For those wonk interested in learning from the masters in setting up and operating handicapping for bubba players, I suggest a visit to the USGA's recently retooled handicap section on the web. (http://www.usga.org/handicap/)

Their new web page makes it a lot clearer how their system operates. Some things of note :

1 -- The USGA specifically does NOT hand out player ratings/handicaps.

2 -- Handicaps are issued by clubs.

3 -- There are provisions for how to establish and maintain a club.

--------------- comments ------

The purposes of distributing the handicapping process to the grass roots is several.

A - the club provides the 'peer' review (aka the club checks on the posted scores to guard against cheating/sandbagging). No peer review, no handicap. Seems you can't get a rating by playing around the globe without peer review of your club.

B - the process does not bog the USGA down in lots of paper work. It's a distributed process that relies upon local clubs to do the work of giving out player ratings, not some overworked volunteer(s) for the PDGA.

C - the process strenghtens and provides a reason for supporting local clubs and their activities.

D - there are provisions for establishing clubs, clubs without courses (tours), company clubs, etc, etc.

--------------------------

More USGA stuff that might be worth consideration of translation to DG.

Bogey Golfer -- 17.5 to 22.4 for men & 21.5 to 26.4 for women. Men drives 200 yds, reaches 370 yds in two shots. Women drives 150 yds, 2 shots to reach 280 yds. Players who hit further, but have handicaps between the bogey index are not considered bogey golfers for course rating purposes (Perhaps they are called screwups -- I'm one of them in BG)...

Scratch golfer -- amatuer player who makes course rating in competition. Drives 250 yards, reaches 470 yd holes. Women drive 210 and reach 400 yds in 2.

Course Ratings and Slopes. There are 9 basic difficulty features used by a course rating team looks in developing a course rating. Topography, Fairway hit probability, Green landing probablity, Recovery and Rough difficulty, Bunker difficulty, OB probability, Water probability, Trees as obstacles, Green speed and surface contouring, Psychology (the cumulative effect of the above).

Course Rating -- score by top half of scores of a scratch golfers at a course.

Bogey Rating -- score by top half of scores of bogey golfer at a course.

Slope Rating -- (Bogey Course Rating - Course Rating) * 5.381 (men) or 4.24 (women).

------------ comments ------------

The slope rating's purpose is to gauge how hard is the course relative to player ability. A high slope is a course that is hard for the bogey player. Slopes are used to adjust the score at a course according to how hard (the slope) of the course is and one's existing handicap rating. Aka, if you are a bogey golfer (handicap of 17-23), and play at a very hard course for bogey golfers, you might do a notch worse than your regular handicap. And this would be accounted for in your handicap rating.

=================

Some other interesting points from visiting the new USGA handicapping site.

There are specific rules for a establishing tour club (and for the club to issue player handicaps). Tour clubs are specifically defined as FOR PROFIT operations. They play at several courses, rather than have an established course as their home.

There is a document for downloading for establishing a FOR PROFIT USGA touring club.

There were Q&A on a variety of issues that might be of interest -- like handicapping on the web and/or by local clubs on the net.

It's ok to use range finders while getting a handicap (at club events/casual play) -- but not for USGA events.

-----------------
Just a few thoughts for wonks to mull over. The revised USGA site also seems to have a few bugs (or stuff that didn't work for my AOL browser).

Gee Fred, what's your point? there are millions of golfers and only thousands of discers.

I know all about this since I manage a golf course 2 miles from USGA headquarters and we use the GHIN system. This only works due to each course being rated from each tee area.

Do you really think their system would work for us??

Since it's a patented, proprietary system, no. Not without a lot of changes.

Its not patented; its just a mathmatical formula and some guidelines for implementation. Disc golf could copy the USGA model. Club based calculation of ratings is one of the concepts discussed in the "Transformation of the PDGA" document which hardly anyone has read.

"As the PDGA grows, reliance on its network of established clubs would become increasingly important both to develop and rely on to efficiently accomplish its objectives. The Affiliate Clubs program presents an opportunity for several initiatives including developing a PDGA sanctioned league play, an on-line tool for clubs to track the league results, developing a league 'ratings' system, and fostering PDGA sanctioned inter-club competitions including a national title competition."

