Understanding Caps, Pools, and Waitlists
Let’s start off with some definitions, so we’re all talking about the same things:
Caps: Caps are used to limit the spots available for registration. They may be assigned for the event overall, or for sub-sets of players in the event, such as Class (Pro vs Am), Pools (Course Groups), or specific divisions.
Pools (better understood as Course Groups): Pools in Disc Golf Scene are collections of divisions that will play together on the same courses at the same time. This is different than the way the term “Pool” is used in Tournament Manager, where Pool refers to a portion of a single division, when that division is so large it cannot fit on one course during the same round (Example: MPO and FPO at PDGA Pro Worlds or MA1 at PDGA Am Worlds).
Waitlists: Waitlists are the lists of players who registered for the event after their Division, their Class, their Pool (Course Group), or the entire Event, was already filled. These players are then waiting to see if they will get into the event when a spot opens because another player drops.
Class: Class refers to whether a player is classified as Professional or Amateur.
Caps, Pools (Course Groups), and Waitlists work in concert to ensure that the registration for your event matches the parameters of available space determined by the event design and number of courses. It is critical that you plan ahead and set the parameters for both the capping and the waitlists to match one another, so the waitlists are created and managed properly. Each waitlist is created in the order that players register, and you must always promote the first person from the appropriate waitlist. Disc Golf Scene makes this easy for you if you set your waitlists up appropriately. Note that promoting someone other than the first person on the waitlist is against PDGA rules (Competition Manual 1.02.C), and will cause a lot of trouble with your players.
Types of Caps
Caps are upper limits placed on the number of spots that players can fill. Caps may be assigned in different ways on DGS and depending on how you decide to deploy Caps, you will also need to set your waitlist parameters to match.
Total Cap
Use this to limit the total number of players in the event.
Example: You are running a shotgun start on a single 18-hole course with foursomes and although you don’t care how many players are in each division, you want to ensure that no more than 72 players in total are registered into the event. You would set the Total Cap to 72 and you would also set the waitlist parameters to “Use a single waitlist for all divisions and pools”. With these settings, the first 72 players to register will be placed into the event, and once filled, further registrants will then be placed onto a single waitlist. As registrants withdraw from the filled event, they will be replaced by the first person on the waitlist, regardless of which division the withdrawing player was in, or which division the waitlister had registered for.
Pro Cap & Amateur Cap
Use this to limit the number of players in each Class within the event.
Using our example of a 72-player shotgun start event, let’s say you wanted to allow space for 20 Pros and 52 Amateurs. You would set the Pro Cap to 20 and the Amateur cap to 52. For this option, if you set the waitlist parameters to “Use a single waitlist for all divisions and pools”, it will cause problems as once a Class has been filled, later registrants for that Class would be placed on the single waitlist in the order that they registered. As registrants withdraw from a filled Class, they would be replaced by the first person on the waitlist of that same Class, regardless of their number on the waitlist. Therefore, if a Pro withdraws, and the first Pro on the waitlist is #8, it will seem to the registrants that #8 was promoted ahead of #1-#7 and you will hear complaints from waitlisted players, even though the process was technically correct. Instead, the best thing to do is create a capped Amateur Pool of all the Amateur divisions and a capped Pro pool of all the Professional divisions, and then create Waitlist Pools by setting the Waitlist option to “Use a separate waitlist for each pool”. This will create two Waitlists, one for Amateurs and one for Professionals. When a registrant registered for the event withdraws, they will be replaced by the first player on the Waitlist for the class they withdrew from.
Pool (Course Group) Caps
If you are using multiple courses and want to ensure that each course is not oversubscribed, you will use the Pool (Course Group) feature on DGS to segregate which divisions will play together on a course. You can then use Caps to limit the berths available within each Pool.
Example: Let’s say you are running an event that uses two courses, and your plan is to have two Course Groups with 72 players each and the Course Groups will play one of the two courses in Round 1 and then flip-flop to play the other course in Round 2. You will first create the DGS Pools, provide a name for the Pools, and a Pool Cap. Example:
Pool Name Cap
Course Group A 72
Course Group B 72
Once the Pools are created, you will then assign the divisions to each Pool (Course Group). Example:
Course Group A = MA1, MA40, MA50, MA60, FA1, FA40, FA50, FA60
Course Group B = MA2, MA3, MA4, FA2, FA3, FA4, MJ18, FJ18
If it meets your needs not to limit each division and have just a limit of 72 across all divisions in Course Group A and 72 across all divisions in Course Group B, you will create Pool Waitlists by setting the Waitlist parameters to “Use a separate waitlist for each pool”. With this setting, once a Pool fills with 72 players, further registrants will go on a waitlist for that pool. When a player withdraws from a division in that Pool, they will be replaced by the first player on that Pool’s waitlist, regardless of the division of the withdrawing player or the division of the waitlisted player.
If you also wish to limit the size of each division within a Course Group, see Divisional Caps below.
Important note: DGS Pools work stand-alone for Course Groups where each division is only contained within a single Course Group. If your event has a division that is so large it will be in multiple Course Groups, that is known as Split-Division Pooling and requires special setup in Tournament Manager. If you require split-division pools, please contact the Event Support Team at [email protected] for assistance.
Divisional Caps
Use this to limit the number of players in each division within the event.
Divisional Caps are primarily used in larger events where you wish to limit the number of spaces available to each division. A good example of this is a PDGA World Championship where we want to provide space in the event in proportion to the overall membership, the number of invitees, and the past interest in the divisions. Since we limit World Championships to playing in foursomes, the capping for divisions will typically be in multiples of four: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 36, 72, 144, etc.
When using Divisional Caps, you create Divisional Waitlists, by setting the Waitlist parameters to “Use a separate waitlist for each division”. Once a division has been filled, later registrants for that specific division will be placed on a waitlist for that specific division. When a player withdraws from that division, they will be replaced by the first player on that divisional waitlist.