Potential Rule Chang This week in the Team League, my team (the D-Cups) had to play matches down a man (2-on-1) because of late cancellations. We took major spankings in both of those matches. Even CanEHdian was no match against two opponents, losing 8-2. Now when a team takes a flat-out forfeit for neither player showing up, the winning team is supposed to enter the win in as a 1-0 score. In our two 2-on-1 matches this week, we lost by a combined score of 15-2. If our last match came down to having to win by X number of holes, the "X" would have probably been too big to reasonably overcome. In hindsight, it probably would have been better for the remaining player in each of our 2-on-1 matches to take the forfeit and lose 1-0, thus reducing the amount of the hole-deficit that luckily did not come into play as a tiebreaker (but very well could). I was originally going to post this in the D-Cups forum as a strategy just in case we get caught shorthanded in the future. But in the best interest of the league, I thought it would be better to bring it to everyone's attention, to see if a rule change might be in order. Under the current rules, taking the forfeit would be a smart strategy, unless the remaining player can shoot "lights out" and make it a match. But people want to play, not forfeit. So I think a rule change to needs to be made to decrease the incentive to take a forfeit in this situation. For instance, instead of losing 1-0, for a forfeit, you lose 9-0 (or is that too harsh, maybe just 5-0?). This is all assuming that this is how forfeits are handled in the final scoring, but since they are entered 1-0, I assume that's how they are viewed in the case of a tiebreaker.
Very good point Jmarks. I would think if a team doesn't show up and has to forfeit, the harshest penalty should be given to them. Also, with all the matches this week that only had one player show up, are the players that didn't show up being penalized somehow? There is nothing worse than when a team thinks they can't win it all anymore, then they don't have to show up anymore. Last night, we played 2 on 1 and won easily (sorry pingwrx, you played well under the circumstances) and that just isn't much fun. You almost feel bad playing against one person for beating up on them. There must be some solution to this problem. It sucks that this has to get so complicated.
You just made me think of something else GC, what if Team A was winning 3-2 against Team B going into the final match and Team A had a 3-hole lead. That would mean that Team B would have to win by 3+ holes to get the win. Team A could take the forfeit and lose 1-0 and still get the win for the week. Not that I think anyone here would do that, but what if in this scenario, Team A really had to forfeit. Everyone would accuse them of doing it on purpose. I think the only real solution is giving them a 9-0 loss, in which case, Team B would get the win by 9 holes and get the win for the week (which would be the right thing, IMO).
Agreed if no one from a team shows up then it should be entered 9-0. I hope it never comes to this though.
Great point, and good catch. We'll change that rule for sure, right now... I'll edit the signup post. 10-0 is the worst way to lose, not 9-0, so that's what we'll use for a complete forfeit with 2 no-shows.
