We are asked, every season, to make room for one more team. The answer is no, and the answer will remain no, and we would like to explain why — because the refusal is not stubbornness. It is the single most important decision we have made about the Invitational.
Twenty-four teams is what the course can hold for a true shotgun start without stacking groups or losing the day to the light. It is also, not by accident, small enough that a place in the field is worth wanting. A tournament anyone can enter is a fundraiser. A tournament you have to earn your way into is a championship.
Scarcity is not a marketing tactic here. It is a competitive one.
When the field fills — and it fills — the rest go onto the list, in order, and they wait. Teams withdraw; partnerships dissolve over the winter; a place opens, and the next pair in line gets the call they have been waiting for. We have watched grown adults celebrate a withdrawal that was not their own. That is the feeling we are protecting. The day we expand the field to make everyone happy is the day the Invitational stops being the Invitational.
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