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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

I thought the deadline was today.

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...

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.

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.

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?

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/Authoritative_Rules_QA_v12_2011.pdf

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. :D

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.

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. :-)

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.

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." :D

What happened to the Tuesday ratings update?

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.

What are the ratings update dates for 2012? Thanks.

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

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

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.

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

Maybe someone could help them.

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.

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.

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

Hey Chuck -- the results in Open for the 3rd Turkey Tussle for The Caring Center are wrong. I finished 1st and Vince finished 2nd. I shot the 59 in round 2 and he shot the 60. The payout info is correct...

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/64432/Open (http://www.pdga.com/discussion/../tournament_results/64432/Open)

will this raise my rating one point? :-)

Send a note to [email protected] He has to confirm with the TD for the results to be changed.

Hi Chuck,

Where can I read about the math that determines the number of rating points associated with a stroke? For example, in some rounds, a score of 54 = 950 and a 53 = 955. A later round has 54 = 950 and a 53 = 957. I am curious what drives the variation in the magnitude of the difference for a single stroke from one round to the next.

Thanks!
Steve

Chuck,
In the past I remember this site had a compilation of past ssa's for a course/tournament lay out. I can't seem to locate this. Do you know if this link still exits an if so where to locate it?

@lonhart - The table is not available. You can figure it out for various courses from looking at the difference in rating between scores 1 throw apart. For courses with low SSA values under 45, it gets up to 14 rating points per throw. For high SSA courses like Winthrop it gets down to 7 points per throw.

@kadeatkinson - The Board decided to withdraw that information from the site.

Is a Final 9 rated? Would it be weighted .5x to an 18 hole round and are 27 hole rounds 1.5x weighted? Or are they all weighted equally?

No rounds under 13 holes get official ratings. Yes, all round ratings get weighted relative to the number of holes compared with 18.

Yes, all round ratings get weighted relative to the number of holes compared with 18.
Wait... what?

If that were true then (ignoring double weighting most recent 25%):
Joe has two 18-hole rounds at 900 each and two 18-hole rounds at 1000 each his player rating would be 950.

Bill has two 18-hole rounds at 900 each and two 27-hole rounds at 1000 each his player rating would be 960.

Is that really the case?? I don't recall seeing anything like that in the Ratings document or FAQ.

Wait... what?

If that were true then (ignoring double weighting most recent 25%):
Joe has two 18-hole rounds at 900 each and two 18-hole rounds at 1000 each his player rating would be 950.

Bill has two 18-hole rounds at 900 each and two 27-hole rounds at 1000 each his player rating would be 960.

Is that really the case?? I don't recall seeing anything like that in the Ratings document or FAQ.960 is what I calculated in your scenario. I never knew that as well, I'll have to go back and recalculate my prior updated ratings, that might explain why sometimes I'm off a rating point.

It's always been that way. Courses with a different number of holes is partly why we calculate and hold your ratings in the database on a "per hole" basis then expand them later based on the number of holes. That's why you'll be off a point or two due to rounding errors because the "per hole" values are magnified to 3 or 4 digits.

Back in the early 2000s, we didn't get good data from a Worlds report for some reason and it went in the database as a 144-hole "round rating" for every player.

It's always been that way.
If that's the case then may I suggest a couple improvements?

Add that "weighted" detail to:
http://www.pdga.com/faq/ratings/how-is-your-rating-calculated
http://www.pdga.com/documents/ratings-guide

A player's "Rating Detail" page (e.g. http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings_detail/18396/2011/4949) should also show the number of holes per round.

The current position from PDGA HQ is to not provide more written details on the process than is already out there. It's not my call. Roger and I are contractors with the PDGA to provide what they ask for. Enhancing the player stats pages is on hold until after the fabled new website finally launches. There are several enhancement ideas in the pipeline such as including the number of holes in a round.

I thought PDGA members who got worlds invites would get automated emails in addition to being on the list. Not sure where I got that idea, but it seems like a good promotion strategy. I'm on the list, but didn't get an email. Is that unusual?

Emails (or letters before email) with all of the registration details traditionally are sent in mid-March. It's only in the past 7 years or so that the list of those invited got posted in mid-February once the previous year point totals were tallied.

It's always been that way. Courses with a different number of holes is partly why we calculate and hold your ratings in the database on a "per hole" basis then expand them later based on the number of holes.

From now on, I'm only playing tournament rounds of 72 holes or more. :D

Perhaps this has already been discussed, but with the current ratings system, aren't we going to see ratings continue to inflate?

If we had a closed pool of 10 (the actual number doesn't really matter) players that participated in tournaments together. Each time a player shoots bad enough that the round doesn't count towards his ratings (i.e. is 2 standard deviations below his rating) the overall average ratings applied for the pool of players increases. I know that the actual pool of players is not static, but with bad round outliers thrown out, it pushes the overall ratings upward.

Am i missing something?

In theory, the average ratings of your closed group would increase. However, the effect is minimal in the bigger picture with thousands of players. Note that the average player has one round dropped out of 50. That works out to one round every three years on average since PDGA members currently average around 16 rated rounds per year.

The thing to consider is how do you know whether a round is naturally poor (normal statistical variance) or deliberately poor? We don't know for sure so we lop off the tiny bottom tail of the statistical distribution just in case to make sure the overall integrity of the system stays intact and doesn't get pulled down by a deliberately poor score that wouldn't be a "naturally" generated poor score in the system.

Back to your original premise with the closed pool of 10 players. What would happen is the SSA of the courses they played, which are dynamically generated from their ratings, would slightly decrease over time offsetting the effect of dropping a few rounds in each of their ratings which would slightly increase their ratings. Net effect over time works out to zero inflation in the average ratings in the system.

@lonhart - The table is not available. You can figure it out for various courses from looking at the difference in rating between scores 1 throw apart. For courses with low SSA values under 45, it gets up to 14 rating points per throw. For high SSA courses like Winthrop it gets down to 7 points per throw.

Thanks Chuck. It appears to boil down to this: on an easy course (a low SSA, birdie-fest) each stroke is worth a lot of rating points (e.g., 14) while on a tough course (high SSA, hard to get par) each stroke is worth less (e.g., 7 points).

I assume this pattern is a function of a lack of spread in the scoring overall on an easy course (lots of people with similar stroke counts) while on the hard course there is a great deal of spread in actual stroke counts.

Thanks again!
Steve

Thanks for the response, Chuck, although i didn't think the course SSA really had an impact on the mean ratings generated, only the shape of the distribution. I thought the average of the propagators ratings would be used to determine the base ratings, and the SSA helped shape that distribution (more narrowly/widely per stroke).

I also think you can get rid of the deliberately poor rounds if bad rounds aren't dropped. I can't think of a reason a player would shoot a deliberately poor round except in the circumstance where they are having a bad round, and then try to ensure that the bad round is bad enough not to impact their ratings (and even then, i would expect that the majority of players don't think/play that way).

@lonhart - Yep. Think of it this way. If we are 70 points apart in ratings, on average you would beat me by 7 on a 50 SSA course, only 5 on a low SSA course and by 10 on a high SSA course. The differen in our skill level (rating) hasn't changed. Thus, the number of ratings points per throw has to change as the SSA changes so the math hangs together with actual scores.

pgyori - I also think you can get rid of the deliberately poor rounds if bad rounds aren't dropped. I can't think of a reason a player would shoot a deliberately poor round except in the circumstance where they are having a bad round, and then try to ensure that the bad round is bad enough not to impact their ratings (and even then, i would expect that the majority of players don't think/play that way).

