I am not best pleased by the late addition of this tournament to the Fantasy Golf schedule.
Players like me who have held back the maximum number of transfers to negotiate the tricky trip through Hong Kong to Dubai have suddenly seen a potential competitive advantage erased.
A sensible strategy has been undermined.
Were I in contention I would be spitting feathers about this.I'm not,but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth and leaves me questionning future involvement in this game.
I'm sure you lot with 3 or 4 transfers are delighted,but I'd still welcome your views on the morality of this.

I really just cannot see have this event can fairly be added! You work out have to get through to what is suppoedly the finish and then the goalposts are moved.
I am afriad that inclusion at this stage is a questionable choice whether full of transfers or simply high up the league. Shaun could have been sitting move comfortbaly with less chance for teams to score points.

Why not change the RTD event to a *5 then I may have a chance!

I am assuming that somewhere within the rules it states that tour sanctioned events will be added as and when they appear - if so, then just bad luck but I would be spitting if I lost a prize on the back of it!

Man U fan - you might be back in the hunt with your 0 transfers ;0)

Is from the website. With the European Tour having co-sanctioned it, it is a "legit" tournament........although I tend to agree that with the whole comp being at such a critical stage it could have been left out. I only have the very slimmest of chances of cracking the Top 3 but have still spent the best part of a couple of months planning transfers for the Tour Championship and beyond.

I guess it comes down to the definition of "enforced alterations" - perhaps the quid pro quo for using the two Tours as the basis for the comp is having to follow it to the letter i.e. if the Tour sanction an event during the game period, it must be included.

Hmmmm....on second thoughts, that would mean we could pick players in the Reno-Tahoe Open while the Bridgestone is going on.......where's the nearest rules official?!

Edit......Tiger in the field at the JB Were.....so if you kept him, or if you are in 4th with bags of cash to spare, you've got a Tiger double-header up your sleeve.

Zero transfers, isn't that Chelsea's #1 Team

Shaun looks the main loser of a Tiger double week (this obviously assumes a good show from the Tiger!).

It will be intersting reading later when the Toffee has had time to digest!

It does make me concerned when these decisions are madeon including things etc

If it had been omitted then would there have been this concern.........always some but not to this degree as the playing rules would not have changed.

I just hope that the additional event is incidental although it already isnt as it will influence strategy etc

I've e-mailed Mr. Green for the official comment - but he's away for a few days so we'll have to wait to hear back.

Must admit I agree with most of the above.

In fact it's like someone's taken the minutes from my thoughts at lunchtime and laid them down on a FISO thread!

The art of this game is to have a strategy mapped out, and this change so late into the competition has indeed moved the goalposts.

Yes it's the same for everyone, but it does impact on managers differently.

I'd certainly rather it hadn't been added. My strategy of leaving Tiger out for the HSBC in favour of a Phil double at Singapore and the HSBC has shifted from a calculated risk to a reckless one.

Phil could of course win both, but if Tiger does then I'll likely drop out of the top 3.

Time to re-assess Tiger I guess, but with half as many transfers as Tony and Bruce it's not looking good.

Do feel a tad sorry for OFL on this one though.

Unbelievable that the Euro Tour have left the decision to co-sanction this late, meant that whichever way OFL went they were going to get grief!

Get the splinters off your b*ttom Shaun ! First thoughts are nearly always the most honest and heartfelt. I feel they were widely correct on this. OFL could have readily just ignored the event so considered sympathy is not at all necessary in my opinion. This second one feels as a concern to a great guy in Mr Green. I dont feel you need to. Matt may not have been involved in the decision and if he has been then when he gets back I am sure he will impart the rationale and I think he is thick skinned enough not to take it personally (I hope so given the amount of abuse I give!).

It took a CONSCIOUS decision to add the event - one that you would hope takes place after considering the implications. My view is that it was either made by a programmer who really didnt consider the ramifications and had interpretted the rules or by someone with whom I do not share similar thoughts on logic.

