With the completion of another year's Point Series and next year's fast approaching, it's time to review our Points Series and discuss what was good, what wasn't, and what could be better.
Last year's Series had 6 events (5 events and the State Championships) participate with each player's 3 best points finishes, their points from the State Championships, and their attendence points totaled to determine each player's overall points. Last year we collected $3 per player in each Series eligible division. As in year's past, those fees were pooled and from that pool each Divisional Winner's 2010 membership will be paid, 2009 State Bag Tags were purchased, money was set aside for 2010 Bag Tags, and Series trophies were bought with the remainder being paid out to the top three in each division proportionate to the number of players in each division. 1/2 of the proceeds from the State Tags go to the Series payouts and the other half goes to the Club hosting the State Championships as a way to raise some extra $$ for our State Championships. Our payouts were much smaller in 2009 than in previous years due in part to paying for the 2009 State Tags and also setting aside some $$ to pay for the 2010 Tags.
Another reason that our payouts suffered last year was due to reduced attendence. I don't have specific numbers as all that info is still on my old computer, but I do know that there were about 140 fewer players in our Series last year. Our attendence was stable for the Open, Open Masters, and Adv Men divisions and only slightly less in the Advanced Masters and Womens divisions, but was drastically reduced in the Intermediate division. Also, there were only 2 Int. players who competed in more than 1 event and only 1 of those played in 3 events. There are probably several reasons for this and I would like to hear your opinions on why the reduction and what we can do about it. My thoughts are that with the economy tanking, most casual players who would fill the intermediate ranks decided that a tourney (or two or more) was too expensive too justify. I think that it is important that we keep these players playing in tournies and that we, as TD's, need to remember that casual players probably won't play in a tourney if it's "too expensive", so I would like to challenge all the Clubs/TD's out there to do a little extra fundraising so that entry fees can be as cheap as possible, esp. for the Intermediate division.
Now on to the 2010 season. Any changes or decisions will be made by the Series TD's, but we would like input from all of you before we do.
Are people happy with the current points system?
Should we change the fee system for the Int, Adv Masters, and Women by creating a second payout pool for these divisions and charge just $1 per player and just award a PDGA membership and trophy to the first place finisher with a cash payout (if there was still a balance) also only for 1st place?? This would help keep the overhead lower for these divisions, but would also loweer the payouts, too. Thoughts or other ideas??
Another idea that came up last year was that the value of the PDGA membership should be a part of the cash payout which could possibly allow a deeper payout, maybe to 4th or 5th place, in the bigger divisions such as Open Men and Adv. Men. For example, using fictitious numbers, the 2009 1st Place Open Men got his PDGA membership, trophy, and $100 - a $175 value; 2nd Place got $60; and third got $30. Using the proposed new system and the same fictitious numbers, 1st Place would recieve their PDGA membership, trophy, and $40 cash - a $115 value; 2nd place $70; 3rd place $40; 4th place $25; and 5th place $15. If this idea were adopted, we would have to determine how many places to pay - a percentage of the "qualifing" (players who played the min events and States) or should the payout be to a predetermined position like 4th or 5th place?
There will be atleast 1 added event for the 2010 Series, and possibly 2. This would bring the number of events in the Series to either 6 + States (7 total) or 7 + States (8 total). Last year we counted the best 3 finishes in addition to States and attendence points to get the overall points total. With 7 events, should that minimum number remain the same, or be raised to 4 and States? If there are 8 events, should it be raised to 4 events and States?
I'll post dates and venues in a different thread, but the Headwaters guys in Bozeman are stepping up and hosting 2 Series events in 2010. I think this is pretty ideal because they are pretty centrally located statewide. Spiritwood has expressed interest in once again being a part of the Series. One of the biggest reasons it was excluded from the Series in '09 was that the Series was already too west side heavy. With the extra event in the center of the state, how would the east siders feel to Spiritwood being a part of the Series once again, if Nick so choses?
We will have new Bag Tags for the 2010 season with half of the proceeds once again going to the Series payouts and the other half to the host Club of the State Championships. They will be available no later than the Spring Fling and possibly as early as the Ice Bowls.
How do people feel about 2 day events? The State Championships will be a 2 day event in 2010, and in my opinion probably always should be a 2 day event. There is the possibility of the Continental Classic and maybe Troy being 2 day events as well. There is pretty exciting news from the Troy area that I'll share in another thread that makes it plausible to possibly have it be 2 days. Would these events being 2 days keep a lot of people from attending?? or would it make them better events regardless of how many people wouldn't/couldn't attend??
Please share any other thoughts regarding the MT Points Series. We really do want to hear your input. As I said earlier, any decisions will be made by the Series TD's.