The fact that we do drop bad rounds prevents the potential for deliberate behavior for Ams to tank rounds to drop their ratings to get into a lower division. The fundamental reason for ratings is to prevent sandbagging and get players playing the appropriate division for their skill level. Dropping bad rounds is a key mechanism to prevent any payoff from tanking behavior.

Chuck, I have a question about the new world rankings formula if you know the answer. The descriptive text says, "However starting 2012, players must have completed Worlds or two other Majors during the past year to be included in the World Rankings." Are there any further unstated caveats regarding the division played at the two other majors, or whether the Major is a major that produces ratings?

Participation must be in MPO or FPO in the Majors listed on the World Rankings page and all of those provide ratings in singles competition. No doubles, teams or match play events at this point. Do you think an event or division listing was missing in the explanation text?

I did not see in the explanation text that it was some divisions and not others, some majors but not all of them. I did not see exactly which divisions and majors were excluded from consideration. It might be there. I might not have read closely enough or clicked on enough links to find it whereever it might be. But I did smell it, so I thought I'd ask. :D

The three main documents seem to be

http://www.pdga.com/announcements/new-world-rankings-starting-2012 (http://www.pdga.com/announcements/new-world-rankings-starting-2012)
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
http://www.pdga.com/WorldRankings (http://www.pdga.com/WorldRankings)
<o:p></o:p>
http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/PDGA_World_Ranking_System_2012.pdf (http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/PDGA_World_Ranking_System_2012.pdf)
<o:p></o:p>
They all have a sentence that says something like this, which is quoted from the third document:

Starting 2012, players must have completed Worlds or two other Majors within the past year (Japan Open goes two years) to be included in the rankings. A man's best four NT/ET events (three for women) counts as one Major.

I take it that what is meant by that, with clarifying additional text in colored text, is:

Starting 2012, players must have completed Worlds or two other specified Majors in the MPO or FPO division within the past year (Japan Open goes two years) to be included in the rankings. A man's best four NT/ET events (three for women) counts as one Major. Competition in a division other than MPO or FPO, or competition at a Major not on the specified list, does not satisy the requirement necessary to be included in the World Rankings.

I'll take a look at clarifying the text. It has always indicated that "Master and older players who meet the minimum rating criteria are included. However, they only get credit when entering the Open Pro division at any event included in the rankings."

Right, and I'm just not understanding what that sentence means. I think I'm being confused by the word "credit." But is my clarifying additional text correct? Masters and amateurs who have the rating to get on the list, and who play Worlds or two of the other specified Majors, will be excluded from the list unless they play Worlds in MPO or FPO, or play their two other Majors in MPO or FPO. They have to play MPO or FPO at the specified major tournaments for the specified major tournaments to satisfy the criteria of having played those tournaments?

I'm fine with whatever the criteria are. I'm not arguing what the criteria should be. I just want to understand in case Kelsey cares about the list. And this is the other question she might ask, "Can a woman with the necessary rating qualify for the women's ranking list by playing MPO at Worlds, or does she have to play FPO?" Kelsey would be more inclined to play MPO than FPO, but I think her plan is to play MA1.

World Rankings are for performance in your gender specific Open division. Women are ranked with women and men with men. While a woman could enter MPO in enough Majors to qualify for the men's ranking, no woman has yet earned a rating over 999 so it's not realistic for the time being. A woman's competition results in MPO at Majors or NTs would not qualify for the Women's ranking. Women must play in FPO in those events for potential inclusion in the women's ranking.

Yes, an amateur of either gender could potentially make their gender's World Ranking list if they played Open in Worlds or enough Majors to qualify and their rating was high enough.

Chuck
Do tournament directors need to take the certified officials
exam every year? Is it free if I do? My tournament is coming up
in a couple of weeks and want to be ready to go.

Also would like to know for World's registration.
Thanks

TDs have to be certified officials and I believe your certification will be good for at least 2012-2013, maybe 2014. Yes, you need to be certified to play in NTs and Majors.

Chuck,

The Heart of Houston Open tourney from January 2012 has the wrong number of holes entered. When the results become 'official' will that be corrected along with the round ratings?

Thanks

I won't see the report for a while. I would check with TD to see if he got the number correct on the report.

Will the memorial ratings be included in the March 20th update?

That's the plan. But those four 1100+ rounds were abnormally good so the Ratings Committee decided to cap them at 1090...





(just kidding:))

I think those rounds should just be rated as "Out of this world stupid crazy!!"...you should add that PDGA player rating and make it an official category.

As talented as those players are - the fact that they had zero wind all 4 days while all the other divisions had wind and in the case of the ladies FRI (30-40 MPH on video the entire round) while the lead male cards teed off with 5-10MPH had a little to do with it also.

Unlike most places where the wind is calmer in the morning and picks up throughout the day - in AZ it was exactly the opposite every day.

They still shot lights out, but Vista del Roller, plays MUCH harder when there is wind as well as the strategy at the Fountain is different also when windy compared to calm.

As much as my tincupped 4 holes at Vista to shoot a 77 (double 6, triple 7 triple 8 and Quadruple 9) my rating for that round still wasn't low enough that it will get thrown out.

Headed for INT baby!

Chuck, when do TD reports get processed and the results on the pdga website go from "Unofficial" to "Official"? Is there a regular schedule or is it ad hoc? Thanks.

BTW, this is not a ratings questions.

When TD reports are received at PDGA HQ, they try to get them posted as official scores "ad hoc" within the next week or so. Then, those reports, received by the deadline two weeks before each ratings update date, are processed for official ratings.

It takes TD Report submittal plus fee payment before results can transition from "Unofficial Results" to "Official Results", correct?

Yes, but I'm not absolutely sure if the fees have to have been paid before they'll post them. You'd have to contact the office about that.

I was reading through the rules Q & A today and wondered about this one:

Q: My disc landed in a creek that has been declared casual. May I place a rock or a broken limb behind my mark, to stand on in order to keep my feet dry?

A: If you choose not to take casual relief up to 5m back on the line of play, then you must take your stance as you would anywhere else on the course. You are not allowed to move obstacles on the course to build your lie, or for any other reason, unless they are casual obstacles. If you do not want to play the lie as is, or take casual relief, you may declare Optional Relief or an Optional Rethrow at the cost of one throw.
Applicable Rules: 803.04 Stance, Subsequent to Teeing Off; 803.01 General; 803.05 Obstacles and Relief; 803.06 Optional Rethrow

The wording is a little confusing. Sounds like the answer to the original question would be yes, since sticks and stones are casual obstacles.

Read it closely. It says "for any other reason" related to the text you bolded. It doesn't mean you can move around sticks to other positions unless they are already in your stance.

I was reading through the rules Q & A today and wondered about this one:

Q: My disc landed in a creek that has been declared casual. May I place a rock or a broken limb behind my mark, to stand on in order to keep my feet dry?

A: If you choose not to take casual relief up to 5m back on the line of play, then you must take your stance as you would anywhere else on the course. You are not allowed to move obstacles on the course to build your lie, or for any other reason, unless they are casual obstacles. If you do not want to play the lie as is, or take casual relief, you may declare Optional Relief or an Optional Rethrow at the cost of one throw.
Applicable Rules: 803.04 Stance, Subsequent to Teeing Off; 803.01 General; 803.05 Obstacles and Relief; 803.06 Optional Rethrow

The wording is a little confusing. Sounds like the answer to the original question would be yes, since sticks and stones are casual obstacles.

Sticks and stones are not necessarily casual obstacles. In order for obstacles to be "casual obstacles", they have to be in your lie/stance. If they're not in your stance, they're just plain obstacles, and you're not allowed to move obstacles ever.

