Barely official 2008 ISG Tipping Competition

After a short but enthusiastic tipping season in 2007, the Muntz ISG PGA Tour Tipping Championship has been re-tooled for 2008.
The rules are a bit more involved than last season, with your picks being retained from tournament to tournament.

Selecting Players:

1. Choose 4 players according to these rules:

(i) You can choose any player that has a World Golf Ranking, but it is advisable to choose all four players from the fully exempt list on the US PGA Tour, as this tour (inc. the majors) will be used as the schedule for the tipping season. PGA Exemptions 2008.

(ii) Your four players’ world golf ranking averages must total no more than 10.00 (This currently rules out Tiger Woods from selection, at least until he has a significant form slump – his current ranking points average is 19.22). The points to use can be found at World Golf Rankings. These points are updated every week.

(iii) You must always include one Australian player, one US player, and one other nationality (Rest Of World) in your selections. You are free in the nationality of the fourth player.

(iv) You are free to choose the same players as an earlier entry if desired.

For instance, this is a valid entry as at 7/1/2008:

Aaron Baddeley (AU) 3.91
Jason Gore (US) 0.97
Trevor Immelman (SA) 3.71
Shaun Micheel (US) 1.41
Total points average: 10.00

2. If your selected picks go up in the rankings, i.e. their points total greater than 10.0 during the season, you can still retain those selections.

3. In between tournaments you can choose to drop one player from your selections, and replace him with any other player, as long as
(i) your total avg. rankings points are no greater than 10.00 after making the change, based on the current rankings points of all of your players at the time of making the change and
(ii) you retain one AUS, one US and one Rest Of World player at all times.

For instance, based on the entry above, you could drop Aaron Baddeley if he was injured or not playing in an upcoming tournament, and replace him with another Australian, such that your 4 players still totalled less than 10.00. If you dropped Gore or Micheel, you could replace them with any nationality, as you would still have the other US player in your picks.

4. You can only make changes to your entry
(i) between eligible PGA tournaments and
(ii) when the World Golf Rankings have been updated to reflect all worldwide tournaments in progress.

5. You can enter at any time during the season, as long as you abide by rules 1 – 4 above. Entries will only be accepted from ISG members with a minimum of 10 sensible posts in the forums to discourage multiple entries. Entries can be excluded at the discretion of the tipping organiser or the ISG Administration.

Scoring:

1. A certain number of PGA tournaments in 2008 will be designated during the year as eligible for scoring in this competition. This will be based partly on strength of entry, i.e. the representation of top players in the field, but also on avoiding an overly busy schedule. No arguments will be entered into on which tournaments are to be included or excluded.

The first tournament for the year is the Hawaiian Sony Open, Jan 10 – 13, notable this season for the absence of a certain M.Wie (subject to quality of entry criteria as noted above).

2. Your score for a tournament will be calculated as the sum of the best 3 scores from your selections for all completed rounds of the tournament (i.e. your scores are: Baddeley -2 Gore +24 Immelman +5 Micheel +1, you score -2 +5 +1 = +4).

3. If one of your selections misses the cut, you have to count double their progressive score towards your total, i.e. if Jason Gore misses the cut at +12 his final score is calculated as +24. If you have three other player scores < +24, that score will be ignored.

4. If you have fewer than 3 final scores for a given tournament, you will be assessed as withdrawing from that tournament. If one of your selections withdraws at any point from the tournament, you cannot count their progressive score, even if they made the halfway cut.

5. For each tournament, prize money will be allocated to the top half of the scores based on the distribution of typical PGA prize purses. Normal PGA events will have a first prize of $1,000,000 – majors and FedEx Cup Playoff events will have a first prize of $2,000,000. A money list will be updated after each eligible tournament.

6. Entries in the bottom half of scores each tournament will be assessed as “missing the cut” and will earn no money for that tournament. Valid entries may have multiple weeks without earnings – this is part of the pressure of the PGA tour! You may of course seek to improve your entry between tournaments if a player is experiencing a form slump.

Prizes: To Be Announced. At this stage just bragging rights. It is conceivable that prizes will be allocated to the top 3 scores each week, as well as to the top placed entries at the end of the Fed Ex Cup. Any tipping sponsors will be greatly appreciated and plugged mercilessly.

Procedures:

1. General questions and comments should be posted on the thread you are currently reading.

2. Initial entries should be posted on the Entries thread only. Please provide full names, nationalities and the golf rankings points for all four of your selections.

3. Changes to your player selections should be posted on the Changes thread only. Please provide full names, nationalities and the current golf rankings points for all four of your selections, and the new player you have selected.

Please check these threads prior to tournaments to check that your entry / changes have not been declared invalid. If invalid changes are not corrected, your existing selections will be retained for the next tournament.

4. A separate thread will be created for each new tournament for posting tournament news, progressive scores and the final prize purse allocation. A certain amount of competitive banter will be encouraged.

Please let me know if any of the above is unclear. Late entries are more than welcome – due to the money list scoring format, a few good results could see you shooting up the ISG Rankings before you can say “Tiger is more beatable than ever”.

Feel free to make comments and suggestions, and hope to have you aboard for the tipping season!

Muntz

oh boy…so many rules to follow, extra player to pick…keep it under 10…..

hmmm….... I kinda prefer the old simpler format.