This years usdgc spot goes to the person who wins the playoff between the pro masters points leader and the open pro points leader.
I like the idea of more 2 day events. But probably not troy, only because it requires such a long haul to make it. 320mi from Butte 
. Though maybe fri-sat? Regardless i will show at the ole troy tourney but having to play and drive on sun will be tough. Thought the doubles on sun was cool relaxing. Priest should be 2 days just cause it is so kick ass! Also the new course in Helena !!!! Billings should have a 2 dayer. (not really a word)
Lower fees for the intermediate divisions and the like would be a good idea. More prizes should be a goal for each TD. I know this will present a greater challenge but should be worth it in the long run to grow the sport. Maybe have a stipulation that some minimum # of tourneys have to be played to get the membership. That may encourage more player participation. Otherwise move that membership to another division.
Spiritwood should be back in the series. A couple of small tweaks to the course and a two day deal would be excellent 
Nick would like to see that if i have understood him correctly. More series events=more events towards points total.
Playoff between the open winner and the masters winner for usdgc? Not so sure about that. Why would we want to compete against each other to see who goes any more than we already do? Should at minimum rotate. The more MT players we can expose to the big dig to represent us would be desirable. The open players can qualify during the off years. Shouldn't always give everything to the open division anyway. Masters players contribute just as much as everybody else and should deserve a shot to represent.
Two points series events in Boz? God luv'em.
Bank up the women's division! More women in the sport. Larger payouts more prizes! Word will filter out. Tired of hangin around just you dudes all the time 
Should we standardize the entry fees for points events? Not whatever the TD thinks? May have an impact on player turnout if there is a standard that can be counted on. Planning (budgeting) in advance etc. This would not be set in stone and would be reviewed prior to each season.
Yahoo! the 2010 season is a comin!
1. Low fees, great prizes, and heavy recruitment for intermediate division is a MUST! I love it. Having a vibrant Int field is definitely the way to grow the sport! Not so intimidating to come to a tourney if there are a bunch of new people there as well, instead of only just all of us salty dogs. 2010 definitely needs to see a step up in beatin' the streets for donations among the MT DG crew. 2010 will also hopefully be the year of the 501c3 certification for some MT DG clubs, and we should pursue using sponsorship agreements with existing nonprofits to make raising money easier by making it tax-deductible! You just have tourney sponsorship $$ go to an existing, partner nonprofit initially, making the contributions tax-deductible, and then the nonprofit may take a small (10% at most) fee from the $ that comes in. The nonprofit just has to have a mission that would support helping out a DG tournament, which really can fit within the missions of a wide variety of possible nonprofit orgs.
2. payouts, let's pay 4 in the top divisions. pdga membership is the same thing as cash, pretty much, so whatever, I think it's fun and it can be included as cash in the value of what the winners receive. we should try and give out am pdga memberships like crazy for prizes this year in general (not just series)! i agree with reduced series fees for lower divisions, and reduced payouts correspondingly. Maybe for more than just first though, that's cold!
3. 2 days, 1 days, they're all good! Although, really, if we want to up the intermediate participation they are a WHOLE lot more likely to play a one day tournament, I think. If we want 'em in the series then maybe the series should have more 1 days. I fully expect there to be multiple 2-day sanctioned tourneys in MT that aren't even be in the series. MT DG will have too many great tournaments to go to next year to make all of 'em, so maybe we don't need to include 'em all in the series...I personally think smaller series are better than too-big ones like last year's inland NW series, you are more likely to get a consistently top-notch player field so you can play against the people you're competing against. I think 8 events is too many. I think 7 is about right and maybe even too many! Too many events during a year in MT dilutes the quality and makes us insular, there are must-have experiences outside our borders as well!
4. i think something as valuable as a usdgc spot should be a competitive reward for whoever is playing the best golf in MT that year, especially to have any shot at cashing...pause before you want to go, it costs $$$$$$$$$ to take a week long hotel vacation to south carolina, with a $250 entry fee on top of that and lots of souvenirs you want to buy! Qualifying through a qualifier process is just too hard, because of both distance to qualifying tournaments, and the difficulty of qualifying even if you can make it a qualifier. I am WAY under a 50% success rate in qualifying and have only qualified the last two years because I have been a traveling machine, without a day job. Now don't get me wrong, the top of the field at any given time certainly includes those over 40, and they shouldn't have to not play masters to be in the running. I would FULLY support a scenario a little like what they do in some qualifiers, where we'd make sure open and masters played the same courses every series event, and we'd tally up strokes and keep track of an adjusted, open-and-masters "finish" for each event, and keep track of those points solely for the USDGC spot (and of course, waiting list should the person in first decline the spot for whatever reason). Maybe masters winner has the add'l prize, for masters only, of getting their Worlds entry paid or something? We'll need to do a little extra fundraising for that, but we should try and have a little side fundraising for that and to have the entry fee paid for the USDGC spot too, since both worlds and usdgc are so freakin' expensive.
more thoughts while procrastinating at work tomorrow
Big Sky would love to host a weekend, too!
