Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Here's My Problem with the Cut at LPGA Q-School's First Stage

As Tony Jesselli has already noted, Cheyenne Woods and 2007 LPGA Rookie of the Year Angela Park missed the 36-hole cut at the 1st stage of LPGA Q-School today.  Other players I'm following to fall on the wrong side of the +4 cut line included Lee Lopez, Moah Chang, and Susan Choi at +5, Tiffany Lua, Maria Laura Elvira, and Jillian Fraccola at +6, Rui Yokomine, Elena Robles, Keiko Kubo, and Maiya Tanaka with Woods at +7, Sally Watson at +10, Keiko Kiyomoto at +11, Kristina Wong at +12, and Violeta Retamozo at +32.  Now obviously those in double digits under par didn't have a real chance to get into the top 60 after 72 holes.  But why cut a field of 240 down to 70 and ties after only 2 rounds?  Wouldn't it have been better to go down to 120 and ties after 36 holes, 90 and ties after 54, and 60 and ties after 72?

Right now we have 80 golfers playing for 60 spots over 36 holes.  That's a lot of holes to eliminate at most 20 golfers.  And imagine if it had been exactly 70 players on the dot who made the cut!  36 holes to eliminate at most 10 golfers doesn't make much sense to me--especially considering that in that scenario 170 were cut over the 1st 36 holes.

Let's face it:  probably only 10% of the original Stage I field has a real chance to contend in the final stage of Q-School.  Even the top third are entirely capable of blowing up over 9 or 18 holes.  If they do worse than that, fine, try again next year.  But with such a draconian halfway point cut, the LPGA ran a real risk of losing some top-notch golfers.  And they did.  A more gradual series of cuts wouldn't have ruled out losing some big names at some point.  But it would have been nice to see if at least some of them could have turned things around tomorrow!

What's more, everyone paid a lot of money for the chance to compete.  Allowing half the field to at least play 54 holes seems fairer to everyone.

[Update 1 (11:47 pm):  Here's Brent Kelley's take.]

6 comments:

Tony Jesselli (Tonyj5) said...
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Tony Jesselli (Tonyj5) said...
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Anonymous said...

Did they just make the change to the cut rule for Q-school this year? The reason I ask is that I am sceptical when someone says nothing on the rule or method used until after there is a result that that someone doesn't like. I'm not saying your wrong but your suggestion would have carried more weight if it had been made before the even. And adding a third round is bound to make someone upset that they had to play the afternoon twice while half the field twice got to play in the cooler temperatures and smoother greens in the morning.

sports medic

Tony Jesselli (Tonyj5) said...

If I may answer that, last year the cut was 70 and ties but only 50 advanced to round 2. This year 60 advance to round two. That makes his point valid. With the exception of Cheyenne Woods my top 8 favorites all got through, and I don't like the it either.

The Constructivist said...

Frankly, I didn't pay as much attention to how they handled the intermediate cut for Stage I this year as I have in previous years. I guess I was just assuming that with such a group of less experienced players, it would be natural to expect more volatility in their round-to-round performance. In the current system, you have 2 bad rounds in a row or even one really horrible one and you're done. In the one I'm proposing, you have a better chance of making it to the third and fourth rounds even if you start slow.

I admit that seeing that the likes of Woods, Lopez, and Lua missed the cut drew my attention to the draconian nature of the 36-hole cut. And I'd like to clarify that my proposal is forward-looking to next year's Q-School, as obviously what's done is done and you can't change the rules retroactively. But since this is only the 2nd year they've tried this format, I'm thinking it's natural that there'd be bugs and kinks to work out.

On the morning/afternoon fairness question, since it would be the leaders who'd be playing in the afternoon on moving day, they'd have the least to complain about. But if that doesn't solve the inequity problem, then why not just cut the field to 144 after 36 holes and then essentially have a 36-hole tournament among them to see who can stay in or get into the top 70 or 60 or 50 or whatever?

My basic thinking is you want to give as many holes as possible for the "cream to rise to the top" and cut less-experienced but talented players a little more slack at this early stage. Particularly because this is Symetra Tour Q-School, too, and from what I can tell there's no guarantee you get membership on that tour if you miss any of the 1st stage cuts. The only mention I see on the LPGA site of the Symetra Tour is during the final stage. I'd like to see a clarification on minimal requirements for Symetra Tour membership. Does missing the 18- or 36-hole cuts in Stage I disqualify you for Symetra Tour memmbership? If so, I'd really like to see players given every chance to make the top 120 or 144 or whatever larger-number-than-70 people agree makes sense after 36 holes.

Anonymous said...

From what I've read the last few days, Cheyenne has 6th level priority for Symetra events. Fortunately for her, there is no limit to how many sponsors exemptions a player may receive on the Symetra Tour. In that regard, it would offer her an excellent opportunity to qualify for the LPGA tour card. I think the LET would offer her better competition week to week but playing Symetra event and effective use of her LPGA exemptions may offer her the best chance for an LPGA tour card. She can also use the Monday qualifiers to get into more LPGA events.

sports medic