Either way - they have published it now and there will be no looking back.

I have no sympathy for OFL - they take there money and they need to have a contingency!
I have however great sympathy for you in that I feel that you are the hardest hit of the main protagenists. Great to hear from Tony on the RTD but he does have more flexibility now to make decisions and even those in reasonable striking distance have more points up for grabs.

Best just hope that the teams around you have 9 to choice from in that week and where as before they would have had to go with a side they now need to leave people on the bench ;0)

As I understand it The Australian Masters was a co-sanctioned event last year,so it was not a bolt from the blue.It just beggars belief that it took until the 23rd to announce it this year.
If Mr Green was determined to include it (and I don't see why he should be),it should have been put as a provisional on the list long ago,subject to co-sanction.
At least that way we would have been alive to the possibility.

My view is this.

The announcement of the co-sanctioning has completely cost me any chance, my transfers were at a premium and the transfer I did last week, I would not of done if I had known about this.

Saying that though the tournaments list on OFL clearly states :-
Please note that the schedule is subject to change depending on enforced alterations on the European or PGA Tours.

Therefore despite this biting me in the butt, I believe OFL have no option but to include it in list of tournaments, it is just shame the co-santioning was announced so late.

The list has changed before this season, (If I remember correctly the Austrian Open was not originally included), so including the JBWere is consistent with that decision.

There is an argument though that the Volvo Matchplay should also have been included, it is a European Tour sanctioned event (although how that would work points wise I do not know)

There are other events on tours that do not get included so there is no obligation me thinks?

I'm not back in my full capacity until tomorrow, but thought I’d better write a somewhat lengthy explanation regarding the inclusion of the JDWere Masters in the Fantasy League Golf game.

Like it's been said, the decision to co-sanction the event was not confirmed by the European Tour until last Friday (23rd October), and with me being 3,000 miles away from the office at the time, took a day or two to filter to me.

However, the decision for such instances had essentially already been made, (see below - as with pretty much all game-based decisions, this falls solely down to me), although I realised that any such decision was going to be met with disapproval from some parties.

I’m certainly not after any sympathy (merely respect that this was not a decision made on a passing whim), but I obviously did hope that the majority of game players would see this the same way as me - although it’s previously shown to be the case that certain parties don't always share the same logic as myself, so I was certainly under no illusion…

In this example, I saw three options:

1) Omit the JDWere Masters from the FL Golf schedule.

This would have obviously been the easy option, both in terms of managing the game and not needing to relay any information to game players. However, this, in my opinion, was the "ignorant" course of action – essentially pretending that the event was not going ahead at all, when it will almost certainly be considered a higher profile event than the UBS Hong Kong Open which is taking place at the same time.

2) Replacing the UBS Hong Kong Open with the JDWere Masters

This would have been the most controversial option, with game players who had pre-planned for the UBS Hong Kong Open having such plans scuppered completely. Hence, even though the JDWere Masters probably has more reason to be the designated sole European Tour event that week than the UBS Hong Kong Open (as per above), this was unfeasible to consider.

3) Include both the JDWere Masters and the UBS Hong Kong Open

This indeed proved to be the chosen route, with the factors behind this decision below:

The statement on the site that, "… the schedule is subject to change depending on enforced alterations on the European or PGA Tours" should have been sufficient for game players to consider that the tournament schedule is never 100% set in stone (as with the terrorist attacks which affected the 2001 game etc.) I certainly don't see this tournament addition as "changing the goalposts", especially as it is not a unique occurence.

As has already been mentioned on this thread, the British Masters has been removed since this year’s site has been launched, with the Austrian Golf Open moved to later in the year, while the Madrid Masters was a late inclusion (this was not replacing a "TBA", but a completely new event) in last year’s schedule - these were all enforced changes on the European Tour schedule.

