For players planning on participating in any USCA Regional or USCA National Championship in any of the four major forms of croquet in the US this year, there is a prequalification process for the allocation of places in the USCA National Championships. It can be found in Article IV of the Standing Orders that are available in the Members Only section, under forms on the web / membership platform.
Prequalification into a USCA National Championship rewards past performances and distributes regional participation to the extent outlined by preferences before entries are accepted from general membership signup. If venues hosting our USCA National Championship have limitations on participant capacity the available spaces left after prequalification allocations may be limited.
This particularly impacts the USCA GC Nationals this year which has a predetermined capacity of 64 players in two flights of 32. Prequalification into this event from GC Regional results from Florida Region – completed, Western Region (Feb 28- March 3) and Southeast Region (April 21 – 24) occupy preferential prequalification slots.
It has been a long-standing policy that USCA members can participate and play in USCA Regional tournaments (that are not their specific resident region) with the approval of the host Regional Vice President and available capacity at the host venue. The decision to allow out-of-region participation is decided by the host USCA RVP in the best interests of that region’s membership. Non-resident participants can earn prequalification slots from their performances in a region where they do not reside if permitted to participate in that regional.
When a regional tournament is announced there will also be announced a period where residents of that specific region are given preference in the registration process. This will be accomplished by all interested players signing up on the event waitlist to register their interest. (USCA members wishing to play (both residents and non-residents) need to sign up for that event’s waitlist.) The following process will then be followed for allocating places. After the stated time period USCA Members residing in that Region will be taken from the waitlist on a first-come (date signed up) basis and allocated places into the event to the extent capacity is available. After the stated period available capacity will be filled from the list with Regional VP approval and coordination of the Tournament Director.
The Western Region has a limited capacity of 32 players. USCA Members residing in the Western Region will have priority for entry until January 30th. (Three days from now!!)
The Southeast GC Regional when registration is announced will have a similar process.
This process is in place to balance the privilege of playing and contesting the national championships between past top player performances, allowing representation across all six USCA Regions and their regional membership, encouraging active participation at the regional level and reward for regional performance, and the interests of the USCA membership at large.