So you cannot take anything from outside your lie/stance in order to build a lie not because you aren't allowed to build a lie, but because you're not allowed to move the obstacles you'd be using to build the lie.

hey chuck,

i posted event results saturday and the places were all wrong. the site was asking me to correct ties but the players "tied" weren't really tied. it was asking me about random people. after several re-uploads most of it was fixed. but the mens rec division is still all jacked up. how do i fix that?

http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=12904

Were you uploading "Place" field values or letting the program calculate or assign your finish positions? Try not uploading the finish positions and see if that works. Otherwise, you'll need to contact PDGA HQ for help.

I tried both ways. Forgot about the "place" field untill I saw that things were screwy. So I went back entered the "places" and still had the problem. I'll try again though. Thanks

I have a strange question. Do the harder courses ratings count more toward your rating? And if not, shouldn't they? We're having a big discussion here in Delaware about shooting a 51 at Lum's Pond and a 72 at Iron Hill being the same rating. The problem most people have is when the scores get off the SSA. A 60 at Iron Hill has the same rating as a 45 at Lum's, as do a 84 at Iron Hill and a 57 at Lums. The more extreme the numbers the more extreme the difference. Now I get it, but shouldn't the amount of strokes weigh heavier on your rating?

An 18-hole rating is weighted the same on an SSA 50 course as an SSA 70 course. However, a 24-hole course with a 70 SSA will be weighted 33% more (24/18) than the 18-hole SSA 70 course. It has to do with how many 'tests" you have on the course that matters, where a "test" is one hole regardless whether it's a par 3 or par 5.

I never really thought there was a flaw in the rating system until now. What your saying is, a birdie on a 300' slightly wooded par 3, is the same as a birdie on a par 5 like say hole 5 at the USDGC. The test isn't the same. If I need one good shot to get a drop in, compared to three really good shots to get the same drop in, how is that fair? I know you can't break each course down like that, but there should be some way to increase the weight of the rating on a harder course.

The real discussion came up when somebody wanted to know what a 1100 rated round would be at Iron Hill. It's 20 down. That's an impossibility. Everyone actually shoots much closer to there rating, with less super highs and super lows. I get why, but when we were talking the only thing that made sense was to have these rounds count more.

With an average of say 27 shots inside of 100' on two courses. One has a SSA of 50 and one a SSA of 72. The shots leading up to those aren't even close. You have 23 shots vs 45. That has to count for something.

I have a question about pros getting reclassified as am. I thought you could petition and be successful if your rating is low enough, but someone who got reclassified said you have to take a year off from tournaments. Is that right? Is it that you have to not cash for a year, and if so, would taking merch instead of cash for a year do it?

I have a question about pros getting reclassified as am. I thought you could petition and be successful if your rating is low enough, but someone who got reclassified said you have to take a year off from tournaments. Is that right? Is it that you have to not cash for a year, and if so, would taking merch instead of cash for a year do it?
I don't think they require anyone to take a year off from tournaments. But I do think one of the criteria for being approved for reclassification is having not cashed (or accepted cash) in a pro division in the previous 12 months or so. I think the whole idea behind reclassifying is because one can no longer be competitive in the professional division(s).

And based on that assumption, the petitioning player should already meet the ratings criteria for a pro to be allowed to play an amateur division, and probably should already be playing in that amateur division where they intend to play after the reclassification. Doing that would avoid the cash vs merch dilemma in the first place. Seems counter-productive to continue playing a pro division if one is petitioning to return to amateur status.

I never really thought there was a flaw in the rating system until now. What your saying is, a birdie on a 300' slightly wooded par 3, is the same as a birdie on a par 5 like say hole 5 at the USDGC. The test isn't the same. If I need one good shot to get a drop in, compared to three really good shots to get the same drop in, how is that fair? I know you can't break each course down like that, but there should be some way to increase the weight of the rating on a harder course.


I don't think that is what Chuck is saying.

I think what Chuck is saying is that a 1000 rated round at your local pitch and putt 18 hole course counts as much toward your rating as a 1000 rated round at the 18 hole USDGC course. But a 1000 rated round on your local 24 hole pitch and putt course is going to count for more than a 1000 rated round at the USDGC, even though you might have had the same score on both courses.

There is no way to compare a 2 on a 300 foot hole versus a 2 on an 1100 foot hole because ratings are not computed hole by hole.

I think you have a valid point that weighting should go by SSA rather than number of holes played. You're playing way more golf at Winthrop Gold in a single round than you are playing at a short deuce or die 18 holer. I think SSA is a better indicator of how much golf you played than is the number of holes. If the purpose of weighting a 24 holer 33% more than an 18 holer is that the former is 33% more golf, a 64 SSA is 33% more golf than a 48 SSA, regardless of the number of holes played.

I'm curious what the smartest disc golfer I know thinks about this. Krupicka, are you reading this?

I don't think they require anyone to take a year off from tournaments. But I do think one of the criteria for being approved for reclassification is having not cashed (or accepted cash) in a pro division in the previous 12 months or so. I think the whole idea behind reclassifying is because one can no longer be competitive in the professional division(s).

And based on that assumption, the petitioning player should already meet the ratings criteria for a pro to be allowed to play an amateur division, and probably should already be playing in that amateur division where they intend to play after the reclassification. Doing that would avoid the cash vs merch dilemma in the first place. Seems counter-productive to continue playing a pro division if one is petitioning to return to amateur status.

Its different for a pro woman rated 850 or higher. The ratings for playing amateur women's divisions are really set too low if you think about it.

From the bottom of Advanced Women (800) to the top of pro women (currently 969) you have a 169 point spread. Other than the outlier Brakel women who don't actually play in the Advanced Women's division, the top advanced women are near or under 900, for a spread of about 100 points in FA1.

From the bottom of Advanced Men (935) to the top of pro men (1043) there is a 108 point spread. The top advanced men who are playing in the division are rated around 1000 for a spread of 65 points in MA1.

I think a mathematical argument could be made for redefining the ratings breaks for women's divisions upwards about 35 points. I think it would have the effect of making the women's advanced division mostly a theoretical concept except at Worlds and well attended women's tournaments. But the women's advanced division already is a mostly theoretical concept in a lot of regions, so that should not be a problem.

Bruce, I have been letting it mull over in my head and here a couple of thoughts.

Let's look at things another way. Say you are comparing a par 6 hole (I'm thinking something like Dana's dog leg at Pine Hill) with two par three holes. For fun we'll make it the same layout and just throw a basket at the turn. Should the rating on the one hole layout be weighted the same as the two hole layout? I would contend that the one hole layout is actually more forgiving in that as it is just as easy to get in trouble, there is more room to be able to recover from an errant shot. The other thing to consider is that for the two hole layout there are two throws that must be precise enough to stick in the basket. For the one hole layout, the third shot simply needs to be in the approximate landing zone. I guess where I'm going with this is that with an identical SSA, courses with more holes should be weighted more highly.

Comparing two course with the same number of holes but different SSAs, I think the logic still works in that even though there are more throws that must be executed correctly on a longer course, a shorter course is not as forgiving on the misstep. Take the extreme. A 18 hole 36 SSA course is not forgiving, one wrong toss and you cannot recover that stroke. Where a 18 hole 54 SSA course may allow for more recovery from those mistakes.