Fair point Danz. This is designed like a fantasy football comp where you maintain a squad…

You only need to enter once though, not every tournament, so there is a lot less overhead over a long season.

Hey Muntz,
What happens if a player that i’ve picked is hitting balls on the range and hurts his thumb and…... Nah. Very comprehensive and as i have a IQ over 130 i totally understand. Well done , looking forward to it.
Thanks.

You only need to enter once though, not every tournament, so there is a lot less overhead over a long season.

But that won’t stop people from changing players between tournaments and possibly making a tipping mistake. Given people were making mistakes with the previous format, these extra rules just adds to that potential. And since players go in and out of form, I suspect people will want to switch quite a bit. Plus I just thought the old format encouraged people to get their tips in early which was good for the site.

Anyway, see how it goes…. kudos Muntz!.

This would be soo much easier on everyone if we had PM’s working. Imagine getting a PM when an eligible tournoi was approaching….

Most of the invalid entries last year were people picking the same threesome as someone that had entered earlier… this doesn’t matter now. Having four players also means you are normally covered if one of your players DQs, takes a week off or gets injured. (KJ, keep away from the kids mate…) That was a bit of a sore point last year. You also automatically get your worst score discarded – for a while there I was considering making people nominate which three were in play in any given week. Bad Muntz…)

As long as you keep the AU / US / RoW mix and stick to < 10.00 points when you enter or change tips, your entry is valid. And if you (god forbid) forget to log in before a tournament, your picks are still in play to earn you cash.

The best entries will feature a mix of seasoned veterans and up and coming rookies, so there is a bit more of a challenge involved in using your “salary cap” to best effect.

If we strike any serious problems, I’ll err on the side of leniency I guess, but there’s plenty of time to get the bugs ironed out early in the season. Bottom line is that lots of people will miss the cut in any given week anyway…

As long as people don’t take it too seriously it should add a bit of longer term interest to following your favourite players over the PGA season.

In regards to rule 3, why is the change limited to only 1 player?

There might be instances where 2 or more players don’t play.

In regards to rule 3, why is the change limited to only 1 player?

There might be instances where 2 or more players don’t play.

To make the comp more challenging.

If you could make wholesale changes every week, it would effectively be like starting with a whole new entry.

Like I said, there will be plenty of weeks you earn $0 anyway off your 4 guys, just like the real PGA tour.

Muntz your on fire. I like your style dude. This is gold. I hope i can continue my form from late last year

Sweet.

What if I haven’t made 10 posts in the forums?

What if I haven’t made 10 posts in the forums?

ask a couple more questions and you’ll be fine ;)

What if I haven’t made 10 posts in the forums?

Yes, let’s have a chat… actually, very good entry so I’ll give you a discount for good behaviour.

Muntz – would appear your around at the moment, so I will repeat what I said in the ISG com[p entries thread in the hope you read this one.

Your suggestion of exempting yourself from any prize in the comp, although honourable is misguided. You deserve anything that comes your way as do any of the others, IF there are prizes to be had. Once again, nice thought but not necessary. Do doubting your integrity on this issue, so should not be necessary.

Prize for ISG Tour Tipping Competition

Muntz, you can determine whether this is first prize or whatever (assuming you get more prize offers before the end of the draw), it’s up to you mate. I agree with the others that you should be eligible for winning this prize just like everyone else.

Australia’s Finest Golf Courses (soft cover)
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Thanks heaps Bunny, a great start to the 2008 ISG Tipping Championship showcase – looks like a rip snorter of a prize. Hopefully not the last either…

Just have to make sure that this is kosher with the Admins of course, there might be all sorts of arcane regulations about online competitions and prizes that complicate this friendly comp.

Thanks Muntz. Well, good luck all. Not long now till is starts.

Thanks Muntz. Well, good luck all. Not long now till is starts.

The anticipation is killing me, I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight. Hmm, here’s a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I cant get into the changes thread …..

Have another crack now rebjon. I only just created it.

Well done for setting all this up, i think it’s a pretty good format.

A Few Questions: Do i have to update all 4 of my players world rankings between tournaments? Even if i’m not changing one of the four?

Does the competition include all the PGA events? If not, will you be telling us which ones we are included in the competition?

Have another crack now rebjon. I only just created it.

Reverse every natural instinct you have and do just the opposite of what you are inclined to do and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing. – BEN HOGAN, POWER GOLF

Cheers

Well done for setting all this up, i think it’s a pretty good format.

A Few Questions: Do i have to update all 4 of my players world rankings between tournaments? Even if i’m not changing one of the four?

Does the competition include all the PGA events? If not, will you be telling us which ones we are included in the competition?

http://www.woodend.golfclub…

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Thanks. No need to update rankings unless you change one of your 4 selections. I will specify which tournaments are in play in advance as much as possible – at this stage I suspect every second week unless there are big events back to back.

Just a note that the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic will not be a scoring event in the ISG PGA Tipping.

There are lots of players skipping it, for instance these players from the Sony are not playing the Bob Hope:
Ames, Baddeley, Cabrera, Choi, Funk, Furyk, Holmes, Howell, Zach Johnson, Lonard, Maryuma, Sabbatini, Singh, Snedeker, Stricker.

I expect the next eligible event will be the Buick Invitational.