Similarly, this was another such change to the European Tour schedule, with the only slight difference being that there was already a designated (co-sanctioned) European Tour event scheduled for that week. However, it is not really for me to decide which of these events should take precedence over the other – this is in contrast to the WGC Bridgestone Invitational/Reno-Tahoe Open or the US Open/Saint Omer Open debate where one event is clearly more prestigious than the other (while the World Matchplay simply isn’t included because it’s not a strokeplay event and has such a small field). For this reason, both events have been included in this particular instance.

The main shame is that the co-sanctioning was announced so late in the proceedings (especially as the event in question is being played so near the end of the competition), but the same decision would have been made irrespective of when the event was taking place.

It has been questioned as to why there wasn’t a "TBA" for this event in the tournament listing given that it was a co-sanctioned European Tour event last November. The answer to this is that it is simply unfeasible for me to speculate on what is likely to be a European Tour event year on year, and can only go on the "confirmed" European Tour calendar in front of me. Otherwise, it would mean filling in every vacant week for either tour with a "TBA", considering the remote possibility that an event could be subsequently scheduled for that week – as I’m sure you agree, this is simply ridiculous.

If FISOers thought there was a possibility of this event subsequently being added to the European Tour calendar, they should have emailed me, and I would have told them there and then that if it was subsequently added to the European Tour calendar, it would also be added to the Fantasy League Golf calendar. To my knowledge, only one entrant (a non-FISOer - as far as I am aware) did this.

Obviously all this does have significant impact on those that had assumed (in the wise words of David Brent, "to assume makes an ass out of u and me") that the tournament listing was fixed, but I can't really say anything in consolation.

Summing up, in a parallel with the European Tour itself, ask yourself on question: Do you really think Lee Westwood is complaining because players who were already scheduled to take part in the JDWere Masters would secure winnings which will now count towards the Race to Dubai?...

Anyway, I hope that explains things from my position, although again, I doubt that this will satisfy everyone, and I really don’t want to get involved in another long-running debate when a (highly considered) decision has already been made, so I'll be leaving it there unless people send individual follow-up emails…

Now I've got to work out how the site is going to cope with the fact that there are two European Tour events concurrently (the first time that this has occurred in Fantasy League Golf history), although I hope the only impact is that the deadline for BOTH European Tour events that week will be at the start of the JBWere Masters (approx. 20:00 GMT on Wednesday 11th October as opposed to approx. 23:30 GMT)...

Hi Matt

Thanks for the explanation
Only question for clarity is over the last point about having the cut off time for both aligned. Is there a need for this? They are independent events - the fact that they are European sanctioned is not relevant is it? You could just as readily have an American event where you add a Euorpean player to your team post the European start time?

Please excuse if I have misinterpretted?

Please be advised that I mean "11th November" rather than "11th October"...

Anyway, unfortunately, it's a constraint of the back-end system in that the deadlines for these two European Tour events need to be the same - there's no way of implementing three independent deadlines for the same week without significant further development work.

Cool

total farce...

the Euro Tour is desperate to have TW win the Australian event and qualify for the RTD...

(if that is indeed possible?)

It's not.

He isn't a member of the Europeaan Tour (full, affiliate or otherwise).

Early heads up :


Combined with this from Mr Green on the OFL site:


You have been warned!

That's right - I'll also insert the date of this event on the 'Tournaments' page (the same week as the Barclays Singapore Open), but no sign of it yet appearing on the European Tour calendar...

The biggest story of last season is alive and well

Rubbing salt in the wounds

It's very noble of you to keep Elin so close in your thoughts, Kdub, but I'm sure the multi-million settlement helps, too

eh?

I thought that's what you'd say

Is there any update on whether this Australian event in November will form part of the 2010 FL game?

It's on Tiger's schedule: http://web.tigerwoods.com/onTour/scheduleAndResults

The same rules apply as above - if it's added to the European Tour calendar, it will be added to the Fantasy League Golf calendar...with or without Tiger. However, as yet, it hasn't been.

I suspect that as Tiger's been committed to playing this event for quite a while that it won't be added as a European Tour event this year. It was about now when they added it last year.