One last thought. What affect will weighting courses with different SSAs have on a player's rating? My napkin math says that it probably would be less than 5 rating points depending on number of rounds, mix of high SSA, low SSA. For a large number of players this tweaking is just noise.

btw ratings are not computed hole by hole, but they are calculated on a per hole basis in the math. This value is then converted into the 1000 point scale that so many like to argue about. This makes it easier to weight the round ratings based on number of holes.

Hi Chuck. For some reason, the ratings for those who played the short tees at this event http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/78066 are not showing up. Everything has been entered correctly as far as I know. Any ideas of what happened and how I can get it fixed? Thanks!

If unofficial ratings don't show up, it's likely there weren't at least 5 propagators (players with established ratings over 799) playing those tees among those divisions. We'll still figure out a way to get official ratings though.

There were 6 by my count, and the ratings showed up for both the first and third rounds. Was it an oversight on my part or should I just submit the final TD report to the PDGA office?

Do all 6 of them have ratings based on at least 8 rounds? If any of them shot more than 60 points below their rating, they aren't used as props for that round. Like I said, we'll still get official ratings calculated for that round.

Thanks chuck, I'll submit the report today

Hi Chuck, my wife is running a ladies tournament in a couple weeks, and as part of the event the players are self-organizing into teams of 4 apiece. The idea is for these teams to compete against one another, but since some of the women don't yet have a rating we can't use ratings information to do any sort of handicap-like scheme. The players span the entire spectrum in ability, from the highest-rated woman in the world, to first-timers. They will have 3 rounds (2 Sat, 1 Sun) total.

I've personally been advocating for simply using the 1st two rounds as a baseline, and just base the team scores on the final round. I.e., with team scores calculated from Sunday's round, relative to the team's cumulative average scores in the first two rounds. That way the teams know that it comes down to Sunday performance, the revenge round. I like that it would motivate them to finish strong, and reward those who put together a great round down the stretch. Also, the new players might actually improve more by the 3rd round, than other players, so they'll feel valuable.

But I've also been wondering what sort of ideas you might have for this type of scenario (small N), and whether you might have a more clever suggestion. I'm sure you've probably come across this kind of situation previously.

For the players who don't have a rating yet, you could use the average of their first 2 rounds unofficial ratings on Saturday night to calculate their handicap and not only apply it to R3 on Sunday but also R1 & R2 retroactively so you can also use Saturday scores towards team standings.

what's the minimum amount of holes a round should consist of for a rating to be calculated by PDGA?

At least 13 holes.

For the players who don't have a rating yet, you could use the average of their first 2 rounds unofficial ratings on Saturday night to calculate their handicap and not only apply it to R3 on Sunday but also R1 & R2 retroactively so you can also use Saturday scores towards team standings.

That makes sense, just use 2 of the 3 rounds to calculate the rating for the over all handicap...thanks!

Chuck, do you know if PDGA HQ has stopped processing TD reports between ratings updates? It doesn't seem like any tournament results have gone from Unofficial to Official on the PDGA website in a loooong time. I don't care about the ratings, but I use *official* results from the website to calculate SoCal Series points, and I haven't been able to do an update since February. TIA.

They're still doing them. In fact they have to do them as part of the process before Roger and I process the ratings. I just processed course layouts for 60 events today and those results are shown as "official" on the site.

It looks like One Night Stand from March 10th just went "official" in the last two days, but it only looks like one or two other California tourneys with dates after that are "official".

There could be 100 more events going official by Friday.

There could be 100 more events going official by Friday.

So now you're saying they are letting them stack up until ratings updates?

I'm just asking if there was a process change and thought you might know. It's okay to say "I don't know" when asked a question. :) I didn't really want to bug the office about it if someone else knew.

No process change. The office processes reports in batches once they get enough (30-40) to produce a batch, not as each report comes in. Lots of reports come in near the deadline so the last batches before an update can sometimes be 100 or more once the season is really underway.

I'm trying to understand the rating system better.

I just learned that if you add the rating points of all rated players in an event you will get a number X.

The ratings points earned by those players in the event added together will also total X.

Here is a local league example.
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/91291%25261737717848

16 players, 12 with ratings. 10,750 points going in, only 10,735 coming out.
I'm missing something.

Are all 12 propagators?
Will this rectify itself once the results become official?
Thx

Yes. The total of the propagator ratings is close to the total ratings earned in each round but not exact. By the time you see official ratings, the points awarded per round is almost always slightly higher than the average of ratings coming in. Note that because leagues extend over a few months, it's likely there will be a rating update before league results are submitted for ratings. So the unofficial ratings you see in your earliest weeks are likely to change somewhat (potentially increase) since the propagator ratings will change somewhat (potentially increase) before official ratings are calculated.

Ok thanks.
Is there a short answer why they wouldn't be the same?

With the league length and the ratings update schedule the results fom this 5/1 league opener will show show up in players ratings in the August 23 update so I do expect them to change..

The core ratings calculation is a shallow quadratic equation with an adjustment factor, not linear. So the numbers are close but not exact.

thx

Chuck - Quick question - How do I enter scores for a 4 round sanctioned Event on 3 different courses that some players only played 1 and 4th round 1st ,2nd and 4th rounds, 2nd round only, 3rd and 4th round only so that every round gets rated? The final round was at the same course as the 3rd round with the 12 finalists all playing from Hole 1 in tee times with ratings ranging from 863 to 1005. There was 8,6 and 4 players in the 3 Qualifying "mini Events" rounds (1st-3rd).

This was for the GA state rep spot to the USDGC and each round was it's own "mini Event" so that players could try again to qualify if they missed out in a earler round.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Keith

It may not work for some unofficial ratings. I think Ganz discovered that if a player didn't play an earlier round that ratings didn't show up for them if they played later rounds. It will work for doing official ratings.

At least 13 holes.

cheers for that answer. reason i'm asking is because we usually play 3 rounds of 12, which we then fit in 2 of 18 in the td report.
that sort of works, but is never a correct representation of reality.
(now we split - with rounddown and roundup - round #2 score between the two other rounds.
if we'd upgrade our courses to 13 holes, we could submit as is.

but, and i'm not a whistle blower here, but i would like to use some other tournaments as test case.
i noticed that the various "spring clang" events (last two results: http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/65371 and http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/80985 ) might have submitted 12 hole-results only.
latest results had unofficial listings with par 36 (which would lead to believe it's a 12 x par 3 layout, rather than 10 x par 3 and 3 x par 2 layout). their own website ( http://www.discgolfdatabase.com/resultatbahn.aspx?tid=149 ) clearly shows multiple events averages where only 12 holes are mentioned. The event flyer for the 2011 event however, talks of 3 x 13 holes. Confusion, confusion.

in case that is true, then either 12 hole layouts would seem to be allowed after all.
Could we in that case, re-submit our recent tournament results with rounds of 12 and/or start doing so for the future?

No layouts under 13 holes have ever gotten official ratings. The online software that produces the unofficial ratings was not programmed to suppress calculating ratings for rounds under 13 holes. Sometimes players will see unofficial ratings for Final 9s for example and apparently some of the examples you mentioned.

I don't know why a TD with a 12 hole course doesn't just add an extra hole so that the rounds would be rated. It could even be a 5 foot not-in-the-ace-pot hole.

Ideally, no rounds under 18 holes should be rated but the decision was made 12 years ago by PDGA HQ to allow rounds down to 13 holes for "customer service." In ball golf at least 14 holes have to be completed for a round to count in their handicap stats. No "best round ever" records can be achieved on courses with less than 18 holes.

ok, i know about finals rounds getting rated by mistake, but i'm not talking about something like that.

so the 2011 results i mentioned are probably a 13-hole layout, otherwise the system would have barred it from getting through.

the 2012 results however, with a clearly visible par36 layout (when they were still unofficial, showing +/- par scores relative to par36), and the website showing a 12-hole scoring distribution, with the same par36 layout, should then not show up after the results are made official. am i right?

update, i now see that the results for the 2012 event are now all combined as a 1-round event, where the 3 rounds have been merged.

