Welcome to the Las Vegas Knights Country Club

For anyone new to the club, or those who are already members but would like some reminding about the club and its season, this page is for you. This page will give you a basic overview of the club's competitions, handicap, and anything else I can think of to throw in here.

The Season(s):

The club's competition season runs all year long, from January to December. Each year the club membership is divided into two teams and the tournaments you play throughout the year allow you to win points for your team and points for yourself. In even-numbered years (e.g. 2020) the club plays for the Ryder Cup and the teams are largely geographical, North America vs Europe. In odd-numbered years (e.g. 2019, 2021) the competition is the Quest for the Holy Grail, with the club membership sorted into Black Knights vs White Knights, battling all season to win.

The Tournaments:

There are several different types of tournaments to play in throughout the year, both single-round and multi-round. All tournaments are single-play only and are free to enter. There are no prizes, although there is an opportunity for members to sponsor the winner of any tournament if they wish. Usually this amounts to a sleeve or two of balls, but it's just for fun and there is no requirement or expectation that you should be a sponsor.

With only one or two exceptions each round in a tournament is of 7 days duration. Handicaps generally apply (see below for more info) and for most tournaments the top three finishers win gold, silver or bronze medals.

Majors. These tournaments are run over six rounds, generally available to play two rounds at a time, and there are eight majors in a season culminating in The Masters, which is one round on all of the full courses available on WGT.

Classics. These are mostly four-round tournaments (with a few exceptions), and are also available to play two rounds at a time.

Monthly Medal. Single-round tournaments, one per month. The winner gets the gold medal but there are no silver or bronze medals awarded in the monthly medals.

Playoff tournaments. There are a few tournaments throughout the year that have qualifying rounds of stroke play followed by a playoff bracket for the best 8 or 16 qualifiers. Some of these are played for your team, some for personal glory.

Monthly Brackets. Each month there is a bracket tournament for the first 16 members to sign up. Handicaps do not apply and no points are awarded, this is for bragging rights only. Each round is 24 hours in duration.

The Points:

In every tournament (except the Monthly Bracket and a couple of individual competitions) points are awarded based on a player's final position on the leaderboard. Only players who complete all rounds of a tournament win points, and there are two types of points awarded:

Ryder Cup or Grail Points. depending on which annual competition is running you win points for your team based on your final position. All team points won throughout the year are tallied and the team with the most points at year-end is the winner of either the Ryder Cup or Holy Grail.

Golden Knight Points (aka GK Pts). For every point you win for your team in a tournament, you earn the same number of points for yourself. These points are your Golden Knight points and count towards the Golden Knight competition (see below for more info).

Random Ryder Cup or Grail matches. If you see a player from the opposing team online you can challenge them to a random match over 9 or 18 holes. You can ply these as either match play or stroke play (2 players) and the winner earns 5 points for their team. If there are four of you playing an alternate shot game the winning partners score 10 points for their team.

HIO and Double Eagles. If you are playing one of the club tournaments and you get a hole in one, you earn 15 bonus points for your team and 15 GK points for yourself. This also happens if you manage a double eagle in a tournament, or during any kind of play, as long as you have a replay you can share for verification.

Points structure. here are the amount of Ryder, Grail and GK points awarded to each player successfully completing a tournament:

Handicaps:

Every player in the club has a handicap calculated for them. Every completed round in an official club tournament is used in the handicap calculation and they are continually updated for each tournament.

They are calculated purely by counting how far above or below par you are in each round, and they are course-specific, meaning an average is taken from your best 8 rounds of the previous 10 on each specific course. So you will have a different handicap for each course played and your handicap may show great variation from one tournament to the next because of that.

If your handicap on a leaderboard is shown in +black then that number is added to each of your round's scores in a tournament, and if it is in -red then it is subtracted.

New members' starting handicaps are calculated by using their score history before they joined the club, but each official club tournament round played will count towards recalculating it.

Leaderboards:

Each time a new tournament begins there is a description posted in the forum, along with links to the leaderboard, which is constantly updated as new scores come in. Points do not appear on the leaderboard until the final player has completed the tournament.

