Ask Chuck Kennedy

[b dale]

Many thanks.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

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.

"Doesn't matter" depends on what you're looking for....

If all you're concerned with is a single rating number to tag onto a player at the end of the month, then yeah it doesn't matter.

But often players are interested in looking at a rating for a particular round they played. E.g. Kaj Larsson shot 52 both rounds and the one in the pouring rain should have been higher than the one in good conditions. Or... Steven Jacobs tore up the first round with a 46 and got a 1062 rating out of it probably because he benefited from being combined with scores from the rainy conditions that made the course look tougher than it was on the nice day that 46 was thrown.

PDGA ratings are touted as one of the benefits of membership, and definitely one of the benefits of sanctioned play. It's disappointing when some of that benefit is obscured.

[cgkdisc]

It's not obscured when the precision of the process doesn't provide the precision you might like to see. If the rounds are combined, it means the values done separately are statistically the same meaning we don't have the ability to tell which number is more accurate. There is no absolute measuring stick out there as a reference to check validity so we have to rely on using as many data points as possible to get the precision we do have. Averaging the two rounds gets closer to whatever the "true" number might be versus using either one separately despite the fact you anecdotally observed different playing conditions.

[ishkatbible]

can you look into this tournament... http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/65226/Open

while i appreciate seeing a 1020 next to my name i don't think it's correct. my pool (intermediate and some others) played our round 1 the same course as the pro round 2 but we played a couple shorter tees.

all advanced and higher played long tees and intermediate and lower played shorter tees on some holes. and just to confuse things even more, i think pool a was open men, masters men and advanced men. i think everyone else was in b-pool (advanced women, advanced masters men and so on) although the seperate tees were played. i don't remember what pool open women were in.

i talked to the td and he said he would look into it (and i know him, he will do it, not a concern there), but i was wondering if you can look at it as well, maybe help it along.

[cgkdisc]

I looked at the TD report and it shows everyone playing the same tees on each course even though different rounds. The TD needs to add some additional shorter tee layouts to the grid on the Event Info page of the TD report for which divisions played those shorter layouts.

[ishkatbible]

thanks

[cdaigle]

Im currently a 933 rated player and my rating didn't move in the latest update. Why was a 870 rated round not excluded from my new rating update. All of my other rounds were 960 and higher that tournament. Calling BS, especially with how long Ive been playing and contributing to disc golf everywhere Ive lived....thanks a lot chuck...

[cgkdisc]

Sorry but your rating is correct based on the same automated calculations we've used for 15,000 other members who were updated. It just happened to come out as 933 again and the 870 wasn't low enough to drop. If years playing and disc golf contributions were actually included in the ratings calculation, I expect there would be many hundreds more players with 1000 plus ratings.

[cdaigle]

Cool..thanks man, I just dont understand how it wasn't low enough...what is the criteria for that? I notice many friends who have closer rounds dropped than that...

[JenniferB]

Originally Posted by cdaigle

Cool..thanks man, I just dont understand how it wasn't low enough...what is the criteria for that? I notice many friends who have closer rounds dropped than that...

It's because those lower rounds from last year are making the standard deviation high enough to pull all those rounds in. A player with one low round can have that round dropped, but if a couple more are thrown in, then they all get included. Even some really high rounds can increase the deviation and bring low rounds back in that were previously dropped. If you play even one round, all those rounds from last july will get dropped and you'll see a big increase.

[Smitty2004]

Chuck-

I have a question for you. I am a 993 rated player. I have been over 1000 in the past, then had to deal with some injuries. My rating has slowly been crawling back to where it needs to be.

This last weekend I had the round from HELL! You know the one. If there is OB, I was in it. Roll away putts, kicks into the crap, always something in the line of my putt on the close ones.

I really felt like either laying in the middle of the course and crying or dropping out. I did neither, just kept fighting until the end. Made a 40 foot straddle on the last hole even. Round rated 929! Do you think this round will figure into my next PDGA rating?


Thanks

Smitty

[cgkdisc]

I can't really do the calculations in advance until all of your rounds that might be included have been officially rated. We do know it's not more than 100 points below your rating so it's not excluded automatically. I would say based on typical players near 1000 rating that rounds don't get excluded unless they are more than 75 points below their rating. I'm thinking there's an 80% chance it will be included.

[mfcastillo17]

Hi Chuck,
I'm pretty sure I know the answer to the question that I am about to ask but I would like to confirm my suspisions. For the event that I posted the link below, there are no ratings for Int, Adv women, and juniors. These three divisions played the same layout. Is it because there are so many non-members without a rating in these divisons that there was not enough of a sample size to create the ratings? Thanks!!

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/67780

[cgkdisc]

I do see unofficial ratings there now. Maybe the TD just updated the course assignments since you posted? As a general comment, even when players see unofficial results where some divisions don't have ratings, we always produce official ratings for those players even though we might need to work with the TD to use an alternative process.

[JenniferB]

I was surprised to see an int rated player moved down into a rec division at a recent tournament where she was the only int player and there were not enough rec players to support a rec division: http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/71067

I presume the Tour Manager OKd it, and I don't see how it makes much difference if the int player played rec and got a small refund or if the two rec players were required to move up a division and pay the additional entry fees. It just looks odd on the results page because it is the first time that I've seen it happen. Is this sort of thing common?

