Junior Worlds Filled in About One Minute

[Central Scrutinizer]

Woah! We were warned that junior worlds would fill very quickly, so being the overly cautious nerd I sometimes am, I had all the fields on the registration typed in ahead of time and waited for the exact 10:30 pm moment last night with my finger hovering over the enter button on DGS.

Panic briefly set in as I didn't fill in all the required fields when I struck "enter" at precisely 10:30. You have to choose "no thank you" if you didn't want to sponsor a hole for $100. Clicked that, then clicked a few more required buttons for payment, then I was in.

Curious to see how many MJ-15's were signed up in that first minute, I went to the page and found it had 67/72 already filled. In one minute!! MJ-18 was even worse. There's a kid rated 1003 on like waitlist #28 or so there. Crazy. I see this morning there are 43 MJ-18's waitlisted.

In my one and only am worlds (in 2000) I don't recall exactly what method it took to sign up. It might have been by mail. I think I remember some of my friends saying they got into the 1997 am worlds by just showing up.

I imagine they are going to have to do something to stem the tide of angry parents out there today who took three minutes instead of one to fill out all the form questions and are deeply in the waitlist. I reserved that week for a PTO vacation all the way back in January when we do that at my workplace and I can imagine being very pissed off if that happened to me.

Yikes.

 

[DavidSauls]

Wow. I've become accustomed to the flash registrations, but didn't imagine we'd got there for the juniors, yet.

 

[biscoe]

Growing pains all over.

 

[nothinbuttree]

Could it be time to set up regional qualifiers? If no precedence is given to ratings, this at least allows more potential folks the opportunity to play. Top X% from each one gets in...

 

[biscoe]

Could it be time to set up regional qualifiers? If no precedence is given to ratings, this at least allows more potential folks the opportunity to play. Top X% from each one gets in...

Qualifying standards definitely need to change for pretty much all Worlds events. Stop issuing so many invites whether by raising the points requirements, adding a rating component and dumping points (my favorite), or doing something else entirely. Can't say I like the idea of qualifiers though.

 

[DavidSauls]

Qualifying standards definitely need to change for pretty much all Worlds events. Stop issuing so many invites whether by raising the points requirements, adding a rating component and dumping points (my favorite), or doing something else entirely. Can't say I like the idea of qualifiers though.

Or some combination of the above -- a certain number of spots given on points, a certain number on ratings, etc.

 

[nothinbuttree]

The notion that the very best may not even be there simply because they took 2 minutes instead of 1, or their internet connection was slow, or whatever...is ridiculous.

Come on PDGA--you wanted growth---you got it. Be ready for it!

 

[Agricolae]

It seems there is already a qualifier that gives the nod to those who can complete registration in under a minute from a shotgun start. Speed typing shouldn't be a skill required to compete in Am Worlds.

 

[jakebake91]

I would definitely agree that it's a shame that the "best" players might miss due to the cluster flash signups. How can you have a "world's" event without knowing the "world's best" players are there? Seems odd.

That being said, I'm not sure what the solution is. Some kind of points/ratings/qualification matrix of some kind I'd imagine.

It's absolutely crazy to ponder the growth curve of this sport.

 

[nothinbuttree]

Whenever demand exceeds supply, one must either raise price, reduce demand, or increase supply.
Raising price seems unfair in general, doubt it would help much. Demand is likely to continue to increase as more young players take up the sport. The only way to artificially reduce demand is set strict ratings/points guidelines. If someone misses this year, they at least know what they need to do better on next year.

The only thing left would be increasing supply of available spots. If qualifiers aren't the answer, how about a two round (in one day) play-in? Like the NCAA BB tourney. Slightly decrease the # of guaranteed spots, leaving room for the top 8 or 16 or whatever play-in top finishers. Yeah, lots of players would go home after only one day, but at least they get a shot. The best ones know they would be moving on...

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I think in the short term, a band-aid fix would be to allow fivesomes this year. I know I've got nothing else going on those days, might as well include more kids and who cares if the fivesomes make the play slow.

Going forward, they've got to change how this is done. I'm all for regional qualifiers, ratings, and other merit-based criteria being what determines who gets in.

Also, they're going to have to abandon the idea of having masters and juniors at the same location like this. The sport is too big for this. It ain't 2008 anymore.

Hoping the powers-that-be can scramble and save par on this for 2022!

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Dang, Uriyah Kelley is WL #18 in my son's division. They've got to expand the cards to fivesomes and get the stars in there.

 

[ru4por]

This is the norm for all World's registrations now. Just about every year, there is an outrage thread about it on here and really, there is not much solution proposed. Equality in most discussed systems is hard to achieve.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

This is the norm for all World's registrations now. Just about every year, there is an outrage thread about it on here and really, there is not much solution proposed. Equality in most discussed systems is hard to achieve.

Yeah, this is my first time doing anything worlds-related since 2000. Times have changed a ton.

The PDGA has got to do something about this.

 

[biscoe]

Lots of ways it can be fixed for future years. Seems like they should be able to do something this year as well since Ledgestone was able to deal with over 1900 players between all divisions last year.

 

[discoriented]

Should there be an 18 year old " Junior " division?

