Still no news on the Best of Par 4s snafu... ?
Until there's some posted news, everyone please note that this tourney does not seem to be working, so it would be wise not to tee off yet.
Well, we've sure had our share of challenges with this Tour!
Corwyn:I'm considering whether or not it can work to include this week's tourney in the Tour (because it will distort the Scores Relative to Par significantly, and create an unfair disadvantage to someone unable to play this week).
Corwyn: 2. Once the results are in, I will make a calculated adjustment to the Scores Relative to Par. I'll do this by comparing the top 20 scores in each tier against the top 20 scores for a similarly 'easy' course (Bethpage) to reach a formula for each. This will then reduce the Score Relative to Par for all players accordingly for those sheets only.
As I mentioned earlier, the Best of Par 5s course threw a wobbly into the Spring UEL Tour. I promised a calculated adjustment to the Relative to Par Scores.
Unfortunately, things got further complicated by the reversal of playing conditions: TLs got the stronger Moderate wind this week, while Ls went down to Low wind. Essentially, this undermined my intent to make a valid comparison between scores that the top 20 players shot in each tier while playing Bethpage (a comparable 'easy scoring' course).
The top 20 TLs averaged 14.8 under par at BoP5 (compared to 12.9 at BPB, creating an adjustment ratio of 0.87), while the top 20 Ls averaged 14.65 at BoP5 (compared to 8.8 at BPB, creating an adjustment ratio of 0.6).
Using these ratios, scores would be affected as follows: niqueclyde's -21 would go down to -13, while KonradOse's winning -20 in TL would drop to -17. That seems unduly imbalanced. The significant greater relative improvement by Ls last week I'm sure had a lot to do with the easier wind, and thus it would be harsh to adjust their scores by my anticipated method.
There's an additional issue at play here, in that TLs are stronger in depth than Ls, and thus using the same top 20 number as a marker may also not be quite fair.
So... I'm considering a simpler approach: an adjustment of Scores Relative to Par based on the difference in Par, i.e. Best of Par 5s is a par 90. Modifying that to be a par 72 instead, means multiplying it by 0.8. So I propose to do the same with the relative to par scores (for both TL and L).
In this scenario, niqueclyde's -21 would become -17, while KonradOse's -20 would become -16. And of course, everyone else's scores, for the purpose of the Relative to Par sheets would also be multiplied by 0.8.
I'm going to mull it over for a few more hours today, and would welcome any comments/objections if you have them.
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Sidenote: I had always thought that the additional challenge TLs faced in playing with Champ speed greens offset the harder wind conditions that have been the norm for Legends in these weekly UEL singles (Ls have had Moderate winds every week, until last week, while TLs have had Low).
Now, seeing the BoP5 results, I suspect that Low wind is worth a little bit more in strokes gained, although there are clearly some courses where Champ greens are more of a problem than others!
Anyway, all this just underlines how difficult it is to arrive at something comparable across the tiers.