Bonus points that can be awarded and which show on the leaderboard include:

Record round: if a new lowest ever round for the course in that tournament is scored, it is highlighted in red and 10 points are awarded to that player's team.
Lowest round: if a new record round is not achieved then the lowest score is highlighted in yellow and 5 points are awarded to that player's team.
Platinum record. (Abbreviated to Plat. on the leaderboard). The Platinum score is a player's final total for the tournament, excluding handicap. If that score is a new record low total then it is highlighted in orange and 10 points are awarded to that player's team.

Here is a guide to what each column in the leaderboard means:

Other Competitions:

There are a number of competitions that run throughout the season which are not team competitions. They aggregate scores from the various tournaments as follows:

The Survivor Series. This takes each player's total strokes in each Major and Classic tournament, including handicaps and adds them together cumulatively throughout the season. The player with the lowest total at the end of the season is crowned the Survivor, however it is so named because if you fail to complete any one of the included tournaments then you are out!

The Iron Man: This aggregated each player's totals (including handicap) in the 12 Monthly Medal tournaments, and the player with the lowest total after the December medal is completed is the LVK Iron Man. However, as with the Survivor Series if you fail to complete any of the Monthly Medal tournaments then you are eliminated from the Iron Man.

The Golden Knight. All Golden Knight points earned in any tournament throughout the year count towards a player's total in this competition. It is split into four quarters (i.e. January to March, April to June etc) and the two players with the highest Golden Knight points tally at the end of Q1 qualify for a playoff tournament at the end of the year. The points totals are then wiped clean for the beginning of Q2 to give more players the chance to qualify. The two players with the highest GK points totals at the end of Q2 (or next highest if any of the top two previously qualified) go through to the playoff, and so on until there are eight qualifying players at the end of the year. These eight play matches in a bracket playoff to determine which is crowned that year's Golden Knight.

Replays:

If you are playing in a club tournament and you run into an issue such as a computer malfunction, blue screen, power outage....things beyond your control which lead you to an unintentional WD, you may ask for a replay in the forum. Replays are usually given unless it is a specific competition such as TWS which does not allow them.

The point of the game is to have fun, so replays seem fair under these circumstances so long as it is not abused. Replays are generally NOT given for intentional WDs, because you lost a ball and got angry or because you didn't realise a round was ending and you didn't play in time...that kind of thing.

Discord:

Discord is a chat and messaging platform that allows for voice chat during games. It does not affect gameplay at all and it's a good fun way of experiencing the game and meeting your fellow club members. If you feel like giving it a try just click this invite link and follow the instructions: https://discord.gg/USCSUjJ

If you don't feel like trying it then that's fine too!

Questions?

If any of this makes you scratch your head or there is something you want to know that isn't covered here (and that seems pretty likely!) then feel free to ask any question you want in the club forum, or send me (Wutpa) a message and one way or another you'll get an answer.

I hope this guide hasn't added to your confusion, but really it's only about having fun and some friendly competition. Enjoy!

Additionally there are a few competitions that run throughout the season which are not part of the official season and therefore do not award medals or points, they are just for fun:

The Monthly Bracket. A 16-player bracket is created in the second half of each month with each round having tougher conditions than the previous round. The winner gets added to the Bracket Hall of Fame.

The Weekly Stroker (TWS). This is a competition that runs throughout the year and it is curated by Abe (1963Bubba). Hed he creates a different single-play 9-hole round each week, 52 weeks of the year. Handicaps do not apply and there are no replays given. It is meant as a cumulative ranking competition, and a table is posted to the forum each week showing whether you have climbed or dropped in the rankings following the previous week's results. Do not worry if you miss a week as the ranking points are calculated using your best 10 finishes from the preceding 12 weeks.

The Monthly Mulligan. This is a fun tournament that runs once each month throughout the year. There are three 9-hole rounds, each of just 72 hours in duration, and the next round does not start until the preceding one finishes. All courses and all playing conditions are utilized, but the location and setup of the following rounds is not revealed until they begin. Each player gets one chance to redo a round by playing the duplicate 'mulligan' if they think they could have done better, but it's a gamble because once you enter the mulligan round you must keep the score, for better or worse. Each monthly winner gets added to the Mulligan Hall of Fame.