Ask Chuck Kennedy

[Patrick P]

As I see on the Tour Event Report, the PDGA fee, greens fees, series and regional fees can be deducted to calculate Net Entry Fees. Is it permittable for a TD to reduce Payout by any of the following fees/costs:

a. sanctioning fee
b. insurance
c. event management fee
d. am player package
e. park permits
f. any other fees (lunch)

I'm trying to clarify when payout of 85%, 100%, or 110% is required, what that percentage is calculated against. Is it simply Gross Entry Fees - permittable fees + plus added cash = payout?

[cgkdisc]

No: a, b, c, e
Yes: d counts as Am payout, not for Pros
f: includes ace, lunch, greens fees, series fees, charitable contributions, late fees, course development & admin fees.
You could apply the same admin fee, say $4, to every entry which could technically be used cover shelter or other park fees that are fixed rather than per player.

I'll be proposing that event management fees be deductible for 2012 where the TD gets credit for the same amount as the PDGA. In other words, at a B-tier, the event mangement fee would be $3 per player, at a C-tier $2 per player. The TD gets to do what they want with the fee as they do now. The difference is the amount reduces the base entry fee from which payout percentages are calculated unlike the existing approach to management fees. If the TD doesn't want to keep it and donates it to the pro purse, the TD would get credit as a sponsor.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

Shaq can lean closer to the basket or straddle farther outside trees from the same lie. Is that fair? It is from the standpoint we're both taking a stance from the same location but our size changes our distance and angles to the pin. Likewise, I can fit in smaller spaces including placing my foot between the disc and tree if that's the case. You seem to think that it's an advantage moving behind a solid object. If I have my choice, I would usually prefer to throw from in front rather than behind in most cases I've encountered, especially since your arm movement might be constrained.

(added red above to reply to those points).

My concern is this: it seems that what you say is the common interpretation of 803.04.E results in different players playing different lies, by rule - not by choice, following the exact same shot depending on the physical attributes of the players.

In my opinion it would be a more fair rule applied equally to everybody if the essence of the rule was: if your marker is within 30cm of a solid obstacle on the line of play you may optionally play from immediately behind the solid obstacle.

[Patrick P]

Originally Posted by ERicJ;1461065.

In my opinion it would be a more fair rule applied equally to everybody if the essence of the rule was: if your marker is within 30cm of a solid obstacle on the line of play you may optionally play from immediately behind the solid obstacle.

You have 30cm of room to put your foot/heel/hand sideways behind your lie.
We all come in different sizes and that's going to give some players a benefit in certain situations over another. A low ceiling shot maybe great for a shorter guy while a tall player in a bush can stretch out further.

[cgkdisc]

In my opinion it would be a more fair rule applied equally to everybody if the essence of the rule was: if your marker is within 30cm of a solid obstacle on the line of play you may optionally play from immediately behind the solid obstacle.

Suggest it to the RC. It's not unreasonable. Although I would say the default approach in the rules is to require players to play from where it lies as much as possible unless it's not feasible. And thus the current rule.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by Patrick P

[...]We all come in different sizes and that's going to give some players a benefit in certain situations over another. A low ceiling shot maybe great for a shorter guy while a tall player in a bush can stretch out further.

The difference between the examples you gave and the interpretation posted here for 803.04.E is that in your examples both players are playing from the same lie - by rule. In 803.04.E they might be playing a different lie, potentially many feet apart, from the exact same shot - by rule.

It'd be like saying in your bush example that one player has to climb into the bush while another has to play from behind the bush.

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

Suggest it to the RC.

Already done.

[cgkdisc]

That's still a red herring because there are other instances where two players will get different lies from essentially the same throw based on what the group or spotters see. So it's not like it doesn't happen in other areas of the game. The biggest issue I see with the solid object rule is you don't place a mini down behind the solid object so everyone can actually see your lie behind the object.

[Caloch]

Is it August 30th yet?

[cgkdisc]

The key is it's not August 31st yet...

[Caloch]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

The key is it's not August 31st yet...

You're a victim of your own success here Chuck, because frequently they are posted the day before!

[Patrick P]

SSA is calculated for each round regardless if all three rounds of an event are played on the same layout, correct?

[cgkdisc]

You're a victim of your own success here Chuck, because frequently they are posted the day before!

I'm a victim alright since I got to see my pending 17 point drop before they get posted...

[cgkdisc]

Patrick P - SSA is calculated for each round regardless if all three rounds of an event are played on the same layout, correct?

Yes, in the data file. but they are compared and unless one falls way out of line with the others, probably due to high wind, they'll all be combined so there will only be one SSA for that layout and everyone will get the same rating for the same score regardless what round it was thrown on that layout.

[Patrick P]

This past weekend played 3rds at the Sun Valley Open in La Mesa (San Diego, CA), par 55.
Day 1 tee-off 11:00am, high afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,010 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 8:15am, calm morning, 51 is a 1,000 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 2:00pm, late mild afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,005 rated round

All rounds played from same tee-pads and baskets. I see that your saying that if there is a high discrepancy in the scores, then the SSA for each round will be calculated seperately.

