It has been a long few years for everyone. I for one feel like I've aged at least 10 years and have for sure put on 50 lbs of bourbon weight. Enough about my sob story, let's start another tradition on CigarGeeks (Yes, the Indy 500 pool will be coming back in a month as well) and get some fun/positive stuff going on here.
Introducing the 1st (hopefully) Annual Cigar Geeks Masters Fantasy Golf Tournament!
Here is the whole skinny:
We will be running this one through
Masters.com. They have a great platform for the scoring system we will use (outlined below) and you can also enter for prizes on their public tournament.
Enter by letting us know in the thread below AND by sending me a PM with your email address. I have created a private league on the Masters site and the email address is used to send you everything you need to know/how to submit your entry.
Veteran status or higher on Geeks is a must.
Everyone participating will put up a 5'er of good quality cigars (looking for $7 to $15 per stick). After the conclusion of the tournament, we will declare a winner from our group based on the scoring system and send our 5'er to the winner within a week of the conclusion of the even. If you do not intend to pay up or abide by the rules as set forth, be warned that negative feedback will result unless other arrangements have been approved by me.
Per the Masters, here is how the scoring and picks work:
Scoring
The scoring for the contest is separate from the usual Masters 72-hole medal-play format. The Modified Stableford format rewards aggressive play, so players who are prone to make more eagles and birdies are probably more attractive as picks. The scoring is as follows:
Hole by Hole Scoring
Double Eagle: 8 points
Eagle: 5 points
Birdie: 2 points
Par: 0 points
Bogey: -1 point
Double Bogey or more: - 3 points (ouch)
End of Round Bonuses
A Round One pick completes a Round: 1 point per Round
End of Tournament Bonuses
Picked Low Amateur: 5 points
Picked Tournament Champion: 5 points
Selections
Please have you initial selections completed Wednesday night, April 6th.
Participants pick one player from each of these categories:
1) First-time Masters participants (pros and amateurs):
Amateurs and first timers have always been an integral part of the Masters, with co-Founder Bobby Jones being one of the most famous and accomplished amateurs of all time. Continue the tradition by picking who you think will become one of the legends of tomorrow. Risk/reward plays a big role here: Having the Low Amateur on your roster will net you five bonus points. Or you can play the safer route and pick one of the first-time professionals. Some pertinent historic information: Only three first-time players have ever won the Masters – Horton Smith in the first Masters (1934), Gene Sarazen (1935) and Fuzzy Zoeller (1979).An amateur has never won the Masters, even though Frank Stranahan (1947), Ken Venturi (1956) and Charlie Coe (1961) all finished second. Last year was the first time in five Masters that an amateur didn't make the cut, and the longest drought was four years (2006-9).
2) Former Masters Champions:
The most battle-tested group in the field. Of the 85 Masters Tournaments contested, 31 have been won by former champions. These players know the course better than anyone in the field, keeping many in contention well into their 50s.
3) United States players (born in the United States):
The largest group of players in the field. American-born players won the first 24 Masters and have taken home the Green Jacket in three of the last four.
4) International players (born outside the United States):
International players have won five of the last 11 and 10 of the past 26 Masters. The longest drought for an international winner has been four Masters in the last 50 years (2004-7).
If you don't know much about a player, read up on their bio or see what the press has to say about them from the In the Media tab as selected by IBM's Watson. Watson has also highlighted key stats in the Statistics tab.
There are no ties for prizes, so users will also be prompted to submit a tiebreaker at the conclusion of completing their roster selections.
New for 2022, participants will receive a bonus at the end of each round for every player that was picked pre-Tournament. If you picked Player X prior to the Tournament and another participant swapped Player X in after the cut, you would receive 1 more point for your original pick.
Your roster is automatically added to "My Group" so you can watch every shot from your team. Also, you can sign up for the Newsletter to get nightly updates on the action.
Any questions, let me know. Anything missing? Let's figure it out since this is our first go 'round.