It may not work for some unofficial ratings. I think Ganz discovered that if a player didn't play an earlier round that ratings didn't show up for them if they played later rounds. It will work for doing official ratings.

Thanks - most of the ones qualifying don't really care about Unofficial ratings - and a couple hope they never get rated :)

I wonder if ratings will come out a day early like they have some days in the past. I have faith they will since the deadline was missed last update. :)

Tomorrow at the earliest.

Tomorrow at the earliest.

Any assignments collected after the due date will have 30pts taken right off the top.....best you can get is a 70!

Any assignments collected after the due date will have 30pts taken right off the top.....best you can get is a 70!
Wouldn't it depend upon how many 1000 rated pros turned in their assignment on time?

Tomorrow at the earliest.
Chuck: player ratings are showing updated, but there's no links to "show ratings" on the tourneys that I think should have just gone official.

E.g.
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/87411/Open
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/77785/Open
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/77733/Open

None of the tournaments that I played that looked like they were submitted in time to be included in the official ratings appear in my ratings data. Bowling Green Ams was one of them. The other was a JBird tournament I played in mid-March. But I'm fine with being an Intermediate, so do not pass this post along to the complaints department. No immediate action is required. :D

My rating also changed but my ratings detail doesn't include any rounds after January, and the 5 tournaments I played in in Feb-apr all say the results are official, but there are no options to show round ratings. What's going on?

This is just a hunch, JenniferB, but I would guess that right now they are deciding whose job it is to announce that the complete ratings update is going to be delayed until next week. :D

Chuck, a few questions, building upon some discussions I've been having with others:

1) Have you ever thought about publishing error bars along with the ratings? Based on a high (e.g., 95%) confidence interval, and letting the chips fall where they may? This seems like a more honest way of doing things, especially given that the number of propagators is insufficient for accuracy.

2) Another interesting project would be to perform a network analysis of players and events, and to explore the topology in detail. Have you or anyone else looked at this in the past? It would also be interesting to do this with ball golf, and try to understand any differences or similarities.

3) Given that the ratings are a coarse measure, only, perhaps you or the PDGA can make a statement that event TDs should never use ratings as a qualifier for their tournaments? If people stopped misusing ratings in this way, then the Pros would never care about their ratings, which would be a good thing. (Anyways, ratings are only useful for roughly preventing sand-bagging, which isn't an issue for Pros.)

4) I always submit my own work for peer-review, which allows others to assess the robustness of the conclusions drawn from any data sets that are employed. Has the PDGA ratings system ever been subjected to anything like an external peer-review process?

The official ratings are still being processed for publishing. Please check back later this afternoon.

This is just a hunch, JenniferB, but I would guess that right now they are deciding whose job it is to announce that the complete ratings update is going to be delayed until next week. :D

To be clear, my ratings page does indicate that I played those tournaments, it's just that they aren't showing up in my ratings detail. Is it just the case that an update needs to be made to the ratings detail, but the new ratings are correct?

They are still uploading the backend part of the ratings details. The individual ratings got updated first. They are having as tough of a time getting the files uploaded as we all are trying to access the site.

JH: 1) Have you ever thought about publishing error bars along with the ratings? Based on a high (e.g., 95%) confidence interval, and letting the chips fall where they may? This seems like a more honest way of doing things, especially given that the number of propagators is insufficient for accuracy.

CK: The PDGA decides want they want to publish. We (Roger and Chuck - contractors) have a lot more detail that could be published but there hasn't been the will and more importantly resources to do more, at least yet.

JH: 2) Another interesting project would be to perform a network analysis of players and events, and to explore the topology in detail. Have you or anyone else looked at this in the past? It would also be interesting to do this with ball golf, and try to understand any differences or similarities.

CK: Several studies of various potential issues that players have brought up over the past 10 years have been made with several of them published. There are only a few individuals who produce enough data in a year to drill down to the individual level with much reliability.

JH: 3) Given that the ratings are a coarse measure, only, perhaps you or the PDGA can make a statement that event TDs should never use ratings as a qualifier for their tournaments? If people stopped misusing ratings in this way, then the Pros would never care about their ratings, which would be a good thing. (Anyways, ratings are only useful for roughly preventing sand-bagging, which isn't an issue for Pros.)

CK: Coarse is a matter of opinion in relation to what might be a better measure of past tournament performance - average finish rank, money won, points, player height, years as a PDGA member, etc. Sponsors are satisfied that ratings are useful enough to use as one of their elements to consider sponsorship. And, TDs certainly have a choice to use them as qualifications if they want to use qualifications. I'm not sure there's a better parameter to use.

JH: 4) I always submit my own work for peer-review, which allows others to assess the robustness of the conclusions drawn from any data sets that are employed. Has the PDGA ratings system ever been subjected to anything like an external peer-review process?

CK: The ratings system isn't a theoretical math project. It was primarily created as a functional mechanism for the PDGA to more fairly slot amateur players into divisions. One thought in the beginning was to simply keep the numbers hidden and simply indicate the lowest division an amateur could enter. But the Board decided ratings were "cool" and wanted us to figure out ways to provide them to everyone. So the system has incorporated a few mathematical compromises to deliver that promise to members. Stats professors would wince. But then, no one is yet getting paid based on their rating, only tournament results. A few Boards since 2000 have reviewed the system more in depth including last year and they were satisfied that it was delivering what the PDGA wants to deliver as a member benefit.

When you consider the flukiness of things like cut-thrus, inappropriately punitive OB setups and rollaways in the game, these random elements produce more volatility in an invidual player's round rating than the SSA calculation even with just a half a dozen propagators or averaging these individual performances to produce a player's overall rating. <!-- / message -->

They are still uploading the backend part of the ratings details. The individual ratings got updated first. They are having as tough of a time getting the files uploaded as we all are trying to access the site.

Thanks for explaining that. :-)

Chuck: why isn't 2012 PDGA AM World Doubles showing up in anyone's tournament history? I.e. for points purposes.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/77578

JH: 1) Have you ever thought about publishing error bars along with the ratings? ...

CK: The PDGA decides want they want to publish. We (Roger and Chuck - contractors) have a lot more detail that could be published but there hasn't been the will and more importantly resources to do more, at least yet.

Error bars are a way of answering the question: how good is the number you're giving people?

I sense that you'd like to publish more of this kind of data, so we should lobby the board.

I'm not sure what additional resources are needed. You have a database. I assume you can write codes to produce all sorts of detailed results and statistical measures. It would run in 2 seconds on my laptop.

JH: 2) Another interesting project would be to perform a network analysis...

CK: Several studies of various potential issues that players have brought up over the past 10 years have been made with several of them published. There are only a few individuals who produce enough data in a year to drill down to the individual level with much reliability.

Can you share any of these references?

JH: 3) Given that the ratings are a coarse measure, only, perhaps you or the PDGA can make a statement that event TDs should never use ratings as a qualifier for their tournaments? ...

CK: Coarse is a matter of opinion in relation to what might be a better measure of past tournament performance - average finish rank, money won, points, player height, years as a PDGA member, etc. Sponsors are satisfied that ratings are useful enough to use as one of their elements to consider sponsorship. And, TDs certainly have a choice to use them as qualifications if they want to use qualifications. I'm not sure there's a better parameter to use.

