There is a romance to the idea that you simply sign up and play. It is not how the best events work, and it is not how ours works. A place in the Invitational field is earned, and the earning begins long before July.
The Invitational is a two-man bramble, which means the unit that qualifies is not a player but a partnership. We ask teams to have played together — here or anywhere — before they apply, because the format punishes strangers. A bramble rewards two people who know which of them to lean on when the lake is in play. You cannot fake that on the morning of.
We review every application by hand. We look at handicaps, at history, at whether a partnership has the game to enjoy the course rather than be beaten down by it. We are not looking only for low numbers; a pair of honest fourteens who play their flight with spirit is worth more to the day than a ringer who treats the field as beneath him.
We are building a championship, not a handicap loophole. We select for that.
Those who make the field receive a single line of confirmation and a tee assignment. Those who do not are told plainly, and told to try again. Most do. That, too, is the point.
