Ask Chuck Kennedy

[bravo]

what is wrong with seperate par lables for seperated rated players???

[bazkitcase5]

the link that Chuck posted already has par guidelines for the 4 major skill levels, depending on what skill set you are designing a particular course for

I guess we could come up with par guideline for 1025+ rated players only for tournaments such as worlds and NTs?

[bravo]

on an already built course.
if a par of 54 is considered scratch golf for a 1000 rated golfer then what is the expected score for a 1030 rated golfer?
the expected score aught to be the par for that skill leval.
some times when i play as a 926 golfer i can shoot well below par 54 and have never recorded a 1000 rated round.
so in sercumstances like this is the par to high?
or is the course to easy?
when the par is based on drive and twoputts because it cant be birdied if par is two,
why is it neccessary to allow two puts to achieve par?
i cant wrap my mind around that therory.

[cgkdisc]

Official Par 2s were part of the courses used in the 2001 and 2002 Pro Worlds to get the course par to closely match the SSA. But that experiment bugged several top players and administrators so no official par 2s have been listed (that I'm aware of) since then. It's not hard to find courses with legit par 3s produce scores where the SSA is 46-49. If the scoring average on each hole is 2.5 to 2.7 (or lower) for 1000 rated players, the course SSA is under 50.

[exczar]

So, for big events, why not just show how the players did vs. the Course SSA?

If Joe shot a 48 and the course SSA is 50, then he shot a -2 for the round.

For this circumstance, and not for penalizing a late player, just disregard what the hole pars are after the round is completed. If someone wants to use hole pars to show "Net to Par" scores for real-time scoring, that's fine.

[cgkdisc]

If we're going abstract on Par/SSA, we might as well just refer to the round rating the player shot which might be more meaningful over time. A score of -2 to SSA doesn't tell as much as 1013 for -2 on an SSA 68 course versus 1020 for -2 on a 50 SSA course.

[kellerthedog]

Chuck, I was wondering how one can challenge the ratings given for a particular event. This particular event is the Lemmon drop (az) from last weekend. The second round ratings are grossly low.

There is no way a 75 is only a 1004. Absolutely no way. Last year a 77 was a 1000 with perfect weather. The layout was harder this year with torrential rains making natural tees very challenging and the course plays easier according to the system. Hmmmm

Thanks and I appreciate your response

Ryan

[cgkdisc]

I can't really comment on unofficial ratings because the TD may not have set the courses properly in the scoring upload. See FAQ: http://www.pdga.com/faq/ratings/unof...gs-and-results

[jimimc]

I've had this discussion with Chuck at the Delaware Disc Golf Challenge and I strongly support a Gold Par equaling the SSA. It doesn't stop the 10 down on a really big course, but it does give you a true reading of the difficulty of the course. A Gold Par of 72 that has a SSA of 72 is a real par 72. You don't have to play the course to get an idea of how hard the course is. A par 65 that has an SSA of 60 is very misleading.

I know par doesn't matter. The low score wins etc. The idea of a true par is not to see who wins, it's to standardize scoring. I think a true par is actually needed more in Disc Golf then Ball Golf. With so many different sizes of courses, 200' averages to 400' averages, it would be nice to have a way to compare scores from different courses. A 54 on one course is not a 54 on another course, but an even on a course with a true par is an even no matter what size the course is.

[Lowelife]

Do we as disc golfers see a perfect round as being all pars or all birdies?

Ball golf courses have par set so that you can always achieve a birdie if you hit your ball exactly where you want to. It's human error (or bad bounces) that cause top level pros to get par.

So in my mind, birdie golf is perfect golf. Which would mean -18 through 18 holes should be attainable.

I fail to see why making Par represent perfect golf would give us any more cred in the non-players opinion. If I see that the best golfer in the state shoots 3 up in the biggest tournament of the year I start to think that maybe these guys aren't all that skilled.

(if anything should be changed it's probably what we consider the "green" or a putt. 30' might be selling our top pros a little short.)

[Karl]

Lowelife,

You "hit the nail on the head" when you started mentioning the dg 'green'.

For dg to be analogous to bg (in the way par is set) AND for par to be the "expected score obtained by expert play", our (dg) greens will HAVE to be expanded WAY past 10m. Probably ~30m is a more practical distance.

A lot would be determined by the "density" of obsticles within that 30m green, but if dg par was set by "the number of strokes of expert play it takes to get onto (into) the green plus 2" it would come closer to both "legitamacy" (of NOT having ludicrously low scores) and having par as a harder-to-obtain number.
Example:
A wide-open field where Sandstrom can throw 500'. His drive lands. He is now faced with 100' to the sparse tree line and another 100' past the tree line amongst some other trees. If he can "find a hole" to get his second shot near the basket, he'll putt for birdie. If his approach hits the tree line, he'll be forced to "make a long approach putt" (of 100') and then a drop-in putt. This hole would be a par 4 (birdiable - but you'd better be good!).

Note that 2007 PGA stats had the average touring pro (just not Tiger on Sundays) "make / miss" putt length was 5.48feet. But PGA greens average ~6000sqft (60'x100') so putts CAN be a lot longer than that. DG analogous putts would be ~30' (=s the 5-6'er in bg) and outward to 100' or so.

In summary:

There are MANY ways to think of how to assign par - none right / wrong...just options (via differing opinions).

Karl

[tyson99duke]

Hello Chuck,

Tyson Harton here, TD of the Lake's Edge Open this past weekend. This is our 3rd PDGA event and the first one we have hosted in the summer.