"Coarse" is indeed in the eye of the beholder, but if an error bar is published then we would at least have an objective measure of coarseness. Maybe if TDs have a quantitative estimate of how good the ratings are, then they can make better-informed decisions about the use of ratings qualifications.

JH: 4) I always submit my own work for peer-review, which allows others to assess the robustness of the conclusions drawn from any data sets that are employed. Has the PDGA ratings system ever been subjected to anything like an external peer-review process?

CK: The ratings system isn't a theoretical math project. It was primarily created as a functional mechanism for the PDGA to more fairly slot amateur players into divisions. One thought in the beginning was to simply keep the numbers hidden and simply indicate the lowest division an amateur could enter. But the Board decided ratings were "cool" and wanted us to figure out ways to provide them to everyone. So the system has incorporated a few mathematical compromises to deliver that promise to members. Stats professors would wince. But then, no one is yet getting paid based on their rating, only tournament results. A few Boards since 2000 have reviewed the system more in depth including last year and they were satisfied that it was delivering what the PDGA wants to deliver as a member benefit.

I agree that it isn't a theoretical math project. However, subjecting to peer review is a way of holding any kind of work to a higher and more objective standard. And since the entirety of the data aren't publicly available, it is good to examine the genie behind the curtain in some other way.

When you consider the flukiness of things like cut-thrus, inappropriately punitive OB setups and rollaways in the game, these random elements produce more volatility in an invidual player's round rating than the SSA calculation even with just a half a dozen propagators or averaging these individual performances to produce a player's overall rating. <!-- / message -->

That is a hypothesis that can be tested, with the right data. Maybe it's true, maybe not. But would be nice to know!

I've said what I can at this point. We still don't have the new website up and running which holds up any more info being developed and posted. If you search on "ratings" in the Search window, you can find some stories that have been posted in addition to the docs posted on the menu Ratings link.

I've said what I can at this point...

What you've said is:

1) You have additional statistical measures, but the PDGA Board does not wish to publish any information regarding the quality of the rating.

2) The website is inadequate for publishing further details, error bars, or other measures reflecting upon the quality of a player's rating.

3) You believe the ratings are good, but you decline to share any data or other information that would support your claims.

4) Despite the withholding of information that would allow us to better evaluate the ratings system, and with a widespread belief among the membership that the quality of these ratings are poor, you still advocate using these ratings above every other criteria, and to continue expanding its use well beyond the purposes for which it was originally intended (to prevent sandbagging in Am divisions).

If PDGA views ratings as a "product" for the membership, then it would make sense to also give members, TDs, etc., the tools they need to evaluate the quality of the ratings. The membership is concerned about the use and misuse of ratings, and therefore it seems appropriate to also subject the ratings to some sort of external review process. It isn't that we don't trust you, Chuck, it is simply a matter of being thorough and developing greater confidence in a number that you are promoting as the be-all end-all of assessing player quality.

2) The website is inadequate for publishing further details, error bars, or other measures reflecting upon the quality of a player's rating.

That is not the case. The current website is more than capable of publishing all of the above, but it would take a development effort that we don't have the resources for at this time. We are focusing on launching a new platform while optimizing the current platform as much as possible. The new platform will enable us to introduce new functionality much more easily, but keep in mind that any new functionality needs to be prioritized appropriately based on the impact it will have for our members.

John, I've probably made 1000 posts here and elsewhere specifically answering ratings questions for members and providing calculation information including precision. But the reality is Roger and my direct customer is the PDGA Staff and Board. They determine the amount of ratings information they wish to publish.

The elected Board represents the members. They have seen much more detailed analysis at various times when requested over the past 12 years on how the ratings system works, reliability, accuracy, etc. Those meetings have even been open to members. They seem to be satisfied with the choices made for how the system is implemented and how it's presented.

Consider that the ratings are simply the transformation of a player's scores. They aren't some mystical judgment of a player's performance. The only numbers used in the calculation to produce SSA and round ratings are the scores and current ratings of propagators. There are no subjective elements in there. A score of 50 on a course getting a 50 SSA has remained at 1000 rating since the beginning.

The 95% error range is directly affected by how many props shoot scores on a layout, not how good the ratings are of the props. For a course around 50 SSA, the 95% range for 5 props is +/- 2.7 in SSA which is 5.3% potential error. For 60 props, the 95% range is +/- 0.8 or 1.5% error. Those are the ranges for playing the same course under the same conditions which is never exactly the same even going from morning to afternoon with no wind either round.

Chuck - I did a search in "Player Statistics" for Amateur Senior Grandmasters by ratings. What it gives me is an incomplete listing, and the only reason I know it's not right is two players who should be ranked in the top 10 are not listed (Ryalls-Clephane/953, Hornsby/933). When I search the states they are from, they don't show up there, either. It may be missing others, as well. Am I doing something wrong in the search, or can the sytem not produce the desired results?
Thanks, Jim

For some reason that system hasn't worked well in a long time. It appears to the user to be random whether a player who should be included is seen by the system to be part of the selection criteria you specify. I know Ganz collected some info on this to provide to the website contractor but it hasn't moved up the priority list to be addressed yet.

The Player Statistics search is based on the current calendar year. The reason you don't see Ryalls-Clephane or Hornsby is because neither of them have any rated rounds for the 2012 season.

I'll take a look at modifying this search to pull in all current members regardless of whether or not they've played a competitive round in the current calendar year.

Steve, I think you are doing a good job. Keep up the good work. Thanks

I think all of these guys are doing a great job. Chuck Kennedy has devoted an enormous amount of time, effort, and love to the sport of disc golf, and I respect him enormously. Guys like Chuck are my heroes. Just to be clear, I don't mean to be critical in any antagonistic sense, I am only interested in useful critiques, to offer ideas, or at least spark discussions that might eventually lead to improvements. Let me also be clear that I'm willing to offer help in whatever way I am able, including a willingness to work with the PDGA ratings committee to help address member concerns about the ratings.

I hope that my primary critique is clear: It is not good to offer a number without also offering a quantitative estimate of the errors involved. When we throw out a number that is supposed to measure something, without knowing how accurate that number is, then it is easy to misuse it.

What does it mean to parse differences between a 1000 and a 999 rated player? It happens all the time, but really the rating system is incapable of resolving that level of difference in player quality. Is there a significant difference between a 1030 and 970 rated player? Almost certainly, there is a significant difference. But where is the middle ground of uncertainty? 995 vs 1005? 990 vs 1010? Who knows? That's the essential issue we need to resolve.

And there are a lot of other tools to evaluate the ratings system, such as network topology. It can tell you whether or not there are sources of skewness or poor coupling that will affect the robustness of various schemes for transforming player scores into ratings. They can also serve as a test of basic assumptions, such as normally distributed errors, etc.. For example, consider that tournament ratings in one region are only coupled to tournament ratings in another region by propagators traveling between the regions. What kind of players travel furthest, and are most likely to play the role of propagators that couple different regions together? Of course, these are typically better players shooting lower scores. Mediocre players are more likely to only play tournaments in their home region. In this way, inter-regional coupling can become highly sensitive to the movements and fluctuations in performances of the traveling players (who play one tournament while visiting, and then go somewhere else, so good/bad rounds that happen will adversely affect the ratings coupling). We don't know how much this influences the outcome of the ratings. But everybody suspects that it does present an adverse effect.

Anyways, looking forward to continuing this discussion.

