I have 45+ rated rounds that apply to my rating.
I had no new tournies added since the last update so my rating didnt change. The problem is I had several rounds that are a few months past a year old that didnt drop from my rating. Im guessing its because nothing new was added but that doesn't make much sense to me. Anyone know anything about this?

Your rating only changes when you have new rounds. No old rounds will drop just because the clock moves ahead. Otherwise, if you didn't play for two years, your rating would disappear. We have players who have not renewed for a year or two and their rating is still there when they renew, at least until they start playing again. Just because they haven't renewed doesn't mean they aren't playing and at the same level when they return.

k. thanks for the quick and educated response.
In my mind I figured since I had so many rounds it would keep dropping till i had the minimum. The way you put it makes sense. Oh well, the only reason I raised a concern was a buddy jumped a point ahead of me when I was expecting to move a few points up myself. Trivial really.

Have you heard anything from Brian Cummings on the 6th Annual Homies Fall Classic held on OCTOBER 14th this year? Just wondering what's going on with those results. Thanks.

I don't get the reports. I only find out what events have been reported at the time we do the official ratings updates. Contact PDGA HQ or better yet, Cummings.

Excerpt from the Ratings Guide:


All properly reported PDGA events for the past 12 months are included in a player�s ratings calculation. If you
have less than 8 rounds of data, the program will go back as far as 24 months until it either finds 8 total rounds, or
it will select all your rounds if less than 8. All members should receive a rating even if they only have one round of
information in the database. Almost all of your rounds are counted, but those more than 2.5 standard deviations
below your average are dropped (about 1 in 50). Your most recent 25% (1/4) of your rounds will be double
weighted in the calculation so your current performance is slightly more important. If you do not complete a round
(indicated in event scores as DNF or 999), it is not included in your ratings round count.


According to this, if and when these results are turned in, everyone will lose out on the 'double weighted' part of the equation if they have played 25% or more of their rounds after this event that has not yet been turned in. Am I right or are the 'double weighted' rounds counted by date turned in and not date of tourney? Perhaps there should be a mandatory 'results turn in day' for TD's, or is there?

Tried to call Brian Cummings and I think I got his work phone. I left a message and have not yet heard back from him.

The double weighting is based on the event dates of the official rounds you have. So, if an earlier event comes in several months late, it might change your rounds that are doubled. The good news is that so far, all events that should have been rated in the past two years have finally gotten turned in before the final yearend ratings update including Cummings events. So the latest events you played this year will have the rounds that are doubled.

Thanks for the always informative and timely response.

How is the "more than 2.5 deviations below your average" meant to be understood? My rating dropped 15 points due to one bad weekend which was double weighted. Granted, I only played 3 tourneys, one being doubles, and the other averaging about my rating for the weekend, but I wouldn't think one tourney should have that much of an affect on the ratings. How far below ur average do you have to shoot to fall into the 2.5 deviation? Just wondering, thanx.

2.5 std deviations depends on your consistency.

Each time your rating is updated, the old rounds that drop can impact your rating just like the new rounds added. If you look at your ratings detail below, you can see that your older rounds have been better than your newer rounds which are double weighted since they're more recent.

www.pdga.com/tournament/player_ratings_detail.php?PDGANum=17867&sort_style =Rating&sort_ascending=0&show_excluded=1 (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/player_ratings_detail.php?PDGANum=17867&sort_style =Rating&sort_ascending=0&show_excluded=1)

Chuck, do you see any errors in this...
(and no need to go down to basic multiplication/addition errors if I made any, just any errors in how I'm doing it)


Holiday Hyzer 985 21
Holiday Hyzer 972 21
Turkey & Chains 995 18
Turkey & Chains 917 18
Summer Haze Classic 917 21
The B-Line Presents Loco at the Mills II 916 24
The B-Line Presents Loco at the Mills II 910 24
M2 Spring Hyzer IV 965 21
M2 Spring Hyzer IV 917 21
Rock Creek Shootout 979 19
Rock Creek Shootout 934 19
New Year Open (Ice Bowl) 925 18
New Year Open (Ice Bowl) 931 24
2nd Annual M2 Holiday Hyzer 989 21
2nd Annual M2 Holiday Hyzer 896 21

You multiply every round by the number of holes played... So...
(note: I dropped last year's Falcon Freeze out since it is older than
your most recent at Ottawa)


20685
20412
17910
16506
19257
21984
21840
20265
19257
18601
17746
16650
22344
20769
18816

Total number of points: 293042
Total number of holes played: 311
293042 / 311 = 942.26

Right here you'd drop anything either 100 points below your rating, or
more than 2.5 standard deviations outside of your average, whichever
number is SMALLER. Your rounds are relatively tight, so your 2.5STD
might be around 80 or 70, but you have nothing that far off of your
average so nothing should be dropped.

