Tournament Bracketing Overview
For each Tournament difficulty (Rookie, Pro, Expert, Master); you will be placed into a "Skill Tier".
Your Skill Tier is predominantly determined by your Tournament experience. Simply put, the more success you have in tournaments, the more tournament experience you'll earn! Both Tournament matchmaking and Tournament bracketing use your Skill Tier to group you against opponents with similar tournament experience and success. We find this is the very best way to group players together, and is how it works in real life sports, including golf.
Matches played, trophy count, Coin balance and equipment owned don't necessarily tell us who the best players are. However, if we look at how players have historically performed in tournaments we get a great measure of their Tournament skill and ability.
Skill Tiers are visually represented with a number of stars. Every tournament difficulty has 3 Skill Tiers, with the exception of Masters, where there is only 1 Skill Tier. Before you enter a tournament, you will be able to view your Skill Tier for each tournament difficulty level.
When you enter a tournament, you will always be grouped with players who have the same Skill Tier as you.
Example: A golfer with a Skill Tier of 2 stars in Pro will always be grouped with other golfers who have a Skill Tier of 2 stars in Pro.
How do we determine your Skill Tier?
Each time you reach the Weekend Round in the tournament you will achieve a number of points.
The number of points you earn will vary depending on the tournament difficulty level you enter and your final position in the Weekend Round.
The number of points you earn will vary depending on the tournament difficulty level you enter and your final position in the Weekend Round.
Example: A golfer who finishes 1st in a Master level tournament will achieve more points compared to a golfer who finished 1st in a Pro tournament.
The number of points you receive will also vary depending on the tournament type:
- Standard Tournaments – no point multipliers will be used.
- Major Tournaments – points will be multiplied by x1.5
- 9 Hole Cup Tournaments - points will be multiplied by x0.75
These points degrade over time, meaning the more recent the tournament, the more these points are worth. This is a way to ensure that the current skill levels of players are being accounted for. After all, we all have dips in form from time to time!
Here are the key facts about how points degrade:
- The points you have achieved from your 20 most recent tournament results will degrade at a rate determined by our degrade curve, regardless of when they were played.
- The points that you have achieved from your top 3 tournaments are worth 100% compared to your 20th Tournament, which only grants 56% of the original points achieved.
- If you have played more than 20 tournaments, these historic points are degraded using a similar principal, but also account for how long ago the tournaments were played.
Example: You have played 21 tournaments, over a period where 30 tournaments had been possible to enter. Your first 20 tournament results will use the degrade curve 1-20 regardless of how long ago they were played (see above graph).
As your 21st most recently played tournament was actually played 30 tournaments ago, the age of the tournament is accounted for and the degrade modifier for Tournament 30 will be applied to its experience points (36%). When a tournament is over 60 tournaments old, it will cease to be worth any points (unless it is in your most recent 20 played).
Totalling up the points:
Each tournament’s points are added together after all the modifiers have been applied. It is this figure that will determine your tournament Skill Score. This Skill Score is not visible but behind the scenes it is used to determine your Skill Tier.
In cases where golfers haven’t played enough tournaments to build up an appropriate score, we use the max trophies achieved to help position them in an appropriate Skill Tier.
As your 21st most recently played tournament was actually played 30 tournaments ago, the age of the tournament is accounted for and the degrade modifier for Tournament 30 will be applied to its experience points (36%). When a tournament is over 60 tournaments old, it will cease to be worth any points (unless it is in your most recent 20 played).
Totalling up the points:
Each tournament’s points are added together after all the modifiers have been applied. It is this figure that will determine your tournament Skill Score. This Skill Score is not visible but behind the scenes it is used to determine your Skill Tier.
In cases where golfers haven’t played enough tournaments to build up an appropriate score, we use the max trophies achieved to help position them in an appropriate Skill Tier.
Why have we made these changes?
Ultimately, these changes have been made to make tournament bracketing fairer. We have also found that many very experienced golfers choose to play below their skill level in order to face easier opposition and give themselves a competitive advantage over less experienced players. We get it, it is in our nature to find the most efficient way to “win”.
We found that this creates a very negative experience for new golfers when they come into the game and see extremely experienced, multiple gold medal winners in their league, scoring incredibly low scores. Often these new golfers never try tournaments again.
We’re working to achieve a system that accomplishes two goals:
Ultimately, these changes have been made to make tournament bracketing fairer. We have also found that many very experienced golfers choose to play below their skill level in order to face easier opposition and give themselves a competitive advantage over less experienced players. We get it, it is in our nature to find the most efficient way to “win”.
We found that this creates a very negative experience for new golfers when they come into the game and see extremely experienced, multiple gold medal winners in their league, scoring incredibly low scores. Often these new golfers never try tournaments again.
We’re working to achieve a system that accomplishes two goals:
- Ensures that tournament brackets are fair for golfers of all skill levels.
- Encourages experienced golfers to move up the tournament difficulties to improve their game and achieve better rewards.
Although we have considered it, we have decided against blocking experienced players from entering Rookie tournaments, as we know that this choice is important to golfers. Instead, this bracketing system will help to ensure that golfers are always competing against golfers of a similar skill level.