Regarding the player statistics, I noticed that pro masters women are getting pulled into results when searching on amateur master women. Also, when you search amateur women, there is a guy that shows up near the top of the rankings. It also doesn't make any sense to me to pull up only women age 40-50 when searching on amateur master women. Grandmaster age and older women are eligible to play that division, and often do, but they don't show up as competition for that division. A local paper did a feature on me and apparently used the statistics search to report that I am the 3rd highest rated am master woman in my state, and 18th in the world, when I think there are older women who deserve that recognition. Similarly, Des Reading is now Master's age, and she doesn't show up when searching open women anymore. I just think it would make more sense to have one category for all pro women and all open women, and let the pro masters women be a filter that only removes pro women inelegible to play masters. IDK, I guess that's just me.

I'll take a look at men showing up in the search for women's statistics. Thanks for the heads up on that!

Currently, the statistics search only displays players who have competed during the current calendar year in any given age bracket that you are searching within. As it stands now, if a pro woman player plays in any amateur division they show up when searching for amateur women. I've been trying to get a consensus on this and am leaning more and more towards simply not including pros that play in am divisions and ams who play in pro divisions in the search results.

Like Chuck alluded to, there is a lot that is wrong with the statistics search. I've spent some time tweaking it recently and expect that work to continue over the next few weeks.

I will definitely add clarification on how the statistics search works right there on the page so at least people will know what to expect when they perform a search.

Chuck: why isn't 2012 PDGA AM World Doubles showing up in anyone's tournament history? I.e. for points purposes.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/77578
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/bump.gif

Contact PDGA HQ.

Congrats on the Women's Global Event to everyone involved. Truly an awesome showing for the women of disc golf.

That being said I would like to explore the unique opportunity the WGE presents using ratings for event ranking and even payout. John H has made some good points that have been asked over the years. I particularly would like to address one of CK's responses that has not been true over the last three years or so as ratings are used to determine more now than ever before and the list growing. PDGA ratings at the Pro level are being used for seeding players in large scale tournaments, $1,000+ skins match involvement, sponsorship deals, sponsor bonuses, PDGA Player of Year Awards and now even Global event payout. WOW, that's a huge list of potential money directly tied to PDGA Ratings. Ratings are a great thing for the PDGA base membership, don't get me wrong. I am very appreciative of the hard work by CK, Roger and others. The idea of having a rating system that doesn't allow the players to get rated against the course they are playing, but instead sets a course SSA against the quality of players playing that course on that day or round is what is not right.

CK: The ratings system isn't a theoretical math project. It was primarily created as a functional mechanism for the PDGA to more fairly slot amateur players into divisions. One thought in the beginning was to simply keep the numbers hidden and simply indicate the lowest division an amateur could enter. But the Board decided ratings were "cool" and wanted us to figure out ways to provide them to everyone. So the system has incorporated a few mathematical compromises to deliver that promise to members. Stats professors would wince. But then, no one is yet getting paid based on their rating, only tournament results.

Let's take a quick peak at the Women's Global Event. A good case because the women played the exact same layout for two rounds on the same day. A number of ratings anomalies pop up with just a quick review of the Pro Women. No in depth analysis here, I am not a big stats guy. I just know when stats don't feel or seem right. :(

WGE Winner Paige Pierce shot (3) strokes better in second round, but only received (8) points increase in her round rating.
(57 at a 983 and a 54 at a 991):confused:

Sarah (Stanhope) Cunningham shot the hot rounds both rounds at 53 for a 956 and a 52 for a 967. One stroke better for an eleven point increase. That is not that strange unless you compare that to other events. In Sarah's event 64% shot the same or better for round rating increase of 1 point. In Paige's event 63% shot same or better and rounds decreased 22 points for a same score. :mad:

In the Bartseville event with Liz Lopez, 44% of the field shot same or better and ratings went up between 14-17 points for the exact same score from round one and two. :rolleyes:

Des Reading shot one stroke better in round two (55) than round one (56). For shooting that one stroke better, her round rating went down 15 points. The weird thing with this one was that she played first round with Pro/Adv propagators and second round with Int/Rec propagators. This supports the long standing belief that the better the propagators, the higher the ratings. If her same 55 would have been with the same Pro/Adv propagators in round two, her round rating would have been 949 instead of 924 for a 25 point difference.:eek:

I figured I would explain my comments about studying the network topology of ratings, starting with a simple example. It all begins with constructing a graph. For starters, if you were to list all the players who've played in a PDGA sanctioned tournament in the past several years, and order them in a list as:
{1,2,3,4,...}
And then you were to also make a list with each entry for any two players that played in the same tournament round as:
{{1,54},{1,54},{1,54},{32,78},{32,78},...}
where in this case players 1 and 54 played in the same tournament (in which there were 3 rounds), 32 and 78 played in the same tournament (in which there were 2 rounds), and so on (there could also be multiple entries if a pair play in the same tournament more than once). These lists form a graph, with individual players as vertices, and tournament rounds in which pairs of players competed as edges connecting the vertices. This is the beginning of a network analysis. From here, you can use free software (many available for Python, such as Graph-tool, NetworkX) and compute various diagnostics. You can also generate graphical images showing the network of connections between various players. And by adding properties to players such as rating and regions where they play most often, you can also begin to address the issue of coupling between different classes of players, inter-diffusion between regions, etc., etc.. You can also compare the graph to random graphs with the same number of vertices and edges.

Companies like Google use this kind of analysis (though with many more layers of complexity added) to assign ranks for web searches, and it has obviously been effective. Biologists use this kind of analysis to link together the chemical reactions between different components in organisms to understand how everything is coupled together. Epidemiologists use it. Etc. I think this seems like the obvious direction for PDGA to go with ratings...

Jay, you're not posting anything that hasn't been known for years regarding fluctuations in ratings on the same course on the same day under what appear to be the same conditions with the same pool of props or a different pool of props like Des experienced. Those fluctuations are not flaws but expected with a statistical system. I posted this above (#3134) and it's worth posting again:

"The 95% error range is directly affected by how many props shoot scores on a layout, not how good the ratings are of the props. For a course around 50 SSA, the 95% range for 5 props is +/- 2.7 in SSA which is 5.3% potential error. For 60 props, the 95% range is +/- 0.8 or 1.5% error. Those are the ranges for playing the same course under the same conditions which is never exactly the same even going from morning to afternoon with no wind either round."

Based on these parameters, we would expect the ratings for 4 of the 82 rounds played (5%) by the women in the 41 Global events to fall outside these ranges perhaps 2 above and 2 below. It has no bearing on the average ratings of the props. It just happens naturally with this or any other statistical system. The good news is that the other round at each event likely fell within the range where the average of the two rounds produced a better representation of the true SSA for the course that day which can't be known by any other means.

If I had my preference, Global events would be at least four rounds so the statistical fluctuations on all of the sites have a chance to converge toward the "true" numbers whatever those may be. We went with three rounds the first Global to see players' acceptance of the format as an option. The Women chose two rounds not because it was good enough statistically but because they felt this would be more likely to increase participation which was a more important goal for them.

The reason Worlds is at least 7 or 8 rounds is to reduce the impact of lucky aspects that are part of our sport. Ratings have been shown to be pretty accurate in that 93% of the final ranking at Worlds can be predicted by the initial rank of the players' ratings before it starts.

Think of a basketball game. Now imagine instead of determining the winner after 4 quarters, they decided to play two 2-quarter games a night due to the shortened NBA season. If we agree that only a 4 quarter game truly determines a winner in that sport, then determining standings based on a bunch of 2-quarter games is a lesser approximation statistically in the same way using 2 rounds of DG has lesser statistical quality than 4 rounds to determine winners. Why don't they have single round playoff matches in B-ball or hockey and instead play up to 7 games? They've determined that a single game even at a neutral venue is not statistically good enough to determine who is better.