One thing I would love to see is some sort of standard each points series event would be held to. Im not saying we should have to sanction all our events with the PDGA (although that would be ideal) but we should have a list of things that need to be up to par in order to be a points series event.
1. Payouts. Each field needs to be paid at least 100% of the entry fee. 10 people at 50 bucks means you pay that field 500$ hands down. if there are costs like usage fees, trophys, lunch ect. they need to be taken care of by the hosting club or the am cash.
Same thing goes for ams, 100% payout in prizes.
Women, there needs to be some standard here, I feel as though we could increase womens participation in our events with a little consistency in our womens payout, not prizes one tourney, cash the next.
This seems like common sense but sometimes with new TDs there needs to be some information like this available.
2. Targets. All Metal, seems pretty easy considering the abundance of portables in the state and the hardy disposition of the Montana Disc Golfer!!
3. Entry fees. somewhere around 50, 60 bucks for open, States could be a little higher
Rare to see an event that doesnt follow these guidelines. I feel the trend towards sanctioning our points events is great. If we are going to draw players from out of state we need to keep holding ourselves to the national standard, but we should also hold ourselves to a few key rules to keep our Points Series legit for our state players.
Lots of good points have been brought up. Here is a draft for the 2010 Series. Give me some feedback. I'll type up more formal guidelines in a week or so based on the feedback and pass it along to the Series TD's for approval as they are the people with the final say.
General
All events must have a minimum of 2 rounds and a total of at least 36 holes
All events, with the exception of States, shall be 1 day events unless a majority of Series TD's grant approval for an event to be a 2 day event
States will be a 2 day event
All courses used for the Series must have all baskets, preferably all metal if possible
The course to be played must be at least marked out by the evening before the event if it is not feasible to actually have it set up by then
Entry Fees and Player's Packs
Open divisions - A MAX entry fee of $50 (I would prefer a max of $45 so that with acepot a tourney can cost less than $50 total for PDGA members) for Open entry fees. This would include Series fees, PDGA fees (where applicable) etc... This would NOT include per player user fees or non-member PDGA fees. For example, at Bohart where they charge a $5 per player user fee, the max they could charge for tourney entry fee would be $55 with $50 being paid out and $5 to Bohart
Advanced divisions - A MAX entry fee of $40 (again, I would prefer a max of $35) for Adv divisions with the same stipulations as above
Intermediate divisions - a MAX entry fee of $30 (I would prefer a max of $25) for intermediate divisions with the same stipulations as above.
All of the above entry fees are based on a 1 day event. 2 day events shall be allowed, but not required to charge an additional $20 for the extra day of competition as long as the entry fee doesn't exceed PDGA guidelines if it is a sanctioned event.
Keep in mind that these are maximum numbers and that each TD would be able to charge less at his/her discretion
All Ams will receive a players pack for all events. Pro player's packs are optional
Payouts
All Series events will payout Open players with money and Am players with schwag
Ams who play Open still retain the right to decline cash and accept schwag equal to the amount of their cash prize
All Series events will use the PDGA payout schedules, either with the online payout calculater, or the printed out spreadsheets.
As per PDGA guidelines, all C tier events will be required to pay out at least 85% of the entry fee, but recommend that they payout 100%. If an event is going to take advantage of paying out less than 100%, that event must state the percentage of entry fee to be paid out before the event and it must not be less than 85%
*Recommended* Any added cash for the Pro purse shall be split proportionally among ALL Open divisions
As in past years, if the acepot is not won during tourney play, up to half of it shall be donated to the Club hosting the State Championships for that year
All divisions shall have a trophy awarded to at least the top 2 finishers in their respective division. The top 3 for the larger divisions.
PDGA Sanctioning
The Series itself will remain non-sanctioned so that we can pay out cash to Ams at the Finals. Individual events have the option to sanction, and are encouraged to do so.
One option discussed by several people to keep costs down for the lower divisions was to only sanction the Open and Adv divisions (for all ages and genders) and NOT sanction the Int field (and/or Am women). This would eliminate the $10 non-member fee that most (or all) of those players would have to pay making the event less expensive for them and hopefully drawing more of those players to the event.
Series Divisions
Only Open Men, Open Masters, 1 Women's division, Adv Men, Adv Masters, and Intermediate Men will be offered for the Series. Individual events are welcome and encouraged to offer more divisions, but Series fees and points will only be collected and tracked for these divisions.