Excuse me. I misspoke. I meant to say copyrighted

"No portion of the content of any of the publications contained in the Handicapping section may be used without the express written permission of the USGA."

I once beta tested a handicap tracker for a software company and they had to change their formula before it could be released to the public.

I'll take Kenny for $100. Any takers?? http://pdga.com/discus/clipart/proud.gif

Once ratings have been established, as they have already to a degree, they pretty much can be generated on a local level. So long as you have 20 or so world class players (players approaching 1000 rating) within a region, you can pretty much figure out the courses World Class Par and other players ratings.

This is not some great conspiracy as DF proposes, it is added value for participating in PDGA events, plain and simple. As more people begin to fathom how useful their rating really is WCP and Ratings Based Events will grow in number and popularity. IMO

Thanks Ken, I know you are an avid ball golfer also and understand what the slope and rating of a golf course is.

One of my short term goals as Region 1 Coordinator is to have every course in our region rated by a team of disc golfers. This will assist us with running rating based events here in MADC, we had 6 last year and probably a few more this year. Ratings end the debate of sandbaggers (if updated regularly). Good luck in Az.

Nick, you don't even need 20 players with a 1000 rating, you just need 20 players with a rating over 900 (just about every open pro, and probably half the advanced).

I've done ratings for all our courses where I got the complete results of a tournament. Easy, just time consuming. Ask Chuck Kennedy for a copy of the Excel spreadsheet.

Matt,

I agree that calculating the WCP for our courses in the MADC region would definitely assist us in running ratings based events. One of my main concerns is the complexity of courses with multiple layouts. Take a course that has 3 pin positions per hole, like Tinicum, PA: That's a ton of possible combinations, all with different WCP. With ball golf courses, does the slope/difficulty of a course change that dramatically based on the pin position on a green? I'm not that affluent of a ball golfer, so I don't have the experience there. Take a course like Warwick, NY. Two permanent baskets and two permanent tees. That is millions of combinations. We usually only play 4 of them in tournaments, so getting a WCP for each of the four is quite simple. This may not be appropriate for discussion on the board, so you could email me directly, but I'm interested in what your thoughts are for evaluating the MADC courses. I'd like to help out with this if possible.

-J

By the way Matt, the answer to our prayers just posted here before me. Jason Haas, working with Chuck and Roger has just completed the first of quarterly updated MADC Player & Course Ratings! I will be publishing them in the Premiere of MADgiC TIMES on www.madisc.org (http://www.madisc.org) on 2/22/2002.

They are absolutely fascinating! I think that all will be pleasantly surprized at the top course and player in the MADC (living in the area that is). The Ratings include touring players who have played within our region.

Jason

KISS, keep it simple stupid! (Not you Jason). We would need to rate the courses in all their layouts. Tinicum could be A pins, B pins and C pins. Warwick would have 4 possible course ratings like you said.

What is important is that your evaluation process is consistent and applied equally throughout the Region. I would think 4 players could do the ratings, pros, ams and perhaps a lady.

The end result should be the ability to develope a rating (handicap) from recreational play as well as tournaments. Now we need to decide how to get to the end result.

Not negitiviy Jim, just constuctive criticism. Check my profile, it's me.

I've just developed an easy formula to calculate the WCP of a course just by knowing its length. I used linear regression on 85 courses with known WCP values plus 'eyeballing' on a scattergram to determine the formula. This formula appears to estimate the WCP within 4 throws. Taking tree density and elevation into account will get the estimate even closer.

The formula is: WCP = 26 (0.08 x avg hole length). On a 5400' course, the average hole length is 300' (5400/18). An 'average' 5400' course will have a WCP of 50 [26 (0.08 x 300)]. A level 5400' course that completely winds thru the forest might have a WCP up to 54. An open 5400' course with lots of elevation might have a WCP as low as 46. The WCP value generated is for 18 holes. This value can be adjusted proportionately to the correct number of holes as needed.

I estimate the WCP of 2/3 of courses will fall within 2 throws of the value generated by this formula, which makes it initially over 95% accurate. Adjusting for terrain factors will get your estimate even closer. More trees > add throws. More elevation > subtract throws. Why? Courses with more elevation typically play shorter than their measured length, especially when there's a bias toward more down than up throws. While more OB and hole design also impact WCP, they are harder to estimate. But, as we get more competent with using these techniques they certainly can be considered.

