Rantin' Bout Ratings

[bruceuk]

I understand what an exponential looks like...

My point is that this doesn't happen anywhere in particular in the scoring range. If one of the holes on your very easy course has a 60 foot hole, well there are going to be a lot of aces on it. If it's a dull par 4 course like I described, there is a point where you require a fairway ace to improve your score, and it isn't 36. This point is different for every course, and it's mathematically unquantifiable. So it's pointless to attempt to get it accounted for.

[bobsted]

I just want to point out that weighting strokes more and more as you get lower will not fix the situation with players tying in a tournament and having different average ratings. If a player beats you by 1 stroke in the middle of the bell curve the first round and you shoot a 35 to his 36 the 2nd round you will have a better average rating than him. The only way to have the same average rating for the tournament would be to weigh each stroke the same on every course regardless of SSA, which I think we can all agree would be a step in the wrong direction.

[bruce_brakel]

I never notice the weird things about our ratings system until they happen to me.

I'm rated 935, the lowest rated Advanced player on the planet, give or take the decimal points we cannot see. I recently played a two-round tournament on an 18-hole course where I shot two rounds that average out to 955. If I understand the ratings system correctly, and if I play no more tournaments that count in whatever ratings update that those rounds count in, shooting two rounds at 20 points above my rating should make my rating go down.

I could be wrong because I only have a weak understanding of ratings, but it looks like those two rounds averaging 955 will be double weighted and count as 4 rounds in my average. Adding those two rounds will cause 12 older rounds to drop, but those 12 rounds are weighted as 15 or 16 rounds because all or most of them were on 24-hole courses. Those 12 rounds are rated around 945 on the average. So those 12 rounds actually do more to pull up my rating than the two higher rounds that are replacing them. By my math my rating falls by about a half of a point by adding those two rounds. Maybe my reward for playing a hot-for-me 955 rated tournament is that I'll be eligible to resume playing intermediate?

I was looking for a thread titled "What's Wrong About Ratings" but maybe that was on another website. To me it feels wrong that shooting over my rating should ever lower my rating. If there is any interest in the topic, especially if anyone wants to check my math, I'll follow up with a post about what I think is wrong with ratings that they produce this kind of anomaly and how this could be corrected with a slightly different ratings system.

[cgkdisc]

Remember that at least for amateurs, the primary reason for ratings is to get players competing in a division at their current skill range. For those right near a ratings break such as 935, having some ratings volatility up and down is a good thing so players aren't consistently stuck either at the bottom of a higher division or at the top of a lower division.

We could almost eliminate the problem where your next ratings update drops when your oldest higher rated rounds drop off by retaining round ratings for two or even three years before dropping off. But fast improving players would get discouraged with slower increases in their rating and everyone else would be upset that they were bagging in a lower division because we didn't update their rating fast enough.

[tafe]

Bruce, I'm rated 935 as well. So you are not the lowest rated Adv. on the planet. Just one of a group!

My favorite ratings story is shooting a 59 (-13) at Hudson Mills during the 2003 DGLO. My round WAS rated 1001 (I think), my first 4-figure rated round. Some guy named Barry was the only other person to break 60 that weekend ;0. A few months afterwards, Mr. Kennedy "re-worked" the formula and the round dropped to 999. That one hit me below the belt! I'd call -13 a HOT round that was better then what the rating says it is. Then, in 2005 at Bowling Green, I shot a 52 (-3, I think #2 is a 4) at Hobson Grove. Not the best score, but that round gets rated a 1002! Whatever, I know how I feel about how I shot.

[bruce_brakel]

As it turned out, the addition of those two rounds that averaged 20 points over my rating lowered my rating by TWO points. I have an intermediate rating and I'm not afraid to use it.

[tafe]

Ha! My last Int. was 2002 Bowling Green. I'll never go back down. Anyway, I'm 943 now!!! No longer a benchmark. Yay!