There are few events more anticipated on the World Am calendar than course assignment day.
The office is flooded with calls in the preceding weeks as players plead for insight as to where they will be playing. The amount of people who open this long-anticipated email is staggering, even among folks not participating.
Truth is, we don’t know in advance, but we can tell you with a high degree of certainty where you likely won’t be playing – any course you’ve teed it up on in World Am in the last 10 years.
The tournament mission is that a flight won’t return to a layout more than once every three years, but the reality is even greater than that.
As a spot check to ensure the event is meeting its commitment to players, tournament officials pulled the course history of golfers (random sample spanning genders, divisions and age) who have played the last 10 years to see how often they frequented the same course twice.
The results were shocking, even given how hard the event works to continually move flights to different layouts.
On average, golfers played 31.2 unique courses over the last 10 years (out of an average of 38 rounds per player), meaning there is an 81 percent chance you won’t play a layout twice during a decade of tournament play. The biggest factor in playing a course multiple times revolves around changing flights or divisions, because assignments are based on where the flight has played in recent years, not the individual player.
With more than 50 courses hosting tournament rounds in 2022, golfers can again expect a fresh lineup. If you’ve ever wondered how the tournament staff comes up with course assignments, it’s a grinding process that doesn’t begin in earnest until entries are closed.
Typically on the second weekend in August, we lock ourselves in the office, working around the clock to complete a puzzle that is equal parts enjoyable and maddening because of the number of variables that impact decisions. Think of creating an MLB schedule.
Playing different courses remains a vital part of the World Am and your tournament staff remains as committed as ever to ensuring players receive it. Now you only have five months to wait!