The cool thing is that Jim and the MADC guys have actual WCP values for some configurations on courses with multiple tees and pins. You can now estimate all other WCP values on a course very accurately using this formula in tandem with the values you have. Calculate WCP values using the formula for course configs you already have the WCPs for. In theory, the difference between the tournament WCP and the formula WCP should tell you what the 'terrain offset' is for your course. It's possible some tournament WCP values are off due to bad weather for some rounds (which we might not know). Or, we regularly find inaccuracies in hole length measurements, especially on temp layouts.

So, once you determine the terrain offset for your course, it's reasonable to assume that this will be the offset for ANY configuration on your course. Thus, all you need to get the WCP for the million possible configs at places with up to 5 pins per hole like Jim's Vista del Camino is the total course length for a specific setup. Calculate the average hole length for that config, plug it into the formula then add or subtract the terrain offset for your course and voila, a WCP that should be better than 98% accurate.

Looks like we now have a pretty good way to get course WCPs anywhere in the world without having a PDGA event or needing even one rated player in the neighborhood.

Ken, I did check before I posted, and all your profile shows is a Tampa e-mail address. Apparently the moderator thought both your post, and my reply needed to be removed. Because we used the word <FONT COLOR="ff0000">����</FONT>?
See you at the Memorial?

Chuck, that sounds excellent, I'll have to try out your formula on the different tournament lengths at Vista and see how it works out!

Yeah, Kenny, don't be a pud like me or half your posts will disappear./msgboard/images/clipart/proud.gif

Just like this one...

Jim, I thought you knew better! Foul mouthed hooligan!/msgboard/images/clipart/happy.gif

* With ball golf courses, does the slope/difficulty of a course change that dramatically based on the pin position on a green? *

The slope of a BG course is related to the difference between the bogey and scratch course rating. These ratings are an assessment of various obstacles and difficulties the course presents on a hole by hole, shot by shot basis that includes analysis of the challenges players of different skill levels might face. Alternate systems can use actual scores by scratch and bogey golfers.

Each set of tees (white, blue, red) is considered a seperate course, with a seperate course rating. Pin placements are generally irrelevant in BG. However, there is a USGA adjustment for course rating for non-standard tees that is based upon added distance. Such a system would have application in DG for pins placements that added an extra level of stroke difficulty.

I've provided for something similiar in my Course Analysis system (http://www.dolf.com/courses/design/course_analysis.htm). Additional difficulty to the norm can be provided to factor in additional length, target style, orientation, and other factors.

In other words, while it's easy to make a modest mess of any course rating by changing tees and targets around, you can still come up with a reasonable adjustment to the course rating, given some experience and an objective system of analysis to guide your decisions by.

In general, it's a better idea for a CM to maintain red, white, and blue set of course configurations that total up to about the same length. Aka, if the white course is 4500 feet, most any (but all) mix of tees and pins that adds up to 4500 feet is still essentially the white course.

* [*****] -- I've just developed an easy formula to calculate the WCP of a course just by knowing its length. *

This assumption only works for courses that are designed with the similar generally open fairway, open putting green course design philosophy. As you note in a round about fashion, this simple formula doesn't necessarily apply to courses with other design characteristics (lots of trees, water, etc, etc).

What seems to work is the notion that if you have a course rating for one set of tee and pin settings, most any combination of tee and pin settings on that layout that are of the same total challenge (distance) will provide the same course rating. Within limits.

For example, the white set of tees at Lake Stevens (3800 ft) rates at about 55 (19 holes) (low 48). You can take the targets, which are quite varied challenges of rating from 4 to 16 in difficulty (http://www.dolf.com/catching/catching_rating.htm), and move and mix them around willy nilly on the course, and the course rating seems to end up about the same.

The "within limits" part is exemplified by the blue tees. They are hardly 200 feet longer in total length than the whites. Site constraints required the blue tees find an alternative to 'distance' for adding blue tee challenge. The Blue tees were instead chosen from shots that are just a notch more tortuously curved, curved left instead of right, or tighter, or both, or whatever. The result is a blue course experience rating that is around 58 (low 54).