Series Points
Players will accumulate points based on their place of finish within their division as follows:
10 pts for finishing an event
1 pt for each player that you finished in front of
1 pt for each player in the top third that you finished in front of
1 Bonus pt for each event attended regardless of finish. A bonus pt can count towards your Overall Points even if your finish from that event does not.
Each players' best 3 points totals (if there are 7 events) AND the Finals points total will count towards their Overall Points. The best 4 points totals plus the Finals count if there are 8 events.
For the purpose of Series Points only, we will only track one division of Women. If an event offers more than one division, all Women's divisions must play the same layout. For Series Points only, all of the Women's scores for that event will be placed into one pool and Series Points awarded based on the players' finish within the total pool.
Series Fees and Payouts
a $3 per player fee shall be collected for all players in all Open and Adv divisions that the Series is recognizing
a $1 per player fee shall be collected for the Int Men division
All fees will be paid out to the division that they were collected from
A player MUST compete in the Finals to be eligible for his/her Series prize
All Divisional winners will receive their 2011 PDGA membership paid for by the Series. The value of PDGA membership will be included in each divisional winners Series winnings
For Open Men and Adv Men, the top 4 finishers will receive a cash payout. The top 3 finishers in each of those divisions will receive a trophy
For Open Masters and Women the top 3 will receive a cash payout and trophies
For Advanced Masters and Intermediate Men the top 2 will receive a cash payout and trophies
The winner of the Open Mens division will receive the 2011 USDGC spot. That person may decline that award (it must be declined at the time, not later). If so, it would be passed on to the second place finisher, etc... on down the line
Here is my take on a couple of things.
USDGC spot - This is not meant as a knock to the Masters players, but if you want to earn the spot, play in the division that is open to everyone - Open. That's why it's called Open. I don't agree with giving it to someone who played in an age protected division unless there was a system in place such as CD mentioned. And in reality, I don't see any Master finishing the year ahead of all 4 (at least) of the top Pros in our state. Once again, this is not meant as a knock, just being real - and I hope this fires someone up enough to prove me wrong.
I think we are approaching the Adv Masters, Int, and Women's field size from the wrong angle. (Sorry ladies for grouping you with the men). If we want to see more players in these divisions, we need to MAKE SURE that the entry fee is VERY LOW, like $10 - $15. Yes, this will affect their payouts and the tourney's bottom line, but it might draw enough players to make up for that. And hopefully expose and hook more players on tourney DG.
We can talk about paying out deep and awesome for these divisions, but you have to get the players to the event before you can pay them out. I've heard that some events in Minnesota are paying out double (200%) for their Women's fields, but they have yet to see a measurable increase in Women's attendence. This is just one example, but I think the it's valid.
To continue that thought, I would like to see all entry fees come down quite a bit. Personally, I think that $50 is too much for a 1 day event. As a TD and as a player, we all like to see the huge payouts, but lets fund them through more fundraising, not at the expense of the player.
Another thing I would like to see reinstated is sponsorships from all the Clubs in the state for the State Championships. In the past, each Club was required, or at least prodded, to donate at least $50 to the Club hosting states that year in addition to any leftover acepot donation. Other than the GCF Club, not sure if any Club did that last year.
Just my take and I'm sure that some people disagree with some, or all, of these points. Please speak up - the more feedback the better!!!!!!
Since we typically don't have a rec division intermediate entry should be looked at as such. Along with that entry fees should be at a point where a person says its not much and it would be fun. A gurantee of a shirt and disc or a couple of good discs would be worth it.
my two cents
I agree with what Christian and Brian said about the USDGC spot. It should be rewarded to the best player in Montana, regardless of what division someone is playing in. Considering that the USDGC is played in one division of the top people in the entire country, it makes sense to give it to the top Open player. But as Brian also said, it would be sweet to have a Masters player prove these points wrong. Just my thoughts on that part
possible to say for open, pro master,adv(junkies) need to play in 4/8, everyone else 3/8- perhaps require that everyone needs to attend states as their last event to establish at least 1 common event and ensure the peeps are their for their prizes(?)
pull 3 from same open,mstrs,adv for payout, 1from the rest for trophy/membership
membership is a given for us in the open,mstr,adv, Id love to not pay it but I would anyway, maybe giving it to the lower divisions grows the base (or goes to waste...?) the pro div d00ds always seem to want the ca$h
be fun to have a mix of 2day/1day events as the courses, surrounding events(troy), and time of year determine...
this yr the usdgc spot goes to the masters points leader;)
bigtime course bulletin board flyer blitz with the info and series enrty fees, prizes, esp for lower div- pdga membership, goldenArm trophy etc...
agreed on the fundraising to keep the costs down and added cash high, time to network about town for the greater good
.02 from a n00b
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