Sorry Jockey, with your payout structure there is no financial incentive to bowl to the best of your ability in qualifying, there is only the incentive to make the cut. This is a bad thing, as I will explain with a couple of hypothetical scenarios here:
1) Payout structure as suggested by Jockey:
George Frilingos goes ballistic in qualifying, clears the field by a good 100 pins. Belmo struggles for the first few games, then figures the lanes out. He realises all he has to do is 'make the cut' (as the reward for doing so is the same whether you qualify 1st or 24th), and does so in a canter in 20th spot.
In the matchplay Belmo wipes out 13th qualifier in the first round. According to the draw, next in Belmo's firing line is George, who comes in cold having had a bye in the first round. George puts up a titanic fight, but loses a battle that should really have been saved for the final if possible. Belmo goes on to win in a canter, taking $2050, and George is left to look at his cheque for $625, the results sheet that says he out-averaged everybody on BOTH days by a country mile, and wonder if the format could be improved to make Belmo qualify higher than 20th (as we know he can) thereby preventing this sort of battle this early in the piece.
2) Payout structure as implemented by AMF for this year's event:
George Frilingos goes ballistic in qualifying, clears the field by a good 100 pins. Belmo struggles for the first few games, then figures the lanes out. He then realises he has to get up as high as possible in the qualifying to make any serious money, so he then goes ballistic for the remainder of qualifying and gets up to 4th.
In the matchplay, Belmo and George are drawn to meet in the semifinals, should they win through that far. Both do so, blowing away their opposition with ease. The crowd can see a huge battle on the horizon between these 2, and it turns out to be the case. Belmo wins this battle - just - and goes on to win the matchplay, cashing $1900. George looks at his cheque for $1750, the results sheet that says he out-averaged everybody on BOTH days (although Belmo's first few games in qualifying are all that cost him this honour), and realises he actually done quite well after all. They both have a beer afterwards, see that they both got 1st and 4th, got a similar amount of money for their efforts, and remark about what an incredible format this is.
What AMF have done with the payout structure this year is reward good bowling on BOTH days, and by doing so some order will be kept in the matchplay seedings. Most, if not all of the big names will end up at the top of the list - that's where they belong, cause that's where the money is.
In the event that you make the cut, Jockey's scenario gives you a flat amount for doing so, thereby placing all the reward on how you bowl on Sunday, not Saturday. This takes us back to the days when pinfall DIDN'T carry forward to the matchplay - WITHOUT the qualifying payout.
Not only that, the sheer lack of incentive to qualify high once you have cut will turn the knockout into a lottery as the big names are scattered through the list. Someone like me (who didn't cut once out of 3 tournaments this year) could get through to the final without having to beat any big names, if they all end up on one side of the draw and knock eachother out, and I'm on the other side of the draw.
Surely we want to be moving forward with our formats, not backwards. If I want to win money in a lottery, I'd rather play Lotto (or whatever equivalent you have in Australia).
My apologies to George and Belmo for using you in the examples above, but I am sure you both appreciate what I am getting at here.
David.