I think the interesting stat that needs some more attention is the bogey course rating. In BG, this is the course rating for folks who average 17 to 22 over par. It would seem that for DG with is typical par 3 course, the bogey golfer might be defined as one who averages around 10 to 12 over.

If you determine the bogey course rating, then you can develop a slope rating for the course by subtracting the CR from the BCR. In BG, they multiply the result by 5.xx. Seems you could pull most any number out of your hat to come up with a slope rating for DG. 4 may be a good factor number.

From the perspective of the average bubba DG, it's the course slope that represents how tough a course is, not the course rating.

For example, if Bubba plays a course with a rating of 50 and slope of 80 and another course with a rating of 48 but a slope of 130, he'll most likely find it much tougher going at the slope 130 course, even if the scratch golfer finds it easier.

In pro tournament play, while the course slope may not be all that relevant most of the time for pros, a course with a higher slope will also be an indication of how much trouble a pro might get into when they do deviate into the 'rough'... A course with a higher slope and modest course rating is likely to provide a better competitive challenge than a course with a higher course rating but low slope.

As a side note, when I'm looking around for BG courses to play, the more interesting courses are not those with the higher course ratings, but the ones with the higher slopes. I suspect the same would be true for DG.

Matt,

As long as you have players that have a confident rating (a rating based on more than 20 rounds in the past year), you could very easily calculate the WCP for any layout. The obvious fact is the more people you have 'evaluating' a course/layout, the more confident the number is going to be. Also, you would want to have the people evaluating a course/layout playing on the same day at the same time. The differences between the course/layout on two different days could be quite large, due to rain, snow, wind, or some other uncontrollable factor. This is why tournaments work great for evaluating a course/layout.

One idea that has been floating around a while is using hole averages. This has nothing to do with the way ratings or WCP is currently calculated, but is useful for analyzing a course. We have hole averages for all 72 holes at Warwick, based on Pro scores from 2 tournaments. When creating a handicap league this year, we didn't want to use the same layout every week. Instead, we found 8 unique layouts, incorporating different layouts for each hole (short-short, short-long, long-short, long-long). By taking the hole averages, (rounding to 2 decimal places), we could find unique hole combinations where the averages equaled approximately 61 ( /- 0.1 strokes). This allows us to play totally different layouts, but still compare the raw scores weekly to determine a handicap.

You could use something similar to rate the MADC courses. For better statistics, the players rating should also be accounted for (something we didn't do at Warwick), to get a number closer to the Average Hole Score used in calculating the WCP. Then, by taking any layout/combination of holes, you could get the WCP without ever having to play that layout in a tournament.

As I said before, I'd be happy to help out.... atleast assisting with the numbers crunching... You've seen me throw and I don't think my scores should be used to rate anything!!!!

Thanks

Jason

When does this thread come out on audio tape?

[*****]- Sounds great.

Fred- I think it does need to be local clubs that do the grunt work on cranking out handicaps.

I think the next step is to develop "what categories are acceptable for WCP adjustment.

Tree densitity, OB Probability, Green access, ...?

If the PDGA can decide...? Scratch that.

If those adjustments are made public a/o standardized, i.e. Tree Density is a range from 0 being no trees to 5 being Rosedale DownUnder in KC.

Anyway it is a great start. Make em all a 0 to 5 range and keep the math simple.

See you at the Memorial Jim!

Hey Jim, I lost! That Thread didn't even last the hour! Nice /msgboard/images/clipart/happy.gif

Ford

LOL, how long did you have Candyman?

The moderator is out of control!

I had 1/2 day. Moderator is on the ball today. No sooner did I post it then the thread was deleted. Or at least it seemed that way.

Ford

Thanks Chuck, your insight is much appreciated. I'll experiment with your formula and let you know what I come up with. What do you think Jason??

Matt,

I was going to try to run the numbers from Warwick through to do a comparison, but I don't have the course lengths for the layouts. I'm going away on vacation for the weekend, so I'll try punching them and maybe some other MADC courses when I get back on Sunday. I'll let you know what I come up with!

