Ask Chuck Kennedy

[hitec100]

You concede that the top women on average will be 40-70 points below the top men on average.

The difference is that you see it as unfair that their comparative rating is less than a player that will beat them in heads up play.

Actually, I see it as unfair that their competitive rating includes those who aren't their competitors. Women aren't competing with men, they're competing with each other. Even in the last USDGC, we looked and saw where the first women was on the list and said to ourselves, well, she won among the women. We just know that's what is fair to say.

I see it as unfair to give them a rating equal to or above a player that will beat them in heads up play.

Yes, that would be true, if you accept that heads-up play between men and women is fair. I don't.

What happens if they play in an unrestricted division like Int or MM1. Do they get a higher rating for shooting the same score as the players they were directly competing against ?

What I'm saying is that mathematically as well as physically, women are playing a different course than men.

How do you account for the fact that women shoot on average 75 rating points less than men? The math says that for women, the course is 75 points harder. If men showed up at a course one day, and on the next scored 75 points lower, we would say it was a different course that day -- windy, rainy, overgrown trees.

It's the same for women. They shoot 75 points lower because for them, the course is different than it is for men, on the same day, and with the same weather. It's different for them. Truly. That's why I say it is unfair to rate them as if that's not true.

So comparing women's ratings to men's ratings, to me, is irrelevant -- according to Chuck, the math would say the woman would be rated about 75 points higher with respect to her rating system than a man would be with respect to his rating system. Which I think would be fair, because that day she played a course whose conditions for her were 75 points harder than they were for the man.