I understand that 5 propagators are used to come up with the SSA. Are the propagators selected randomly or is there a formula that can be provided for knowing who the propagators are?

[cgkdisc]

All players with ratings over 799 based on at least 8 rounds are propagators and all are used, not just 5.

[Patrick P]

So let's say the average of these propagators is 930. How does that calculate the SSA?

[rhett]

Originally Posted by Patrick P

This past weekend played 3rds at the Sun Valley Open in La Mesa (San Diego, CA), par 55.
Day 1 tee-off 11:00am, high afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,010 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 8:15am, calm morning, 51 is a 1,000 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 2:00pm, late mild afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,005 rated round

I've been jobbed out of 5 unofficial ratings points!!! I shot my 51 during my second round, which for my flight was around 2:30 PM on Saturday, but appears to lumped with you 8:00 AM no-wind second round people.

The official ratings typically end up lower than the unofficial, so I don't expect the quadruple digits to stand after it's all said and done. Would be nice, though.

[juanbond]

Originally Posted by Patrick P

So let's say the average of these propagators is 930. How does that calculate the SSA?

Obviously it depends on what scores those propagators posted.

[Patrick P]

Originally Posted by rhett

I've been jobbed out of 5 unofficial ratings points!!! I shot my 51 during my second round, which for my flight was around 2:30 PM on Saturday, but appears to lumped with you 8:00 AM no-wind second round people.

The official ratings typically end up lower than the unofficial, so I don't expect the quadruple digits to stand after it's all said and done. Would be nice, though.

This certainly brings up a topic for discussion. When the scores were first uploaded, a 51 was listed as such:

Originally Posted by Patrick P

For Pro/MA1 flight<<<----inserted
Day 1 tee-off 11:00am, high afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,010 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 8:15am, calm morning, 51 is a 1,000 rated round
Day 2 tee-off 2:00pm, late mild afternoon winds, 51 is a 1,005 rated round

It appears there has been some changes, and now the following is shown for all flights:

Round 1 a 51 is a 1,011 rated round
Round 2 a 51 is a 1,003 rated round
Round 3 a 51 is a 1,002 rated round

There were two flights, Pros/MA1 (Flight 1), and all others (Flight 2).

On Saturday Pros/MA1 played round 1 from 11-2pm, during high windy conditions, while all others played round 1 from 8-11am, low windy conditions. All others played round 2 on Saturday 2-5pm, mild windy conditions. Sunday the flights played opposite.

What Rhett is saying is correct, his entire flight was indeed lumped together with the other flight, that doesn't seem right.

This is how it should be:
Flight 1 rd1 = Flight 2 rd3
Flight 1 rd2 = Flight 2 rd1
Flight 1 rd3 = Flight 2 rd2

I hope this is making sense. At the end of the day, I think since all rounds were played on the same layout, then maybe grouping them all together and averaging them, a 51 would hold the same for all rounds and all flights? Don't get me wrong, I think shooting a 51 in high windy conditions certainly deserves a higher rating than a 51 in the morning with low windy conditions.

Interested to hear other opinions and thoughts.
1) Will the ratings change again?
2) Should the round ratings coincide with the information in bold above?
3) How is the SSA calculated when there are two flights playing at different times in different conditions?
4) Shouldn't the SSA be calculated for each flight and each round?
5) Can I pay someone to keep my first 1,000 rated round to stand as official?

[cgkdisc]

A 2-shot difference in SSA is statistically normal by the same pool of players playing the same layout under the same conditions. Increasing wind can increase the SSA up to 5 shots. If the amount of wind increases the SSA less than 2 shots, it can be indistinguishable from normal variance so those round ratings are not kept separate. The numbers produced in your above example fall below that threshold and will be combined because it's statistically unclear whether the variance was normal or due to wind even though you observed the wind differences.

In other words, the ratings process is automated regardless of any weather observations by the TD. The SSAs are actually calculated separately by round on each layout. If the SSA difference is big enough on the same layout, the numbers will be kept separate. If not, they are combined. We cannot rely on anecdotal weather observations of the TD to determine the proper way to do the calculations because even perfect observations would not necessarily indicate what to do. The actual calculations are the bottom line to prove whether the weather was a significant factor between rounds.

For example, a 25mph wind from the east may not have the same effect as a 25mph wind from the west depending on the specific hole designs on the course. Obvious example might be a hole with a big water (or OB) carry where a 25mph wind from one direction might raise the scoring average by 0.5 throw compared to another direction.

Tee time rounds are problematic when the weather changes over the day, especially when there's a very large division like at USDCG. For the Memorial and Gentlemans, we typically calculate ratings for the larger divisions separately to see if there was a difference. If the differences are high enough, we will rate them separately. If not, then everyone is combined for the whole day. As a side note, that's why we recommend that the division schedule be switched up so the same division isn't always playing last or first in the day to somewhat average out common wind increases and decreases in a day for that climate.