J

The issue is perhaps not that player handicaps (ratings) need to be produced locally, but rather how they shouldn't be produced at PDGA central for a variety of reasons -- they've already got too much to do being near the top of that list.

Rather the PDGAs proper role should be to provide a reasonably flexible common set of rules and regs to follow.

As noted by years of experience behind the USGA's rating system, they've got provisions for a variety of clubs and club types. Some examples are

Landed clubs -- associated with a particular course.
Touring clubs -- clubs that might run a series of scheduled events or a league (like the MADC?) at different courses.
Unlanded Clubs -- any group of 10 or more folks who play together and fulfill the rules for a USGA club. They can play on a wide variety of courses with or without any particular set schedule. Or just one course, seperate from any local clubs at the course.

The key to making this all work is "peer review". In other words, there is a check and balance in any particular club type against abuse which might lead to sandbagging.

I'm not sure how one might sort out a player who might have a rating from a local club and then another rating from playing in a series of events via a tour club. Seems like one should have to declare a primary 'home' club. It could be any type of club. (landed, tour, unlanded).

Then provide for reciprocity. Aka, peer reviewed play in any accredited club is acceptable for developing a rating in one's primary club. And it is the responsibility of the player to report any other club play to their home club for the establishment of a player's rating.

Seems complicated. In a perfect world, one centralized system would be better (IMO), but of course you are correct about the PDGA being a bit busy with other things.

* In a perfect world, one centralized system would be better (IMO), but of course you are correct about the PDGA being a bit busy with other things. *

Actually, the ideal would seem to be a pragmatic diversified peer reviewed internet system that takes full advantage of modern technology.

For example, one might have a web based handicap posting system where the postee would verify by posting the PDGA # of some observer of the round or club event where the score was made. Webware could do a check of the confirmation # to at least check that the same # didn't pop up all over the country on the same day. One might also be able to auto email for confirmation of the peer review, if there were suspicions.

Or something like that... Assuming one is paranoid about such things.

So when are you going to stop talking about it and make it happen? I'd love to see more handicap leagues and possibly even PDGA handicap events. Has anyone written to the PDGA for their position on starting such a program?

Well, with our current rating system, its pretty simple, every 10 points of rating, is 1 stroke....(simple in match play anyway)

As for a league/mini/tourney it shoudl still be just as simple, unless something is slipping past me at the moment...

It would work that way if every course had an SSA of 52 or so. It's a little more complicated on course above or below that SSA, though still possible. I ran a handicap event and it seemed to heavily favor players with lower PRs.

Did you look at how many players played above or below their ratings for your event ?

In the one I did last year, very few of the higher rated players played at their ratings, and most of the lower rated players played above their ratings. If the handicaps truly make the field event before the round starts, it is much harder for a high rated player to improve their score by making 10 birdies instead of 8. It is much easier for the lower rated player to only take 4 bogies instead of 6.

Handicaps should bring the players up to about 80% of equal footing to allow the better players a chance of winning.

actually the thing that makes the USGA handicap system work is slope rating and handicap index ratings for EVERY course in the country. The USGA sends someone to the courses or the architects submit the course designs to the USGA to get these ratings initially. I don't believe slope rating changes because it's based on elevation. The handicap index changes every so often based on scores submitted to be handicapped.

Ball golfers must submit their own scores...many courses have a computer in a corner somewhere for such a thing to happen. There really isn't necessilarily a peer review system, just that the people you play with that day keep you in the rules and keep you from cheating. Once you get over to the computer to submit your score no one makes sure you don't submit something higher or lower than what you actually shot. It's the good old honor system.


Handicaps are based on the best 10 of 20 scores. They handicap you based on your "potential" than actual ability, thus using the best 10 of the last 20 scores submitted.

To make a system work in disc golf we would need to establish a standardizing system in the courses. We would need to set a way to determine par and have it apply for every course. In other worlds, WCP would be tossed out the window and a way to pre-establish par for a course would have to be figured out. In ball golf this is mostly based on distance...anything under 250yards == 3, 250 - 490 (or so) == 4 500+ == 5. Courses do get some leeway in those borderline distances...I've seen 485 yard par 5, and 495 yard par 4's.

I think a system could be figured out, but it would take some serious work by the powers that be to come up with a standardized system.

