Ask Chuck Kennedy

[20460chase]

Originally Posted by JohnLambert

I wonder what percentage of members think that SC is a good idea.

If they are smart members, alot, if not all of them. Ive been on board since it was announced, and Im planning on turning the QCs into a Super Class destination. Its taken a little longer than planned, but Ive already hooked about 20-30 golfers on it and am running an event in 2 weeks. Im planning on running several more tourneys for this next year, as it really doesnt conflict with other events. Our turnouts will be smaller for awhile, but I feel it wont be for long.

If you havent tried it out, its really your loss. It makes easier-to-play courses more difficult, and more people can compete on a level field. It is the answer to the past 3-5 years of disc tech advancement which is making alot of courses obsoulete.

It will also make you a better small disc player, as it forces you to play smart and focus. Dont knock it till you try it, and dont be suprised if you feel like I do after.

[JohnLambert]

Originally Posted by 20460chase

Dont knock it till you try it, and dont be suprised if you feel like I do after.

You're right, I haven't tried it, and I may like it. I also haven't tried playing tackle football with a leather helmet.

[exczar]

Yeah, c'mon. What fun is "aerodynamic" when you have "ballistic"?

[rhett]

Chuck, do you have access to the PDGA results database? I'd like to see a data pull of the ratings for all competitors for the year in Open, Pro Master, Pro Grand, and Advanced. My only option is a butt-load of copy-n-pastes from the website, like 4 times the number of events, and that ain't gonna happen.

I'm not looking for names, just something like
MPO
1023
1022
985
.
.
.
978

MPM
1020
990
993
985
.
.
.


Is it possible for a regular ole member in good standing to get that info? TIA.

[cgkdisc]

I don't have access to the database. Gentry is the only one who could pull that for you at: dgentry@pdga.com

[Breeze]

I am a 959 rated player. #38608 This is my first year as a PDGA member. When I play out of town at courses I've never played I play in the advanced division. Locally I play open.

Question: I took cash at a local event as a pro player in a PDGA event. A few friends and I are looking at going out of town to Flying Eye Open - Am "A" tier Athens, GA. I've never played in Athens and would like to make the trip.

I've been told 2 different things.

1. I can never play in a Amature divison again since I took cash.
2. As long as my rating is under a 970 I can play as a AM.

Its not a really big deal to me. I enjoy playing open, but before I drop $50+ to sign-up for it I need to know if I am aloud to. I'm no bagger, just want to have a disc golf weekend with some friends.

-Chris

[cgkdisc]

You cannot play in an Amateur Major like Worlds or Am Nats. However, you may enter Advanced in any other sanctioned event if your rating is lower than 970. So, go ahead and enter Am in the Flying Eye if you want. It's a great course and should be fun.

[geo]

Hey Chuck, is there any reason we can't use the last 28-32 rounds, no matter how old, for our player rating? I think 10-14 rounds are to small of a sample to really show what a players capabilities are( that's only 3 tourneys). Take my rating for example. The last tourney I played I was injured but finished the event, a National tour, which is double weighted. It was miserable but I've never not finished a tourney. It had a major impact on my rating, pushing out some other great 1000+ round ratings off my history of used rounds, and really knocked down my rating. I had that happen in 07 as well where I'd worked up to 985 and then a bad tourney pushed out some good rated rounds and it dropped 15 points. Then I worked up to 978 and the Masters Cup knocked it down 26 points! Even if you add up my last 10 rounds(one isn't used), I show my rating should be 958, not 952. I know it's just ratings but...
Besides a lot more work, which computers should be doing, what's the argument against using more rounds for ratings? People's golf games go thru ebb and flows and the last three tourneys aren't a whole picture of a players game.
Thanks for your time in advance

[cgkdisc]

The disc golf season is essentially a 12 month cycle as it is in most sports. Player stats in most sports are tracked for each season and also long term. In fact, few sports go back into the prior season to get 12 months of data like we do with current ratings. There's always going to be a balance between how recent data should be to be included in stats versus how many data points at minimum need to be included for reasonable accuracy. That's why we do go back up to 24 months if a player has fewer than 8 rated rounds in their most recent year.

Using your most recent year of activity has a closer connection to your current performance than a longer time period. Remember that the practical reason for PDGA ratings is to reduce sandbagging primarily for amateurs and get players playing in the proper division. It's important to keep ratings based on more current info so fast improving players "graduate" quickly and those trapped in a higher division might be able to regroup in a lower division. That's why doubling the most recent rounds was added a few years ago.

Since round ratings are available for all members, they are free to calculate what they feel is a rating closer to their performance using any other formula they wish in the way you are suggesting better reflects your own performance.

[jmonny]

I feel your pain, look what happened to Juliana, 960 to 916 due to 1 or 2 poor events. Is that accurate, no but say someone took 2 years off for some reason, would it be fair to include their old ratings if their game had truly declined. The current rating system does give a better "right now" rating, and I think makes us create more fluctuations which keeps it interesting.

[ChrisWoj]

I disagree, Jmonny - the current ratings systemis not a great "right now" system. It distinctly lags behind. My own rating is a great example: I am not a 984 rated player right now. Due to serious consistency issues I'm probably, since the start of July, maybe a 970 rated player. Although I can (and do) still play above the 984 level, I also am frequently playing below it (evidenced by say... the Brent Hambrick which is in my profile - 880 and 1025 or so or the HollyWoods Open this past weekend with a 1024 and a 905 or so).

The system has a serious lag issue that is really going to be difficult to solve. I'm sure Chuck would agree. It isn't a terrible thing (I enjoy being rated above my game right now ha), and it isn't an issue that kills the system but it is something that could use some tweaking somewhere. However, the reality is that it will probably require more than tweaking to solve: in order to eliminate lag you need up to the week statistics, and with the way tournaments are reported and the amount of work that would need to be done constantly the PDGA couldn't possibly pull it off.

