Ask Chuck Kennedy

[cgkdisc]

I don't think the ratings update process for today is completed yet even though the date shows Jan 24th. I'm not sure they've gotten all the files linked up.

[cgkdisc]

Ratings process should be complete now with new events processed for this update now linked up in your Ratings Detail.

[CB2]

Hey Chuck I was taking a look at my ratings detail and I noticed that I still have a tournament(Piney Woods 2010) on my rating from Dec 11 & 12 2010.?.?

I thought tournaments drop after an update happens after they are a year old....that tournament was a year and 1 1/2 months old

[cgkdisc]

It's 12 months prior to the actual date of your most recently rated round, not the date the ratings are updated.

[CB2]

Oh I see. My last tournament was (Pw2011) Dec 10th and 11th and that Tournament was Dec 11th and 12th. So it misses the 12 month by a day

[gvan]

Hey Chuck,

I am excited about the rated league option and plan on running one at my home course. I'm interested in how much discussion there was about rating inflation due to leagues? I'm roughly a 915 rated tournament player, but routinely shoot 950-980 rounds on my home course (based on the ratings of the 3 tournaments I have run there).

I predict a great many ams moving up a division as a result. Any thoughts?

[cgkdisc]

Ratings inflation can't really happen in leagues because ratings are a zero sum game. In other words, there aren't any more ratings points that can be awarded than what's provided by the ratings of the propagators. What can happen if everyone shoots 3 shots better in league than in tournaments is the SSA for leagues will be three shots lower. So there's no net increase in the average ratings players earn.

Ratings in general won't be any better or worse than tournaments. There's a halo effect when players play a lot of rounds on a course where they tend to remember the outstanding rounds more than the below average rounds that also makes them think they shoot better on average at their home course. Our stats don't indicate the SSA will actually change that much during leagues but we'll find out soon enough. Glad you want join in the fun.

[jimimc]

Did the 11 tournaments that were not included finally get submitted?

[cgkdisc]

We'll know by the Friday deadline. I know they had gotten six by yesterday.

[jimimc]

I thought the deadline was today.

[cgkdisc]

You're correct the posted deadline is usually a Wednesday two weeks before a ratings update. In this case, it's the final yearend update and the deadline is whatever it takes to get those last reports submitted, which hopefully is this Friday. Not sure what the PDGA office will decide to do about the ones they don't get. It hasn't happened for several years now, knock on plastic...

[JenniferB]

Hi Chuck. I was just wondering which rule you currently think is the most problematic or the biggest source of argument or controversy, and what you think ought to be done about it.

[cgkdisc]

I think for the long haul, the problem of self officiating for calling foot faults which includes putt jumping and whether we should have the 10m circle, extend it to 15m or not have one at all is going to be a chronic thorn for players and the sport. I'm hoping the RC can address some of this in the rules update being worked on this year. But I don't think they have any great solutions on the table despite lots of ideas and discussion. I've tossed a few ideas in the hopper and you'll at least see the video I made on putting foot faults once the new website goes live.

[JenniferB]

Thanks, Chuck. I recall from that video you made and your post about the RC votes, they decided that walking putts inside the circle are ok. Is that right? If so, can we expect the typical debate on the course to become whether the person was walking forward versus falling forward?

[cgkdisc]

Walking putts would not be okay without some sort of stopping motion to demonstrate balance. If you read the new Q&A on demonstrating balance (QA37), you'll see what emerged partly as a result of my video: http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/...A_v12_2011.pdf

[bruce_brakel]

Hey Chuck: At Worlds and other tournaments that have rounds with tee times on reasonably challenging courses, do you know what interval has worked well? Well informed non-Chucks may answer too.

[cgkdisc]

8 minutes is the fastest I've seen and certain courses with slow spots are usually 10 minutes like Vista at the Memorial and Winthrop Gold. Sometimes you'll start the first two hours with 8 minute intervals and extend to 10 minute intervals if you get reports of stack ups on the course.

[krupicka]

When doing a shotgun start, fivesomes on a 18 hole course take about three hours which puts that at 10 minutes per group. I think threesomes come in around 7 minutes per group. Foursomes are somewhere between those two. :-)

[cgkdisc]

10 minutes can still work on courses that play 4 hours because those courses usually have several par 4s and 5s so the number of 4-somes spaced comfortably can reach 24 or so.

[bruce_brakel]

The course I'm thinking about has some legitimate par four holes and several hard 3s. If the tournament is approved but course closure is not, I was thinking of suggesting tee times with a marshal, and casuals could get a tee time like anyone playing the tournament. "The course is not closed. You can tee off in two hours and twenty minutes."

[trey27]

What happened to the Tuesday ratings update?

[jconnell]

Late to the discussion about tee time intervals, but I think the best way to figure it is to determine which hole on the course takes the longest to play, and set your interval based on it. The idea being that if the interval is maintained between each group, the closest you get to a bottleneck back-up is on that longest hole (which probably is still long enough that a group can tee off safely while the group in front is still on the hole/green). No big back-ups for anyone all day trumps all, IMO. So if you've got a par-4 or par-5 that the average 4-some is going to take 15 minutes to play, 15 minutes is the right interval.

Of course, if you've got a big field where such an interval means you've got people teeing off too late in the day, you can adjust it so that each group can complete the round without rushing to beat sunset. But otherwise, why not use as large an interval as you can get away with? In some of tee time events I've played, the scheduled interval was too short for groups to even complete hole one. The result was that everything got backed up right away, and the longer or tougher holes later in the course were bottlenecked by the time the third or fourth group reached them, and stayed that way all day, which is no fun.

[thediscinmusician]

What are the ratings update dates for 2012? Thanks.

[cgkdisc]

The new team had some trouble getting the final 2011 ratings posted. They should be up today.

[cgkdisc]

Ratings updates for 2012 events:
Mar 20, May 15, July 3, Aug 14, Sep 18, Oct 16, Nov 20, Dec 18, Jan 22

[cgkdisc]

jconnell - So if you've got a par-4 or par-5 that the average 4-some is going to take 15 minutes to play, 15 minutes is the right interval.

Not exactly, unless the hole is such that no one can tee off until a group is completely off the green. That shouldn't happen on a legit par 4 or 5 hole unless it's an extremely downhill par 4 or a funky setup like hole 10 on Winthrop Gold that the longest throwers might reach.

[jimimc]

Originally Posted by cgkdisc

The new team had some trouble getting the final 2011 ratings posted. They should be up today.

Maybe someone could help them.

[cgkdisc]

If you're suggesting me, I don't know how to do the web and PDGA database stuff. Everyone currently qualified to help has been helping.

[jimimc]

I was actually suggesting whoever use to do it. No matter how easy the job, or how smart the new person is, the old guy always knows something the new guy doesn't.

[cgkdisc]

The 'old guy' helping the new guys is Theo who helped design the PDGA backend systems.