Handicaps are based on the best 10 of 20 scores. They handicap you based on your "potential" than actual ability, thus using the best 10 of the last 20 scores submitted.



In my experience this is the key to making handicaps work. USGA handicap uses the above method to evaluate a player's potential. The PDGA PR system, chooses instead to evaluate a player's average ability. The PR system throws out some bad rounds, but not nearly half.

The USGA's Slope has nothing to do with elevation, but it is the expected difference in difficulty for a scratch golfer vs. a bogey golfer. Chuck says that the compression factor in PDGA ratings is equivalent to the USGA's slope.

Did you look at how many players played above or below their ratings for your event ?

In the one I did last year, very few of the higher rated players played at their ratings, and most of the lower rated players played above their ratings.


Take a look at the following data and graph.

It shows that lower rated players tend to shoot above their rating. And the lower the rating, the more above their rating they average.

Further, it shows that above a rating of 940 or so, the size of the difference flattens out.

Notice that at a rating of 850, the average difference is about 10 points, which is roughly one stroke per round. So in all, an 850 player will average 1 stroke better than their rating, and a 940+ player will average almost a stroke worse than their rating.

<table border="1"><tr><td> Rating</td><td>AveDiff</td><td>Count
</td></tr><tr><td>850</td><td>10.7</td><td>1544
</td></tr><tr><td>860</td><td>7.0</td><td>1836
</td></tr><tr><td>870</td><td>5.4</td><td>2077
</td></tr><tr><td>880</td><td>4.3</td><td>2896
</td></tr><tr><td>890</td><td>-0.3</td><td>3034
</td></tr><tr><td>900</td><td>-1.2</td><td>3807
</td></tr><tr><td>910</td><td>-3.3</td><td>4266
</td></tr><tr><td>920</td><td>-3.9</td><td>4417
</td></tr><tr><td>930</td><td>-6.1</td><td>4597
</td></tr><tr><td>940</td><td>-8.6</td><td>4033
</td></tr><tr><td>950</td><td>-8.3</td><td>3589
</td></tr><tr><td>960</td><td>-7.7</td><td>3219
</td></tr><tr><td>970</td><td>-9.1</td><td>2537
</td></tr><tr><td>980</td><td>-10.4</td><td>2177
</td></tr><tr><td>990</td><td>-11.2</td><td>1513
</td></tr><tr><td>1000</td><td>-8.3</td><td>1154
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>

http://home.carolina.rr.com/rodneyg/handicap.jpg

My guess as to why:
- At lower ratings, the number of improving players outnumbers the number of established and declining players. Therefore, the overall difference for lower-rated players is that they play above their rating.
- At higher ratings, the number of established players outnumbers the number of improving and declining players. Therefore, the average difference is mainly the result of the thrown-out rounds.

In other words, above a rating of about 940, most people will generally *average* about 5 to 10 points below their rating. This is because the vast majority of people have the lowest 15% of their scores thrown out.

To apply rough formulas (formulae?):
if rating <=940 then
aveRoundRating = rating + ( (rating * (-0.2)) + 180 )
else
aveRoundRating = rating - 8
endif

Also, addressing the topic of ratings-points-per-stroke, it is exactly 10 at an SSA of 50.4. After the new math tweak goes in, I believe the points-per-stroke look like this:
<table border="1"><tr><td> SSA</td><td>PointsPerStroke
</td></tr><tr><td>45</td><td>12.7
</td></tr><tr><td>50</td><td>10.2
</td></tr><tr><td>55</td><td>9.0
</td></tr><tr><td>60</td><td>7.9
</td></tr><tr><td>65</td><td>6.8
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>

I'll leave it to someone else to decide how to apply all of this to a handicapping system.

I guess a bigger question is do the higher ups want to have a rating system or a handicap system? There's really no point in having both. Would we rather have a rating of 875 or a handicap of +4. Again, for a handicap system to work there has to be a standardized system of par while the rating system just uses the SSA that from what I gather changes from even to event even on the same course.

I'd prefer it to be based on PDGA Player Ratings, but the details need to be worked out. Also, I think that there needs to be improvement as to getting more results included and updates done more frequently (Yes, I know, that involves work. Work that I am not doing... so I tread lightly.).