 

[ru4por]

Lots of ways it can be fixed for future years. Seems like they should be able to do something this year as well since Ledgestone was able to deal with over 1900 players between all divisions last year.

Making Worlds a larger event is indeed one way to help the problem. But you then start to limit who can put on such an event and where such an event can be thrown. I mean, this is already a problem....I don't really want to go to Peoria every year.

 

[lion]

So i dealt with this last night.

I was prepared and still almost failed. Here's how I got lucky. I signed my son up to MJ12. I was ready, filled everything out ahead of time. Right at the moment it was 10:30pm eastern i clicked the button to continue and pay and last second i decided to fill out the credit card section by hand. Don't do this. I must of filled it out the card info wrong because I submitted it and got denied, card declined. In a panic I then hit paypal and paid that way. I got my son in. Thank the lord.

The key is you should sign into paypal in a different tab on your computer so that when you hit the paypal button on your computer or phone you don't have to log on. It goes lightning fast and betters your chances. This was key for some MJ18 kids parents I know.

MJ18, MJ15, and FJ15 sold out instantly, under a minute. I got lucky MJ12's took 12 minutes.

I did research like an obsessed disc golf parent and figured out a few things ahead though. Like how many kids were invited to MJ12, 118 kids. How many were foreign athletes, 11 kids. How many kids had expired pdga accounts, 22 kids. How many were not certified officals, needed the exam, a good chunk of kids. So now I know I have to deal with 80-85 potential kids for 40 spots. How many would really want to go? Now I had to break down the distance those kids lived from Peoria, IL and if their rating justified them going. So now I figured roughly 55 kids were going to battle for 40 spots. I knew i was going to get my kid in at this point.

Cost for my kid was 203 dollars, $120 registration, cfr disc $25, distance comp $10, mini golf $10, skills event $10, division doubles $10, and putting comp $10.

Real cost for my son and I to do this:

flights : $1100
car rental : $1200
Hotel : $1000
Food: $500
random stuff: $300
gas : $200
registration: $200

minimum cost : $4400. but probably more

I do think entry should be ratings based first once you have qualified with enough points

Andrew Miranda should get in!!!!

 

[ru4por]

So i dealt with this last night.

I was prepared and still almost failed. Here's how I got lucky. I signed my son up to MJ12. I was ready, filled everything out ahead of time. Right at the moment it was 10:30pm eastern i clicked the button to continue and pay and last second i decided to fill out the credit card section by hand. Don't do this. I must of filled it out the card info wrong because I submitted it and got denied, card declined. In a panic I then hit paypal and paid that way. I got my son in. Thank the lord.

The key is you should sign into paypal in a different tab on your computer so that when you hit the paypal button on your computer or phone you don't have to log on. It goes lightning fast and betters your chances. This was key for some MJ18 kids parents I know.

MJ18, MJ15, and FJ15 sold out instantly, under a minute. I got lucky MJ12's took 12 minutes.

I did research like an obsessed disc golf parent and figured out a few things ahead though. Like how many kids were invited to MJ12, 118 kids. How many were foreign athletes, 11 kids. How many kids had expired pdga accounts, 22 kids. How many were not certified officals, needed the exam, a good chunk of kids. So now I know I have to deal with 80-85 potential kids for 40 spots. How many would really want to go? Now I had to break down the distance those kids lived from Peoria, IL and if their rating justified them going. So now I figured roughly 55 kids were going to battle for 40 spots. I knew i was going to get my kid in at this point.

Cost for my kid was 203 dollars, $120 registration, cfr disc $25, distance comp $10, mini golf $10, skills event $10, division doubles $10, and putting comp $10.

Real cost for my son and I to do this:

flights : $1100
car rental : $1200
Hotel : $1000
Food: $500
random stuff: $300
gas : $200
registration: $200

minimum cost : $4400. but probably more

I do think entry should be ratings based first once you have qualified with enough points

Andrew Miranda should get in!!!!

This is the process for AM Worlds for the last 5 years....at least. Same with Master's worlds. The current system is not unfair, IMO. With all the research you did, a couple of threads here could have warned you of the pitfalls of registration. The spots in Worlds currently goes to the prepared.

Tiered, rating registration is interesting. Are you prepared to tell little Johnnie/Johanna that they cannot play in the World Championships, after playing to earn the points all summer, because they are not good enough? Are you then prepared to have the last tier open....simply to find that a fastest entry scenario anyway?

 

[lion]

This is the process for AM Worlds for the last 5 years....at least. Same with Master's worlds. The current system is not unfair, IMO. With all the research you did, a couple of threads here could have warned you of the pitfalls of registration. The spots in Worlds currently goes to the prepared.

Tiered, rating registration is interesting. Are you prepared to tell little Johnnie/Johanna that they cannot play in the World Championships, after playing to earn the points all summer, because they are not good enough? Are you then prepared to have the last tier open....simply to find that a fastest entry scenario anyway?

I think points required should drastically go up, most got in by playing one event for the year, maybe raise the minimum points and require a certain number of events also. Also player rating is a hundred percent fair and I will tell little john to play better if his rating is not good enough. The pros do rating based tiers to allow the best to get in. Same should be with juniors. Literally 3-5 players are on the waitlist that are the favorites to win junior worlds.

my son is PDGA 46920