I wanted to check with you to make sure the ratings from the long positions (the 2nd and 4th rounds) will be adjusted, because they seem about 15-20 points low. The ratings from the shorts seemed pretty close.

The last tournament we played at our course prior to this past weekend was from the same layouts, and was held in the early winter months (when trees arent in full bloom). We were hoping the summer tourney ratings would reflect the foilage the players had to navigate, but it seems the opposite. The course no doubtly plays tougher in the summer. The course par from the longs is 66 this past weekend it is unoffically rated 910, while the winter (easier) tourney the same score was rated 923. We played the longs both the 1st and 3rd round this weekend, as well as last Nov. 14th and 15th. I know the ratings are unofficial, but if I wasnt making someone aware of what I believe to be low ratings, I wouldnt be doing my job as the TD.

My question is, will these ratings be adjusted and do you take into consideration foilage when rating a winter vs. summer tourney at the same course?

And so you can comment on the unofficial ratings, I entered everything correctly.

Thanks,
Tyson

[cgkdisc]

Ratings are based on the scores of the players who played the event. Nothing else. The only difference between unofficial and official ratings will be that scores from R1 & R3 will be combined and R2 & R4 will be combined to produce the official ratings so that players will get the same ratings for the same score on the same layout. Discs do not fly as far in the winter (colder temps) as the summer so essentially the course plays longer in the winter despite the foliage. That may be the simple difference of approximately one throw in the SSA if that's how it comes out. Remember, one shot is only about a 2% difference in SSA.

[CB2]

Hey chuck, Do you know why there arent any ratings available for this tournament http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=10729

The tournament was this weekend and just updated.

[cgkdisc]

Yep. The TD was so fast turning in the report that the PDGA office posted the results as Official today. That means we need to wait until the Aug 31st update to see the ratings. That's why some TDs hold off a few days after events before sending the results to the PDGA so players can see unofficial ratings. Not recommending the practice, just saying...

[RhynoBoy]

Chuck,

Whats the deadline for submissions of TD reports that will go on the August 31st ratings update?

Thanks,

Chris

[RhynoBoy]

Originally Posted by RhynoBoy

Chuck,

Whats the deadline for submissions of TD reports that will go on the August 31st ratings update?

Thanks,

Chris

Found it, thanks.

Tuesday August 17, 2010

[krazyeye]

Chuck,

Can you explain how a players rating changes when they are not current?

Thanks
Lance

[cgkdisc]

http://www.pdga.com/faq/ratings/rati...-no-new-events
Also, your round ratings continue to be calculated even when you are not current if the TDs have your PDGA number entered in tournament reports. You can't see the ratings updates, but they are there.

[krazyeye]

Thank you that is how I explained it to a friend almost verbatim.

[phluffhead]

how come the Ratings for the Pros at the Oak Hollow Open are higher then the AMs? they played the same courses but different days. Each round the Pro rating was higher for the score. It couldnt be the weather because we had the same rain the third round

[cgkdisc]

Unofficial Ratings are always based on the group of players playing the courses that round. However, we combine the scores from rounds on the same layout if the weather was similar so everyone will get the same rating for the same score when the official ratings get posted.

[keithjohnson]

You're slacking Chuck.

Should have just linked the FAQ answer.

[keatts]

We are building a number of new courses here in charlotte, nc. I would like to know the mathematical steps required to calculate course SSA. This summer we hosted the Charlotte Amateur Championship using two of our new course, Nevin and Elon. I have the scores and would like to calculate SSA for each course. I know I can just look at the official results, but I would like to know how to do the calculations based on the scores. Thanks.

[cgkdisc]

That process is not directly available. However, if you talk with one of the local members of the Disc Golf Course Designers group such as Stan, Russell, Harold or Jonathon, they have access to the Hole Forecaster used for course design which can estimate SSA and analyze hole scoring spreads by entering hole by hole tournament scores.

[keatts]

will do. thanks.

[JohnLambert]

I just wanted to make sure that a player playing AM2 with a 941 rating is ok in an A tier event because he just passed the 935 rating in May of this year AND he is involved in a series. The TD has already ok'd it, but he asked me to make sure this isn't a problem. Thanks Chuck.

[cgkdisc]

The A-tier must be part of the series AND the exemption for players who rise above a ratings threshold had to be approved by Gentry before the series started. See section 2.2B in Competition Manual: http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/...tionManual.pdf

[TobbeF]

Hi Chuck,
Im a bit curious about the ratings for round 3 of Falkoping open 2010 The weather was a lot worse during the third round compared to rounds 1 and 2 and as a result most players shot several throws worse. However in the official ratings round 3 is rated in the same manner as the previous rounds (same score gives the same rating). It says in the PDGA FAQ

If the SSAs are significantly different, likely due to varying wind conditions, the round ratings will be calculated separately.

Shouldnt the SSAs be significantly different in this event? When I calculate the average round ratings for all players completing all 3 rounds I get 939, 938 and 898. I guess there ought to be a small difference since the average rating of the field differs a bit between rounds due to players DNFing ( if I understand things correctly) but to me this difference seems huge.

Best regards
/Tobbe

[cgkdisc]

Each round SSA is calculated separately. If any round is enough different (over 3.5 throws) from the others, it will be rated separately. Otherwise, the rounds are averaged together. The difference here was 3.0 higher in the third round compared to R1 & R2, under 6% different.