Handicap Leagues or Events particularly with PDGA Sanctioning would certainly represent a new type of event for global organized disc golf. I can't say whether or not it would succeed or not, but I tend to believe that it would based on ball golf's success with it, and what disc golfers have told me.

Rodney, thanks for that info. Was the points per stroke/SSA calculated from actual results or was it merely a mathematical formulation? I assumed it was from actual results and so I decided to play out a few scenarios on the spreadsheet. The results from my crude simulation were pretty close to the numbers you gave.

Slomo 1, I think a rating system is far superior (if this system is designed as I assume it is) to a "par" system, primarily because of the scenario you mentioned. Take a brutally windy and wet day. Schultz and Climo shoot 10 over par, but are three strokes ahead of the rest of the field. On the rating system, they shoot 1060 and it indicates a solid performance. On the par system, they look like hacks. Even if you knew the conditions and understood +10 was good for the day, the par system never tells you how good it truly was.

I'll restate an earlier point I made on this topic. If you had to make bets :eek: on matches between players and you had two sheets of data, one with their last twenty rated rounds and one with their last twenty rounds in terms of par, which would you use to gamble your own money?

Since the courses are so different in levels of difficulty, and DG does not have a reliable par per hole/course, the ratings would be more accurate.

The adjustment has to come in the number of strokes your rating earns on each course. If the WCP is known for the course, then Rodney's numbers can be used to determine where the stroke cut offs are relative to ratings.

Rodney, thanks for that info. Was the points per stroke/SSA calculated from actual results or was it merely a mathematical formulation?



It's pure math from the formula. After the math tweak, which isn't in any current results.

To comment on a couple other things: The Player (and Course) Rating system was NOT set up to be a handicapping system. However, it is my personal belief that a very reasonable and useful handicapping system can be derived using its numbers. Maybe not TRUE handicapping (as in bowling or golf or whatever), but reasonable and useful. (Even for a course with unkown SSA and no rated players in the handicap league, I think it is VERY possible to run a useful handicap league using SSA and player rating.)

Can you offer an example of how this could be done, Rodney?

PS: Are you guys going to change the Amateur Class divisional names to something with less retro-adjustments needed?

Can you offer an example of how this could be done, Rodney?



If you have no idea what the SSA is, and have no players that know their rating, you can estimate the SSA by length (my PersonalRatingCalculator has such an Estimator, including a foliage adjustment), and that will be close enough for your purposes.

If you have a few rated players, you can get an estimated SSA from their scores and from the length estimate.

If you have a known SSA, you can use it after taking into consideration any weather that may have impacted that calculated SSA.

Once you have an (estimated) SSA, you can calculate Round Ratings for each round played by each player. You can average each person's round ratings to get their Leage Rating. (Note that, depending on what kind of handicapping system you want to use, you can keep their full average, or you can throw half out, or whatever.)

Then you base your handicap strokes on each person's League Rating.

Because you're using SSA and Ratings, you can do this across multiple courses, and you don't have to worry about gross score or par or anything like that.

Don't challenges arise as the SSA goes below or above 52?

Does compression account for this or is this something that needs to be worked out?

I know Chuck helped to set up some PR Handicap Leagues in our region. I wonder what safe guards he added to make it work better. Do you know?

I'll leave it to someone else to decide how to apply all of this to a handicapping system.




Okay, I made one up.

Let's say my league uses actual Ratings that have 15% thrown out. First I'd want to adjust for that.

Then I'd also want to adjust for the fact that low-rated players average better than their rating more than high-rated players.

Both these can be accounted for by the formulas given previously.

Then I'd assign a number of strokes per rating point based on the SSA.

Then, arbitrarily, I might decide to only award a certain percentage of that stroke handicap.

For instance, below is a table that uses real Ratings (with 15% thrown out), an SSA of 48 (therefore 11.2 points per strokes), and a person gets 90% of that stroke difference, and then I round to the nearest integer.

Example: Player has a 970 rating. This gives an expected round rating of 962, which is 38 from our center point of 1000. At 11.2 points per stroke, 38 is 38/11.2=3.4 strokes from 1000. They get credit for 90%, which is 3.06, which gets rounded to a 3 stroke handicap.