But there's really no easy way to break up the calculations for a giant division like the USDGC unless we had the TD provide the tee time groupings for each round. Even then, there's a lot of overlap no matter where you break up the field into two groups by time where some people in one group would have played their last 4 holes with wind and some played 6 and some played 8, etc. I would be fine not doing ratings for some tee time rounds but you know how popular that would be. So we do what we can when we can to break out tee time info.

[Patrick P]

Let me see if I can put this another way.

SSA is calculated for each round. When you have two flights that play their first round at different times or even different days, will the SSA be calculated pooling all players (eligible to be used as propagators) from both flights together for that one round?

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

A 2-shot difference in SSA is statistically normal by the same pool of players playing the same layout under the same conditions.

What do you mean when you say a 2-shot difference? I'm a little confused. Are you saying that the SSA for say round 1 is a 53 and round 2 is a 51, is that what you mean by a 2-shot difference?

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

The SSAs are actually calculated separately by round on each layout. If the SSA difference is big enough on the same layout, the numbers will be kept separate. If not, they are combined.

It appears that the SSA is calculated separately for now. It seems the SSA is quite close for all three rounds. So does that mean when the event results are official will we see one SSA for all three rounds?

Par is 55.
Round 1 a 52 is a 1,001 rated round
Round 2 a 51 is a 1,003 rated round
Round 3 a 51 is a 1,002 rated round

Lastly, I know that SSA event page has been removed, as this has been discussed in previous posts. How again do I find the SSA for the 2010 Sun Valley Open?

[Ian_Liddell]

Hey Chuck, the Intermediates are submitted playing the same tees as Advanced, therefore the ratings are quite off. Can you fix this or do you need the TD to send another report?

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/72634

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

A 2-shot difference in SSA is statistically normal by the same pool of players playing the same layout under the same conditions. [...] If the amount of wind increases the SSA less than 2 shots, it can be indistinguishable from normal variance so those round ratings are not kept separate.

In other words, the ratings process is automated regardless of any weather observations by the TD. The SSAs are actually calculated separately by round on each layout. If the SSA difference is big enough on the same layout, the numbers will be kept separate. If not, they are combined. We cannot rely on anecdotal weather observations of the TD to determine the proper way to do the calculations because even perfect observations would not necessarily indicate what to do. The actual calculations are the bottom line to prove whether the weather was a significant factor between rounds.

2011 AM Worlds: http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/16465/Open

Junior pool played Churchville twice. First time in Round 4 in perfect conditions. Second time in Round 6 in wind and rain, the second half of the round in pouring rain. Anecdotally, there's no way those rounds should have been combined for ratings (and yet that is what's on the PDGA webpage right now).

Can you divulge what the SSAs were for Round 4 and Round 6 separately?

A 52 in Round 6 was far more impressive than a 52 in Round 4, yet both are rated 1004.

[cgkdisc]

I don't get the individual round stats. Roger has them in the database. The process to combine SSAs is automated. So if the rounds got combined, then the SSA difference fell below the threshold for keeping them separate. Overall it doesn't matter because the players end up with the same total rating for both rounds whether round scores are combined or kept separate.

[cgkdisc]

Ian Liddell - Hey Chuck, the Intermediates are submitted playing the same tees as Advanced, therefore the ratings are quite off. Can you fix this or do you need the TD to send another report?

The PDGA doesn't even have a report. Those are unofficial results that the TD controls for proper course assignments. Contact TD to correct them or just wait for official results. Usually the TD gets the course assignments correct on the official report to the PDGA. And some TDs don't know how to do course assignments for unofficial results they post.

[JenniferB]

Originally Posted by Patrick P

How again do I find the SSA for the 2010 Sun Valley Open?

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/16227/Open A 52 was a 1000 rated round on all three rounds, so the SSA is a 52.

How did I find the tournament page? Under PDGA TOUR link at the top, I clicked event schedule. From that page, I clicked advanced search. On the advanced search page, I entered the tournament name in the name field and changed the "filter by date" start date to before 2010. Then I scrolled down to the bottom and clicked search.

Note that the name filter is very primitive. Simply entering "sun valley" will return the "sun valley open 2011", but not the "2010 sun valley open". The part of the name entered must exactly match the first part of the tournament name. If you know the state and/or approximate tournament date, you may find it more effective to filter by state and/or date range.

[b dale]

I've seen some sign that ratings have been updated, but when I do my state search, nobody has changed. Will this take a while?

A tournament result page which had no round ratings (pending updates) now has round ratings and updated player ratings--but those same players found in the state search have not had their ratings updated.

I've been working on local player ratings and I want to see how those numbers compare to current PDGA player ratings.

[cgkdisc]

What event are you talking about?

[b dale]

After some more poking, my question is why would this tourney http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/73739/Open
be included (July 30th) but not this one
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/69427 (July 17th)

Those were apparently the only two events folks in my parts played between updates.

Thanks

[cgkdisc]

An event gets included because the TD sends the official event report to the PDGA before the ratings update deadline, not just because it's on the calendar. The July 17th event shows the results are "Unofficial" meaning the report has not been submitted to the PDGA yet.