sorts of as many places as we wish to award, top 8-16-32, etc.

This tournament can be an ongoing and long term event.  It can be our (GCA.com) equivalent to a hot stove league, or fantasy league.  The postive thing about it is that a different and more narrative/descriptive ranking of sorts can be a service to all golfers (just as magazine rankings are) to give golfers a measure to decide which courses they would like to experience.  It is a hierarchy of top golf courses based on architecture and design playing qualities considered by the distinctive body of GCA.com scorers to be the best courses, as determined in such matches head-to-head competition.

It still isnt’ a be-all and end-all system of golf course rating.  Just another very different and very unique method to rank great golf courses.

Discuss among yourselves…

[Jim Thompson]

RJ,

I think I still have the seeding I used for the old course brackets.  Somewhere I've even got the sheets I used to set it up.  I can make the brqackets up pretty quick for you.  What do you say 128 courses in a S style seeding that increases the chances for some upsets or a straight S seeding that will result in some more standard final round matchups?  Let me know and I'll be happy to set up.

Cheers!

JT

Mod - I can make it double elimination pretty easy....

[RJ_Daley]

Wow Jim, I didn't even get my last of 3 posts up before you responded!  

Yeah, let's see what sort of response this thread gets.  You sound like a perfect probablility as a tournament "Comish"  

Let's see some others "weigh in" on "fight night" and we can conduct ideas on IMs or e-mails...

[Jim Thompson]

I remember after we did this a few years ago discussing breaking the regions down by bodies of an architect's rather than area.  I cleaned up my GCa mail box so I don't remember all those volunteers who wanted to help sort that out, but thought it a good idea at the time.

[RJ_Daley]

If we get some favorable responses, we can make this a long term project and get it right.  No doubt there might be modifications from that entire format as I have proposed.  It is just a point from which to start the discussion.  I sent you an IM.  

[RJ_Daley]

Sean, I'd rather substitute the appointment criteria of a judge away from the term 'homer' to a concept of a person who has intimate knowledge of the two courses to be matched.  And since the judges panel should be balanced, not only a bloke like you or Tuco or Rihc, but also guys with diverse credentials including you guys of great familiarity to the courses in the match-up.  We need atleast 3 judges per match to make this a valid fight.  Otherwise the homer course, would always beat the outsider.  Sort of the way Rocky Marciano beat Ali in those computer generated fights.  

[Jay Flemma]

Yeah the architect's tourney was my idea.  I had originally posted doing exactly what you wanna do dick...in a 64 public course tournament, but somehow the thread got lost.

Since people are showing alot of interest to me despite a couple naysayers, I'm more than prepared to run a 64 course bracket like your fight night.  We can follow along kinda like march madness.

After all...comparing and contrasting great courses is what we're all about.  Its not off-topic at all...

[RJ_Daley]

Yes Jay, I remember the architects tourney.  This general match-play of courses, or architects, has been approached by various GCA.com posters over the years, in one form or another.  

I think the trouble has always been one of continuity of the threads staying alive.  They drift off the front page and become out of site - out of mind.  

If we could have a button readily available for all that want to participate, it would not be so hard to search the thread out.  

Let's see how many others chime in on this, and if there is widespread appeal, try and develop a tournament format and bracketing.  No hurry, just get it right.

I really do think that if done right, this could be a sort of ranking system of merit.  It would be unique, based on narrative rather than cold numeric and unexplained criteria like most magazine rankings appear to me.  

Once again, it is not a definitive method, just a unique and specialty sort of system.

[RJ_Daley]

Well, maybe we aren't understanding each other, Sean.  One of the criteria for a judge that I'd recommend is that the judge has played and experienced both, ideally more than once each course.  Sure, one could be a homer and have played the other but be a member or something from one of the courses.  But, why waste one or 2 of three votes if the homer's idea is already predetermined?  Then you might as well just have one impartial judge.  Although scoring on a 10 point-7 point system could yield different scores from the homers.  But, still...  

[Bill Gayne]

Add in the last 14 of the private top 100 list to see how far up the public list that the 86th+ private course would go.

[RJ_Daley]

Just bumping this so it will stay close to the other thread that is about the same thing, basically.  

[RJ_Daley]

bump

[Brad Tufts]

Sounds like a fun idea....I'd be willing to judge for any two courses I've played in a certain bout...or at least be considered....

Maybe we could start with the "12 favorites" list generated by Matthew Hunt?  Then a few can be added/subtracted, but they all would have at least one GCAer behind it...

[RJ_Daley]

Brad, sorry this idea got bifurcated so early on with a similar thread.  The other thread has gone in a direction I wasn't contemplating.  I'll have to go and copy some of the thoughts I offered on that other thread and get them over to this one.

My idea was to follow up on the match play, scoring narratives of "Fight Night" to offer a different way to judge, rank, characterize golf courses than the old top lists by magazines, with no actual rationale why raters were putting various courses in certain rungs of the ladder based on merely assigning a numeric score to criteria.  At fight night, you must narrate and score.  Adding the hole by hole narrative to the score in a match play gives some basis to contrast and compare in a tangible and understandable sense of the scorers reasoning.  

I'll try to get back to this by Sunday...

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