[Smitty2004]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

I can't really do the calculations in advance until all of your rounds that might be included have been officially rated. We do know it's not more than 100 points below your rating so it's not excluded automatically. I would say based on typical players near 1000 rating that rounds don't get excluded unless they are more than 75 points below their rating. I'm thinking there's an 80% chance it will be included.

Guess I should have dropped out or tossed a few more OB.

Now I am going to be stuck with a 929 rated round for over a year.

[cgkdisc]

"Creative" choices have always been needed to deal with small divisions over the years. But I agree it would have looked better and made more sense to just call that the Intermediate Womens division, especially since the two "Rec" women didn't have ratings, and they would have earned more points as a bonus.

[cgkdisc]

Smitty2004 - Now I am going to be stuck with a 929 rated round for over a year.

Not necessarily. You have a 20% shot to have that round dropped in a future update if you continue to consistently play up near 990-1000 so your standard deviation drops. From a practical standpoint, the round is as legit as all of your other rounds because many players have the "round from hell" every once in a while that is a proportional part of their current rating.

[mfcastillo17]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

I do see unofficial ratings there now. Maybe the TD just updated the course assignments since you posted? As a general comment, even when players see unofficial results where some divisions don't have ratings, we always produce official ratings for those players even though we might need to work with the TD to use an alternative process.

I was the one who uploaded the scores. I made a few changes to the report today. I guess I should of looked at it this time after I uploaded it! Thanks Chuck!

[ERicJ]

Chuck, now that the ratings for the Global events are official will there be any reconciliation for spots that moved?

E.g., originally it was posted:

Open
Rank	Name	PDGA	Location	Rating	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Total	Average
9	Juho Rantalaiho	27554	Colchester	1002	1000	1039	1010	3049	1016.3
10	Robby Wildt	38585	Louisville	974	1039	985	1024	3048	1016.0

But upon official results:

Rantalaiho: 996 + 1037 + 1012 = 3045
Wildt: 1038 + 981 + 1038 = 3057

It didn't happen this year but what if 1st and 2nd place had flip-flopped when the official ratings were released?

[cgkdisc]

It's just like when a missed penalty is discovered an hour after the TD has given out awards and officially closed the event. The results stand. The unofficial ratings process is being updated to more closely match the official ratings process. In theory, the sum of the three ratings should be the same between unofficial and official rounds even if individual round ratings shift.

One issue at some sites was DNFs where the same pool of players didn't complete all rounds. Typically, the DNFs are players not throwing well. So when they drop, the SSA will tend to go down and the ratings go down in R2 and especially R3 in some locations. What we may need to do is go back and recalculate earlier round ratings before finalizing global event results by only using the props who actually played all three rounds. These are some considerations to improve what already worked pretty well.

[krupicka]

Does the unofficial rating process currently know who are props and who aren't?

[cgkdisc]

Yes. That's why you won't see unofficial ratings for some divisions even in some rounds where it looks like there are at least enough players with ratings.

[ishkatbible]

question...

a lady played 2 events in july, paid the $10 non-member fee... joined the pdga in september to be able to play us women's... somehow her first event in july was added to her pdga number and she was rated for that event.

how is that? i don't promote bagging but that rating puts her in a higher division that she was expecting to play. i do agree that she should be playing intermediate but she is fussing about wanting to play rec, since she shouldn't have had a rating at that time.

[cgkdisc]

The PDGA regularly goes back and produces ratings for new members who played events earlier in the year if the TD or PDGA catches it or the new member lets the PDGA know what events they played before getting a PDGA number. If she just got the rating in yesterday's update, there's a two week grace period (at the discretion of the TD, see 2.2(2) in Competition Manual) that allows a player who is pre-registered to remain in the division they entered even if a ratings update just before the event should move them up a division. So any amateur that was pre-registered before yesterday for an event on the weekends of Sep 17 or Sep 24 can remain in that division even if their rating went to the next higher division in yesterday's update.

[Dana]

Chuck- At The Vibram Open, The FPO played the short pads on 3 holes at Maple Hill, yet they still have the same ratings as MPO. Can the ratings be the same, even though they played 3 dif. teepads?

I also noticed that the ratings are the same for the Pittsburgh Flying Disc Open R3 when the MPO played Moraine Golds and the FPO played Moraine Blues.

[cgkdisc]

I'll pass this along to the Tour Director who was there. The TD report for PFDO shows the MPO and FPO playing Moraine Golds in R3. I didn't see the Vibram report.

[Jeff_LaG]

The ratings layouts for both the PFDO and the Vibram NT events were correctly entered for the online unofficial ratings to reflect that Open Women played a different layout. I don't understand how the official TD report for both tournaments could be wrong.

[Dana]

I guess that helps explain the big ratings drop for Pittsburgh R3 and all 3 Vibram rounds. Although I fully expected them to drop once they go official anyways...
Will this be fixed prior to the next ratings update, or not until then?

[cgkdisc]

PFDO may be the only fix in the Oct update. The Vibram layouts were entered correctly but the women generated the same SSA for their layout as the men. I'm assuming that the three shorter pads for women were on water crossings? If so, they may have landed in about the same spots off the tee as the guys so the holes played about the same for each group.