Using TPP (Tournament Pairing Program)
This section is not intended to be a replacement
for the HELP files available with the TPP program. However, after the
first year of usage, it is apparent that not everything is covered in the
HELP files and their are certain idiosyncrasies which, having been learned
once, should probably be passed on to the next user. Course: The general TPP approach to setting up a
tournament is straightforward. The program needs a golf course
description so if it is a new AWAY tournament, check to make sure the
scorecard information has been filled in for all the tees to be used. If it is a course we have used before, be
sure to compare the TPP ratings with the current ratings at NCGA.ORG since the course may
have been re-rated. To add a new course, click on Course,
select Management, and select Add .
On the next screen, select Add A New Golf Club, give it a name, and
click Next. Provide the tee names, and slope and rating
information. Then click Finish to fill in the remaining
information about the course. Do this for all tees that you are going
to use in the tournament. When filling in the scorecard information, be
sure to put in the Pace-of-Play information so that the pace of play can be
printed on the scorecard. 15 minutes per hole is good; it leads to a
4.5 hour round. If the tournament is a Shotgun start, you can also set
the priority of holes for shotgun start pairing. See the Help files for
this topic. Tournament: To create a tournament, click on Tournament
then click on Create New Tournament. On the first screen, enter
the name of the tournament and fill in the other relevant information such as
date, number of rounds, and tees to be used. If multiple tees will be
used, this will be specified later. Be sure to enter Mixed if
female players are entered. If it is
a multiple day tournament, change the number of rounds. Then be sure to correct the dates of every
day but the first, since the program assumes that all rounds are on the same
day. Clicking on Next gets you to a screen to
check handicap limits. This is only used by our club for NCGA events
where High should be set to 18.4. We do not use section 3.5 for
our tournaments so that should be left at None. To
complete the process, click Finish. Players: Now that we have a course and a tournament, we
obviously need some players. Here is where TPP starts to really
help. While there are many approaches to this problem and the TC can
certainly come up with his own, the following is the easiest to do. Click on Players, the select Other add/remove
player options and select Add players from club list. This
will bring up a two part screen with all the club members listed in
alphabetical order on the left. Double
clicking on a player will move him into the tournament on the right side of
the screen. (Note that this requires
that you have the current club list on your computer. If you don’t and you do have an internet
connection configured for TPP, the system will offer to download a current
list. Do it.) At this point go to the TC admin tool on the
PAGC web site and bring up the roster for the tournament. It is helpful to
print this out and go through the TPP list, doubling clicking on each player
to enter him into the tournament. Remember that the handicaps on the club list are
not necessarily updated. Once the USGA
has got the correct handicaps available for your tournament, the player
handicaps must be updated. This can be done starting on the first or 16th
day of the month by clicking on Players and then selecting Update
Handicap Indexes and then via Inquiry (all Golfers). This whole process should leave you with a
tournament with all the players entered. Teams: If you are running a Team event this is the next
step. Click on Teams followed by Create Teams. For
most of our tournaments, choose the Manual option (You will have to scroll
down the list under Creation method.)
If you choose this option you will be shown a
screen with a list of players on the left and you can just drag the players
into a team. For most of our team events, this is the way to go since
our players usually pick their own partners. Other methods are
available for a computer paired scramble or some such event. Team Management can be used after teams have
been created to fill in late entries and adjust teams. NOTE: Under Teams there is a Team Settings
option. For all of our two man events, the Team Options must be set for
a maximum of 8 strokes and a percentage of an additional
%10. When you print scorecards you should always verify
that these options have been set.
Also, each round must be set to 90 percent. And don’t forget the 18.4 limit on indexes
that was set earlier for NCGA qualifiers.
For these events there may be two scorecards required for some teams.
Check with a previous TC the first time you do one of these tournaments. Flights: Arranging flights for our club can be a little
tricky. As with Teams there is a Create Flights option for the
first time and a Flight Management option for the subsequent
times. The basic approach is to select the number of flights you want
and then do it by handicap index. You can then use Flight Management to
adjust the boundaries when the number of players does not divide evenly into
equally sized flights. I tend to flip a coin to see which flight gets
more players each time however sometimes there is a natural gap in the index
range which can also be used to guide the setting of the flight boundaries. Once you have created flights, you should use
Flight Management to rename the flights. Because the current program
does not allow the Tee Name on the scorecard, I have been renaming the
flights and including the tees being played in the name. Hopefully this
restriction will be removed in the future. And, as mentioned under Tournament, it is now
time to return to Course and click on Reassign Tees.
