[G50]

This is not a big deal, but one of those little things that to me present interesting choices.

Imagine you are the tour director for a large (PGA) Junior golf league.

Kids sign up for tournaments a month in advance, on line. The fields fill up fairly fast, so not all kids that sign up can play. The rule is "first come first served." This is easy to track b/c the time and date that each kid signs up is recorded and shown as public information.

A bunch of kids sign up. The tee times and pairings are made and emailed out 2 weeks ahead of the tournament. A parent notices that his kid isn't in the tournament. The website shows that the excluded kid signed up earlier than 4 of the other players in the tournament.

The parent calls you. You look into it. It is clear that the excluded kid signed up before the others, and was only excluded because of a manual computer entry error by someone on your staff.

So, that's the dilemma: 2 kids for one spot. One is in the tournament because of an error, the other excluded because of it.

On the one hand, the rules are "first come first served." The tournament is 2 weeks away, and you can correct the error by removing the kid who was included only because of the error, and including the one who was excluded.

On the other hand, you have already sent out the tee times and pairings, and you'd now have to contact the parents of the kid who you put in the tournament, to tell them they were mistakenly put in ahead of a kid who signed up before them. You'd have to tell that parent that even though you sent out an email showing the tee times, and your kid was included, you have to now pull him because of the error.

How would you resolve this?

(I'm curious as to what you think, not because it's a big deal, but because I was surprised at the decision that was made. The answer seems fairly obvious to me, but maybe I'm wrong or biased. Also, I won't say which one was my son to keep it neutral).