Note that if you use 10 points per stroke and the full rating and the full handicap, an 800 player would get 20 strokes, but here they only get 14 (due to the adjustment and the arbitrarily chosen 90% credit). It's quite possible that the 90% isn't even necessary after adjusting for the graph numbers given previously. Hey, it's just a league, and the most fun wins. Make up your own system and tweak it for fairness.

<table border="1"><tr><td>Rating</td><td>Expected Round</td><td>Handicap
</td></tr><tr><td>700</td><td>740</td><td>-21
</td></tr><tr><td>710</td><td>748</td><td>-20
</td></tr><tr><td>720</td><td>756</td><td>-20
</td></tr><tr><td>730</td><td>764</td><td>-19
</td></tr><tr><td>740</td><td>772</td><td>-18
</td></tr><tr><td>750</td><td>780</td><td>-18
</td></tr><tr><td>760</td><td>788</td><td>-17
</td></tr><tr><td>770</td><td>796</td><td>-16
</td></tr><tr><td>780</td><td>804</td><td>-16
</td></tr><tr><td>790</td><td>812</td><td>-15
</td></tr><tr><td>800</td><td>820</td><td>-14
</td></tr><tr><td>810</td><td>828</td><td>-14
</td></tr><tr><td>820</td><td>836</td><td>-13
</td></tr><tr><td>830</td><td>844</td><td>-13
</td></tr><tr><td>840</td><td>852</td><td>-12
</td></tr><tr><td>850</td><td>860</td><td>-11
</td></tr><tr><td>860</td><td>868</td><td>-11
</td></tr><tr><td>870</td><td>876</td><td>-10
</td></tr><tr><td>880</td><td>884</td><td>-9
</td></tr><tr><td>890</td><td>892</td><td>-9
</td></tr><tr><td>900</td><td>900</td><td>-8
</td></tr><tr><td>910</td><td>908</td><td>-7
</td></tr><tr><td>920</td><td>916</td><td>-7
</td></tr><tr><td>930</td><td>924</td><td>-6
</td></tr><tr><td>940</td><td>932</td><td>-5
</td></tr><tr><td>950</td><td>942</td><td>-5
</td></tr><tr><td>960</td><td>952</td><td>-4
</td></tr><tr><td>970</td><td>962</td><td>-3
</td></tr><tr><td>980</td><td>972</td><td>-2
</td></tr><tr><td>990</td><td>982</td><td>-1
</td></tr><tr><td>1000</td><td>992</td><td>-1
</td></tr><tr><td>1010</td><td>1002</td><td>+0
</td></tr><tr><td>1020</td><td>1012</td><td>+1
</td></tr><tr><td>1030</td><td>1022</td><td>+2
</td></tr><tr><td>1040</td><td>1032</td><td>+3
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>

This is just an example. You could do it however you want.

Don't challenges arise as the SSA goes below or above 52?

Does compression account for this or is this something that needs to be worked out?





The midpoint is 50.4, not 52.

And as far as I'm concerned, it's all in there. I don't know if Chuck will comment on using Ratings for handicaps, but he may correct me if I'm wrong.

The handicaps I set up for Geibel were specific to that course only.

Too late to change division names. That has to be proposed and approved by late October to make the paperwork for the next year.

Names, How about for 2005? Better late than never.

I vote for your color names. What were they? White, Red and Green? Reserve the metals for Pro Ratings divisions. Sorry for the late change of mind. Again, better late than never...

For our local leagues we use colors for divisions...
From Pro to novice women

GOLD
BLUE
WHITE
RED
GREEN
PURPLE


Everyone has a bracket they fall into....

For Am divisions, we were looking at Blue, White, Red, Green, Purple. However, these were ratings ranges, not division names. The top Am Masters would play in a White over 39 division and the Am GMs in a White over 49 division. "White Grandmasters" would be a creepy division name, especially around places like Vidor, TX...

LOL! Now I know why I like you so much Chuck! Let me know when and if you figure out if you like me too...

Good one. :D

Nick, how is it that you get that one and the Texans have become verrry quiet....?

Oh, I got it.

What can you say when a few idiots get you national attention ?