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My angle on Captaincy is that the bigger things are the harder it is to pick a team because you may not have full information.
Analogies regarding Pro Sport don"t quite match for me - because there is full(er) info on performance.
It is pretty tough to rate people"s heads up play - even looking at final tables - because often the blinds are so large.
I am sure all the Captains will make the best picks based on the info they have.
My own preference going forward would be to make things objective perhaps with a playing captain. State the criteria at the start of the season and run from there.
Louis
You"ve essentially provided the arguments against your own system.
You won"t have the full information, you can"t judge people"s heads up play, and pro sports rankings are hard to judge even when they have more complete information.
Given how persuasively you"ve argued about how much information is missing, how can the teams be selected objectively?
From a basic statistical point of view there just isn"t a large enough sample size.
So basing any selection on any kind of apparantly objective criteria, isn"t actually objective, it just means people with good variance at the right time get picked.
This only really leaves judgement, intuitively it seems right that there should and could be a place for the national champions, world champion etc. but at the end of the day if there is no record to objectively measure the best people for the teams (and their isn"t) then leaving it as the Captain"s responsibility - and the Captain"s glory if they win - is the only realistic way to proceed.
When you say that it "is the only realistic way to proceed" ... I don"t find myself agreeing ...
What is unrealistic about offering places to those top of the combined rankings at date x?
You could split the places between rankings and the Captain"s picks - two each - say?
I don"t think I defeat my own argument - it is not correct to say that without 100% info you cannot have objective measures.
"From a basic statistical point of view there just isn"t a large enough sample size."
Add all the APAT events together and you have a system with a similar amount of data to the Ryder Cup qualification system.
I am chilled about all of this - but in terms of adding spice to the APAT season I think some form of qualification for this event would be a good addition (in the future).
Louis