But, I digress. The rating system is great, about as good as we can do right now: but it definitely isn't a great "right now" system.

[sunrisensunrise]

Any way of knowing why the Advanced scores don't appear anymore from this tournament. The Advanced players played during the Pro flight but don't show up on the official Pro results or Unofficial Am results.
http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=9496
http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=9076

[cgkdisc]

Contact tourmgr@pdga.com regarding the Advanced scores not showing up.

[krupicka]

At a recent tourney, MA3/MA4 played the white course first round and MA2 played the white course the second round, the SSA from the unofficial results are 42.65 and 41.18 respectively. Two questions: a) Will these be combined, and b) can they be used even with the SSA being so low?

[cgkdisc]

41.4 is the minimum SSA that we've judged acceptable over the years. We would normally average those two rounds together anyway to do the ratings which would bring the SSA above the minimum.

[bazkitcase5]

I'm sure this has been discussed sometime in the past, but I haven't been around long enough to hear the arguments.

Why do we not implement a sliding scale of sorts to the ratings, to help prevent the lag mentioned by Chris. This would be especially useful for touring players and those who play a LOT of rounds in a 12 month period. Fast improving players who play a lot of tournaments in a 12 month span, will have low rated rounds as part of their rating, that were played a long time ago (in comparison to their current skill level). Their rating does not reflect their true skill level because of these rounds that are over 6 months old, but less than 12 months old.

Take myself as a prime example. My current rating is based off 62 rounds. However, my most recent 33 rounds are considerably better than the other 29 rounds. My rating can not catch up to my current skill level until I push those 29 lower rounds off my rating. If I continue improving like I want to, then by the time that happens, it will be time for 33 rounds to be pushed off because they would then be bringing my new and improved rating down. Hence the lag, which is even more noticeable to these fast improving young guns that are appearing.

A sliding scale limited to 30-40 rounds of data would be sufficient to get accurate ratings and keep up with a player's current skill level. If a player has not played enough rounds, then nothing changes and continue using data from the 12 month span.

[sandalbagger]

Do ratings really matter? Do I think the PDGA should spend money on them? NO. It's just a number. Your either good or your not.

[cgkdisc]

It's a reasonable request to consider. The main reason for the 12-month period for ratings is that most sports have a 12-month cycle for their stats, especially golf which even goes two years for their world rankings. Most stats experts would prefer at least 100 data points for accuracy. There are fewer than 10 players with over 100 rounds in a year. Now, if we only were to use your most recent 40 rounds (or 12 months whichever is smaller), then there are around 600 players with that many in a year. However, that's still less than 5% of the membership.

I'll mention it to the others on the ratings team. From a practical standpoint, it doesn't really matter too much if ratings for some touring players have a little lag in them since ratings are not used to determine divisions at that level. By yearend, you would want the full calendar year included in the ratings so that might be confusing to sometimes include less than a year and at yearend the whole year.

[bazkitcase5]

ratings DO matter for players trying to get sponsored - 10-20 ratings points can prove valuable if your improving quickly

[cgkdisc]

While we understand that manufacturers use ratings as one criteria for sponsorship, their requirements are not under the control of the PDGA nor should they be. If anything, keeping the ratings process stable as it has been, and not changing it unless needed, becomes more important because they are used by others for purposes beyond their intent for PDGA division assignments.

[bruce_brakel]

Originally Posted by bazkitcase5

ratings DO matter for players trying to get sponsored - 10-20 ratings points can prove valuable if your improving quickly

Have you considered that if the PDGA made the ratings system hotter, based on more current rounds, that it would be of less use to those who make decisions about who to sponsor?

If a sponsor is going to think about sponsoring someone when they reach 1000, reaching 1000 currently means they've been consistently playing at that level for a couple of years. That might mean more to a sponsor than someone reaching 1000 because they had a couple of hot tournaments.

I know that some of the sponsors are looking for that consistency in the players they sponsor. They may use the current ratings as a tool because the current formula reflects what they are looking for.

[bazkitcase5]

your both make good points, but my comment was mostly to the guy person who asked if ratings really matter and the answer is yes

[flynvegas]

Chuck,
Do you know what year the PDGA began the Hall of Fame, and is there a location that all the HOF discs can be seen?

Thx

[cgkdisc]

The first group of players were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993. Here's the HOF website: http://www.discgolfhalloffame.org/dghof-members.html

The website doesn't have photos yet and I'm not sure there are photos online anywhere. Contact Speedy at: speedyinga at aol.com He would have the original artwork and might be able to supply PDF files of the disc artwork and also indicate where you could buy the discs. I'm pretty sure he has stock from recent years available.

[atreau3]

Hey Chuck!

Is there a place to view the current Am points results? I've looked around to no avail.

Thanks!

Erick

[cgkdisc]

The Statistics option under the PDGA Tour menu

http://www.pdga.com/tour-stats

Scroll to the bottom that page and make your selections

[keithjohnson]

Chuck,

The link in your announcement post doesn't link to what I think you want it to link to.

Keith

[patpitts]

Chuck - Quick question here. I played around 11 rounds last year and 3 this year that will be included in the next ratings update. Will you just add the three to my last years rounds or will all of last years round drop off, leaving only the 3 that I have played last month?

Thanks Pat

[cgkdisc]

http://www.pdga.com/faq/ratings/how-...ing-calculated

[ERicJ]

Chuck,

On the PDGA posted tournament (schedule)/results why are players' personal ratings not locked to the value they were at the time the event was held?

It's confusing and misleading to go back to my first tournament as a PDGA member when I was playing 820 golf in MA3 and see my current 930 rating next to my name.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=7530&include_ratings=1#Recreational