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OVERVIEW
Building a successful rooming list involves streamlining rooms, single occupancy, and roommates to include everyone. All participants are required to select their rooming preferences. Hotel reservations will be modified soon with a rooming list to be completed when all cancellations are known.

RETURNING PARTICIPANTS
Everyone is required to select at least 5 roommates and rank them. Referrals bringing a rookie should assume their rookie will cancel and provide at least 5 roommate preferences. Providing roommate preferences is providing flexibility and contributing to the event. Do not forget to include the golfers you
have referred over the years.

ROOKIES & REFERRALS
Rookies are required to select a minimum of 5 roommate preferences because the computer requires everyone to do it. Rookies will share a hotel room with their top preference.

ROOM STRUCTURE
The Carl Spackler Open is organized 9 months in advance based on both single and double occupancy and a roster divisible by four. Hotels are selected using multiple factors, but one of the primary factors is lowering the cost with volume.

Our event is not organized for local golfers wanting to sleep at their house, golfers to bring wives or family on vacation, golfers looking for partial participation, or golfers to pay for hotel rooms through corporate points.

ROOMING PROTECTION
The Carl Spackler Open could have golfers who do not generate a roommate preference. Participants without a roommate preference will be presented with two options. (1) a full refund or (2) a single occupancy room if available. This process is straightforward and comes without an awkward discussion.

SINGLE OCCUPANCY
Single occupancy rooms are available at the Carl Spackler Open. An odd number of single occupancy rooms reserved costs the Carl Spackler Open somewhere between $300 and $450. A single participant who returns to double occupancy is granted a Phase 1 volunteer exemption to the following event.

ROOMMATE MATCHING SYSTEM
The Carl Spackler Open rooming list consists of lodging assignments for the event. It must be successful or the event dissolves. A working system collects 500+ ranked roommate preferences in a logical backward sequence to match up golfers, however, there is a human element. This document will share the process and includes (1) protections for roommates and (2) explain why ‘highest ranking preferences’ do not dictate roommate assignments.

GOLFERS WITHOUT A ROOMMATE PREFERENCE
The original referral is provided an opportunity to update their roommate preferences and/or provide multiple solutions. Both the original referral and the golfer without a roommate preference are ultimately offered full refunds and/or single occupancy at an increased cost to address a rooming problem.

MATCHING EXPLAINED STEP-BY-STEP
STEP #1: Rookies are assigned a room with their top preference. This activity with 13 rookies will remove 26 golfers from the pool of available roommates.
STEP #2: The participants with the least roommate preferences are assigned rooms. Roommates are chosen. Examples include Power Drinking Pete, Snoring Sam, Crazy Curt, Weird Walter, Quiet Quinton, and Chatty Christian. These participants are assigned roommates who are no longer available for further assignment.
STEP #3: The matching system continues with more favorable roommates. The final roommate assignments contain two dozen popular available roommates, where flexibility is less necessary and roommate popularity increases.

ROOMMATE PROTECTIONS
(1) Single occupancy rooms are now being sold when available. (2) Our event has capital reserves and uses them to make problems go away. Please do not hesitate to contact a Captains Club member during your vacation with an unexpected roommate problem. (There has never been a problem reported that extended beyond obnoxiously unreasonable snoring.)

VOLUNTEER EXEMPTIONS
Participants who are assigned roommates not on their preference list are given volunteer exemptions to the following Carl Spackler Open.

ROOMMATE MATCHING EXAMPLES
CIRCUMSTANCE: Charming Charles is cool as a cucumber. He selects Charismatic Karl as his top roommate preference. He then calls Charming Charles to direct him to rank himself as his #1 roommate preference. Charles and Karl are not roommates.
EXPLANATION Charismatic Carl is super popular and needed to room with someone else for the entire rooming list to be successful. Another roommate from Charming Charles’ preference list is chosen.

CIRCUMSTANCE: There are no roommate preferences for Quiet Quinton.
EXPLANATION: Regretful Ron is contacted as Quiet Quinton's original referral to update his preferences. Regretful chooses not to room with Quiet Quinton because he is bringing a rookie. Regretful Ron wants nothing to do with the rooming problem. Both Regretful Ron and the golfer without a roommate preference are ultimately offered full refunds and/or single occupancy at an increased cost to address the rooming problem. The rookie is also offered a full refund upon request.

CIRCUMSTANCE: Weird Walter was preferred by one friend. Delightful David, who has Weird Walter on his roommate preference list ranked 15th.
EXPLANATION: A successful rooming list must ignore Delightful David's Top 14 preferences. Weird Walter is matched with Delightful David. A super popular Delightful David is now removed from 32 other roommate preference lists.

CIRCUMSTANCE: Charming Charles has a popularity issue and sits on 22 participant preference lists. All 5 participants on his preference list are assigned a roommate.
EXPLANATION: Charming Charles is contacted for additional preferences. The Carl Spackler Open addresses these circumstances by overloading preferred playing partners for Charming Charles and grants Charming Charles a volunteer exemption for the next Carl Spackler Open.