Chuck, according to the
Ratings Challenges article recently posted on the website, the maximum SSA which is acceptable for the rating system is now apparently 71.
The article does a very good job of explaining why there is a minimum SSA cutoff of 41.4 to be included in the ratings system. The problem is that a course can be so short that the scores may not differentiate very well between expert and average players. Intuitively, this always made sense as average players often shoot
very well on very short courses. A perfect example is that a hack like me once shot a 44, set the course record, and beat a lot of talented local competition on a short & very wooded course. Since then I've never even come close to -10 on any other course anywhere.
What is the underlying theory and principle behind the maximum cutoff, however? A high SSA course obviously separates expert and average players well, so that can't be the issue. And surely when the rating system was first developed, wasn't data from high SSA courses tested to validate the rating system? What new issue has come up since then to now invalidate data in the range?