Will Suggs Make It?

The Folgers pro's chances of making the Forrest Wood Cup

I started working at FLW Outdoors in 2007. The second tournament I ever attended that year was the Forrest Wood Cup held at Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Ark. To this day, I have never experienced a more exciting tournament. For that, I say thank you, Scott Suggs.

Suggs won that event and became the first bass fishing instant millionaire when Irwin Jacobs handed him a check for $1 million. But it was the way he did it that made it memorable.

On the water, a convoy of boats followed him everywhere he went. He enlisted the help of several buddies to serve as security when he fished spots where he felt too much boat pressure would hurt the fishing. He caught bass that, it seemed, no other competitor had even sniffed in practice. And at weigh-ins, he played to the crowd like no other pro I’ve seen. He cried. He screamed. He fist pumped. He called the hogs. Woo Pig Sooie! He even had the crowd calling hogs. It was like it was his tournament and the rest of us were just there to witness.

It’s now 2011. The Forrest Wood Cup is returning to Hot Springs and Lake Ouachita. And I fear that there will be no hog calling.

After three Walmart FLW Tour Majors, Suggs sits in 61st place in the standings. He didn’t qualify for the Forrest Wood Cup early through the 2010 FLW Series or EverStart Series. He has to qualify through the Majors, but the cut-off is 30th place.

I did some calculations today to see what his chances are of making the Forrest Wood Cup. As of now, there are eight pros in the top 30 that are qualified via other tournament circuits. That extends the cut-off to 38th place. Koby Kreiger is in 36th place, and he is already qualified. So that means that if the cut-off were today, the top 39 pros in the standings would go to the Forrest Wood Cup.

Justin Kerr is the 39th-place pro with 443 points. That’s an average of 147.67 points per event. Multiply that by five, and you get about 738 points. That’s a solid estimate of what the pro that finishes in 39th place will have at the end of the season, if the average points per event stays the same, the cut-off stays at 39th place and we finish with only five events (no word yet on if the recently cancelled Table Rock event with be rescheduled). I checked the 2010 standings, when there were also only five events, and the 39th-place pro finished with 744 points – only six points off my estimate. So these numbers should get us pretty close.

Now, Suggs currently has 399 points. In the last two events, if these numbers hold up, he needs to make up 339 points, or 169.5 points per event, to get into 39th place. Let’s just say he needs to earn 170 points per event to be on the cusp of qualifying.

So what does that mean? The point system is based off of the winning pro receiving 200 points, with one less point going to each subsequent finisher on down the list. To figure up someone’s points after an event, subtract where he finished from 201. Working in reverse, to figure out what place Suggs needs to finish to earn 170 points in each event, we just subtract 170 from 201.

The results: He needs an average finish of 31st place in each of the next two events to move into what I project to be 39th place and the Forrest Wood Cup cut-off.

Now, a lot can happen in these last two events. If some of the double-qualified anglers fall out of the top 30, the cut-off point will move higher up the standings. If more double qualifiers move in, the cut-off place will fall.

If the top 39 anglers all finish high in the standings in the last two events, the necessary points-per-tournament average needed to get into the Forrest Wood Cup will increase, making it harder for Suggs to catch up. Vice versa if they all flop.

So what can Suggs do to help his cause? The easiest answer is to win one of them and come close in the other. He could top 10 each event. At the least, he needs to finish in the top 20. If he finished 20th in each of the next two events, he’d end up with 761 points. That should put him somewhere around 31st place if this season’s numbers hold up (although in 2010, that would have only put him in 38th place).

When the tour rolls into Louisiana for the Red River at the end of May, it’s do-or-die time for Suggs. I’m sure he knows it. He’s probably calculated these numbers just as I did. Luckily, the Red River is an unpredictable place. It’s anyone’s game. I usually don’t actively root for anyone to do well at an event since an unbiased stance is always the best for a journalist. But I have to admit that I’ll be rooting for Suggs. A Forrest Wood Cup in Arkansas just wouldn’t be the same without him leading the hog calling.