January 4, 2007

WESTERVILLE, OH — Although, the 2007 Virtual Tournament does not begin for most of the 120 players within the Carl Spackler Open Community, the annual update of points for all players has been completed. All 120 players registered for Carl Spackler Open were updated today with all players making big moves upward to the new target of 60 points per round.

Virginia Beach makes a massive move upward with Jean Dore and Jay Glover leading the pack as the losers of the 2006 Virtual Tournament. Trent Cooper is also loading up with his 54th position and 28.3 points per round.

"Backup the truck and load up the points," said Dore of the distribution of points completed earlier this week.

Scott Mealey, Rob Fustich, Brandon Hunter and Rob Reustle are all big winners during the annual point distribution. "These guys play in 2006 was terrible," said Long. "At least when you consider their handicaps on January 1, 2006." The goal behind point distribution is to level the playing field on January 1 to see who is the best and worst golfers of the year.

Jason "Randy" Watson is scheduled to take the largest hit in website history. Randy is expected to lose 80 percent of his handicap from last January. "He has definitely turned his game around," said Vice President of Contests Matt Davis. "I am anxious to see the results first hand."

Matt Davis will also receive a hit to his handicap after his reconstructed hand has lowered his stroke volume over the past year.

PostStats LLC, the premier amateur sports entertainment website, announced in September the Poststats Point System has been updated. The noticable change moves the target from 35 points to 60 points per round.

The upgrade is expected to further eliminate aggressive and conservative point assignments. (i.e. one point for bogey and one point for par AND zero points for bogey and four points for par). The change required an overhaul of the point distribution table that now exceeds 300 different handicap point combinations.

The new target of 60 points will be used for golfers with handicaps higher than 20 strokes. The bogey golfer and even more skilled golfers will be granted higher targets to help adjust the improvement scale. "There is no doubt Mike Lewis has more room to improve than Jason Ridgeway," said Long. "We need to capture that in the point target and overall system. Ridgeway's new target is 68 points."

The point system also received an upgrade to include statistical analysis of golfers with home course play. "We have lots of negative statistics," said Long, CIO of Poststats LLC. "There is a noticable 3-5 percent stroke gain when a golfer with membership leaves his home course. The object is to level the playing field and this type of statistic increase handicap accuracy."

Golfers who play 60 percent of their rounds at the same course will raise their target by one point. Golfers who play 90 percent will raise their target by two points.

Bill Bateson, Joe Butkus, Jim English, Marty Zabonik, Scott Zavinski, Glenn Hoffert and Mike Lewis are some of the guys collecting some extra target points.

The 2007 Virtual Tournament is a season-long tournament with the goal to identify the most improved golfer of 2007. Poststats Points will remain unchanged with golfers playing better or worse than their handicaps throughout the year.