15 total rounds. Take latest 25%, rounded up: Latest 4 rounds get doubled...

20685
20412
17910
16506

Total number of points: 368555
Total number of holes played: 389
368555 / 389 = 947.44

Cool, thanx for showing me that break down. Why don't we average all a players rounds for the rating? I know it's probably to much info to store but to me the lose of a good round impacts much more than the lose of a bad round. It's always easier to go down but harder to play way above your average. The ratings should be covering you as a tourney player period, not as a tourney player for the last year. What happens if your 12th thru 20th rounds were allstar and then average leading up to most recent and you get injured and play poorly, the rating isn't going to give an accurate reading of your game. I know most people would say don't play but I've seen many people stick it out to finish a tourney even though they are hurting and playing badly, even if injured during the round. Just my thoughts...and the PDGA is doing a great job by the way :)

Inflated ratings are good for one's ego. Depressed ratings are bad for keeping ratings based divisions fair.

Using ratings from under the 2.5 std dev line or from over a year ago tend to depress ratings.

how come if the score is 2.5 SD above their average it STILL counts?? we had an 880 rated player shoot a 1020+ round recently, obviously played out of his head. plus, that will count twice in next update.

Think about what you said for a bit and I think you'll see the difference. Anyone can go out and shoot 2.5SD below their rating on any day, by choice. On the other hand, how many can deliberately shoot 2.5SD above their rating, at will?

another thing... i think ALL rounds should count, i've seen more than one tour player tank the last few holes just to have it dropped. sleazy, but legal.

i blame this behavior partially on the sponsors requiring players to have certain ratings to maintain current sponsorship.

ever hear the true story of a player who was so angry that he walked up to the 18th tee, declared in frustration
"f**k this [censored], I'm going home" he threw the disc and walked off the tee towards the parking lot not intending to complete the round and end up DNF. well, the disc ACED the last hole, so he had to write the score down.

Think about what you said for a bit and I think you'll see the difference. Anyone can go out and shoot 2.5SD below their rating on any day, by choice. On the other hand, how many can deliberately shoot 2.5SD above their rating, at will?


i thought about that chuck, but standard deviation measures the spread of data about the mean, and i would think that you would measure in BOTH directions...

maybe he had crazy luck hitting trees but kept staying in bounds, or had a skip ace off a rock in the creek. this round is not his norm and creates a ballooned rating for him.

tour players tell me all the time they don't want to play in lower tiered events cuz their rating will drop.they would rather play in events with other 1000 rated players. Avery played this weekend in a D tier (thanks Jenkins), i finally beat the dude one round and it won't even count in his rating. that seems silly to me.

We've already covered this area on this or other threads several times. It may be poor sportmanship to drop out and DNF a round to maintain a rating. But sponsors are now more savvy on this and look at DNFs as part of their considerations since it was pointed out several years ago as a potential issue with some of their players. For non-sponsored players, it hurts no one and helps others pick up points if they drop rounds with DNFs and artificially prop up their ratings. It's more points for others when they do play at their normal level (which is lower than their rating) and it's an anti-bagging mechanism. What we might worry about is players artificially depressing their ratings to bag in a lower division, but we haven't seen it. It will cost more to play many rounds at a lower skill level to drop their rating than what they might win by playing in a lower division a few times and which will boost their rating back to where it should be.

Hey quick comment or maybe suggestion along the lines of the whole ratings update thing. I was wondering why you guys don't do an update on 1/1/08 or the start of any year? It would just make sense to me to do it that way so that everything is current with the new year. Rather than wait until the 29th. Or maybe do another on the 29th too. Also I thought more ratings updates would be a good idea too. Like 1 time a month rather than about every 2 and a half to 3 months. It would be more accurate for most players seeing as how most amateurs do progress a lot over that long of a period of time. I don't know if that would take a lot more work or not but was just curious. Thanks

Hey quick comment or maybe suggestion along the lines of the whole ratings update thing. I was wondering why you guys don't do an update on 1/1/08 or the start of any year? It would just make sense to me to do it that way so that everything is current with the new year. Rather than wait until the 29th. Or maybe do another on the 29th too. Also I thought more ratings updates would be a good idea too. Like 1 time a month rather than about every 2 and a half to 3 months. It would be more accurate for most players seeing as how most amateurs do progress a lot over that long of a period of time. I don't know if that would take a lot more work or not but was just curious. Thanks




The 1/29/08 update is actually what you wanted the 1/1/08 update to be but it is on the 29th so that they have time to get all the results and process all the material. The only rounds that will be in the next update are the 07' ones. So the next update is you rating from 07'