Since this is one of the least obvious screens in the system, I suggest you
talk to a previous TC to clarify a few points. Pairings: Once you have all of this, it is time to do the Pairings.
Click on Stroke Play Pairings for the first time; click on Pairing
Management the next time and click on Reassign Starting Tee/Time if
you want to re-work the pairings in some way that the other options won't
allow. The Stroke Play Pairings screen can be a little
tricky. For some reason, the Players Per Group value defaults to 2;
usually you will want to change it to 4. The Pairing Method is usually
set to USGA Handicap Index or Manual. The Flight options can be set to
Flights without Overlap, Flights With Overlap, or Manual. And finally you need to set the Start Time,
Interval, and Starter's Time fields. Note that there are two numbers in
the Interval field. This supports clubs which use an 8 minute/7 Minute
start time approach. So at When you think all of this is OK, click on Create
Pairings. The system will tell you how many pairing groups you
created. You then close off the screen and come back into Pairing
Management to check the results. You may wish to try Create again
or you may want to make some minor pairing changes based on personalities,
preferences, etc.. The screen allows you to drag players into and out of the
pairing spots very easily. The area of pairings is a tricky but enjoyable
part of the task of running a tournament. So enjoy. Scorecards: This part of TPP is one of the most time saving
features, particularly if scorecards with dots for handicap holes are
required. Scorecards can be acquired from the Handicap folks at the
NCGA via a phone call. Of course, it is helpful to have a fairly
powerful printer since the cards can take a while to print on a dot matrix
printer. In some cases, it may be preferable to print labels for the
regular scorecards at the course and the software also supports this option. The new TC will have to experiment a little with
this feature. Fortunately, you can see the cards on the screen before
you print them and it is always useful to review the results carefully. Also, a previous tournament chairman may have
supplied you with a set of special PAGC scorecards for use with our
tournaments. Problem:
What has happened when you try to print the scorecards for a team competition
and the 90% adjusted handicaps don’t show up?.
Even though you have properly used
Team Settings, this freaky software requires that the following scorecard options
be chosen: Players per card must be Team; Team Group must be Teams;
Handicap must be Team. In a perfect world, once the settings
have been chosen, those would have been set as the defaults. Scoring: TPP is used for scoring all PAGC
tournaments. The reason for this is
the ability to post the scores from the computer after a tournament. This means players don’t have to post their
scores and the Handicap Chairman doesn’t need to check the postings. In team events or Stableford
scoring, TPP scoring can be very valuable. Enter Scoring
following by Enter Scores. Select Starting Time as the List
Order and select Individual Hole By Hole Scores as the Method.
From there you can select each player and enter the hole by hole
scores. It is very helpful to have an assistant read off the scores in
sets of three so that you can concentrate on the keyboarding. It is
also good to then confirm the scores added up by the software to the scores
added up by the marker. Any discrepancies should obviously be
resolved. In every case so far, the player has not shown to be as good
as the computer in doing arithmetic. A word of warning: In a Team competition,
the Total in the Player Net Row is based on full handicap; it does not
reflect the reduction of 90% in the Course Handicap. However, the
reduction is reflected in the Team Score. Maybe this will be changed in
the future but it can be a cause for concern and confusion. Posting: After the tournament results have been finalized
it is time to post the scores. This of
course requires a wireless connection of some kind. To post the scores, click on Scoring and then select Post Score to GHIN Enterprise Server. Note
that the default in posting is to Post
as Tournament. Since all of our
Major tournaments are played at Palo Alto where the pro staff does the
posting, the TC should be very careful on away tournaments to change this
setting. Posting incorrectly as a
tournament requires the Handicap Chairman (or the TC if he feels guilty) to
go through a site on the internet and change each score manually. Be careful. Reports: There are a wide variety of report formats
available. You can also modify some of these reports and save them for
later use. This is one of the weakest parts of the system but it is
still useful. One of the most useful is the report under Flights called
Flight Player Report (DS). This can be used at away tournaments
to get a scoring sheet with each flight on a single page. The new TC needs to experiment with these
reports to see which ones can be most useful. And refer to the HELP
files for additional information on customizing reports. It is possible
but it is not as easy as it should be. Last
Updated on 3/29/2012
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