Here's an example directly relevant to disc golf where using ratings would have been better than using actual scores for rankings. At the Charlotte Worlds, the Open A pool played two wide open courses on the first day and B pool played the two mostly wooded courses. The next day they switched courses and the winds were wailing. This was in 1997 before ratings, but it's estimated the open courses played 4-6 shots tougher on the second day.

The B pool players got the shaft in this format. At the time, the A & B pools were evenly seeded with top players in both pools unlike the current procedure to stack at least the top 18 players in the A pool. Now had ratings been used for the competition, obviously a radical concept, the B pool players would have gotten ratings equivalent to the A pool players on those courses and still been in the competition rather than being torched using the conventional scores system. While individual round ratings are less accurate than many ratings averaged together, they still would have been superior to straight scores in that scenario.

What it boils down to is what is a good enough format for players to be willing to enter and compete. Each format has a different level of statistical "quality." We know players are willing to play single round leagues even with a weaker version of handicapping all the way up to Worlds currently with 7.5 rounds.

Should I be surprised to see the highest rated local player enter a one round league night where he has the lowest probability of winning? The more rounds played in a competition, the more likely he will win from a statistics standpoint. I shouldn't be surprised because the player has chosen to compete under that format knowing ahead of time it's not the best format statistically for him.

I'm guessing less than half of the 646 women participating in the Global knew how it all worked but accepted that it was good enough. If you look at the final rankings, there were very few surprises in the rankings compared with their initial ratings. Only the unrated non-PDGA players in some of the lower divisions surprised by not knowing where their skills currently were in comparison to the division they entered.

Think of a basketball game. Now imagine instead of determining the winner after 4 quarters, they decided to play two 2-quarter games a night due to the shortened NBA season. If we agree that only a 4 quarter game truly determines a winner in that sport, then determining standings based on a bunch of 2-quarter games is a lesser approximation statistically in the same way using 2 rounds of DG has lesser statistical quality than 4 rounds to determine winners.
Everyone knows that only the 4th quarter matters.

Why don't they have single round playoff matches in B-ball or hockey and instead play up to 7 games?
This one is easy: they can sell 4-7x the tickets, concessions, and TV commercials which is 4-7x the $$$$.

;)

Congrats on the Women's Global Event to everyone involved. Truly an awesome showing for the women of disc golf.
I didn't see a point in quoting back the whole post. It's up there.

Round by round ratings have always been like that. On the same day in the same conditions for the same score in different pools, Geoff Bennett got a 1030 and I got a 970 unofficially. When they averaged the pools together for official ratings the anomoly disappeared and we both had 997 or something.

Speaking as a player who actually plays in the ratings defined divisions and whose rating goes back and forth across the MA1/MA2 line, I think our rating system does an excellent job of sorting the MA1s, 2s, 3s and 4s. At the tournaments I play, there is always a strong correlation between rating and score.

If many people cared about their rating so much that they only played tournaments that jiggered their rating up or down, then there might be a problem with ratings. The fact that a small pool of players can produce ratings that vary by 25 or 30 points from morning to afternoon is not a problem because no one is going to be changing divisions mid-tournament based on a noontime ratings update.

And one other point: The rating for par changes from morning to afternoon because a different pool of players plays it in the afternoon. The morning pool on the average is sleepier, colder, stiffer and more hung over than the afternoon pool. The afternoon pool has all played the course recently, they are warmed up, their meds have had a chance to kick in and the DTs have subsided. The same player never plays a good course twice, because after she plays it once she isn't the same player she was the first time.

Recently joining the PDGA, I am not up to date on how this whole process works...
Obviously I am a new player and enjoyed playing my first tournament in February as a REC/NOV.
Placed 6th. - it was rated at a 904.
I played another tournament in March, but since the ratings had not been updated, i entered REC/NOV.
Placed 5th - those rounds average ratings is 874.
I never really had a chance at a win in either tournament, but I'm not complaining about that. Those guys just shot better.
My dilemma is, that I recently entered a tournament last week presuming that my 904 rating would fall below the 900 cutoff for REC/NOV before the ratings update May 15.
For some reason the March tournament is not counted in my ratings, which keeps it at a 904. So now what do I do regarding this tournament I pre-registered for upcoming at the end of June? Do I get in trouble for playing in REC/NOV? do i need to contact the tournament director to get him to switch my entry to the INT division?
Sorry for the newbie questions. Bare with me. ;)

Since the next ratings update is after your June event, you need to contact the TD to switch divisions to Intermediate. The TD also may see the problem before the event and contact you about switching.

I didn't see a point in quoting back the whole post. It's up there.

Round by round ratings have always been like that. On the same day in the same conditions for the same score in different pools, Geoff Bennett got a 1030 and I got a 970 unofficially. When they averaged the pools together for official ratings the anomoly disappeared and we both had 997 or something.


Chuck, this really not about the Women's Global Event. Your points are correct there and almost everyone knew going into any Global event that the people who play the course and what course is played actually make all the difference in how well you do in the final results.

I am backing John and the 100's of others that we talk to across the nation that are frustrated with all of the anomolies of the ratings system.

You even spoke of the Krusty Brand that is represented with the current system: It's not Good, It's Good Enough.

Ratings are LOVED and DESIRED by the bulk of the membership. WE/THEY deserve a system that works VERY well and not just good enough were statistical manipulation and averaging are used to limit the inaccuracies.

Let's start playing the course for ratings and not the folks that are there. Don't bother posting the usual argument about the courses changing year to year, we have all heard it. The TD's know almost exactly what their tournament courses are as far as Par goes. There is a way to do an SSA for each course based on every hole is a Par 3 and some holes play 1 to even 3 strokes harder. You have enough stats to be able to add in factors of tightly wooded verses open course slopes as well as how much more difficult a course is in 12 mph verses 25 mph or in rain.

This will take a lot of work I am sure, but I am trying to provide you with some job security;) I am proud of the work you have done thus far. I just want our system to be a GREAT system. If the ratings are the number one reason members are members, it should be the best.

...ratings are used to determine more now than ever before and the list growing. PDGA ratings at the Pro level are being used for seeding players in large scale tournaments, $1,000+ skins match involvement, sponsorship deals, sponsor bonuses, PDGA Player of Year Awards and now even Global event payout. WOW...

WOW, indeed!

Any top touring pros can be straightforwardly evaluated relative to any other top touring pro based on their heads-up scores in the same tournament rounds (since they play many of the same tournaments). This is easy, and so simple that nobody could really complain about the outcome. Just choose the time period for comparison, add up total throws in shared tournaments, et voila.

Just for the sake of example, I did this for Nikko Locastro and Nate Doss using data from the website. In 2012 Doss vs Locastro is at 876 vs 854 after 5 shared tournaments (Nikko is ahead by 22 throws). In 2011 Doss vs Locastro was 3136 vs 3159 (Nate ahead by 23 throws), and in 2010 it was 3278 vs 3193 (Nikko ahead by 85 throws). The ratings smooth over this time period...only now is Nate's rating higher than Nikko (1045 vs 1044), even though Nate is shooting slightly worse than Nikko so far this year and his better rounds against Nikko were in 2011.

The ratings in this example are out-of-phase with the data by about a year, as a consequence of ratings being averaged over many rounds in the past (including rounds both competitors did not play). This certainly raises questions about using ratings for player of the year or similar measures of a player's performance during a given time span. Anyways, I think it would be much cleaner and better-posed to use head-to-head throws over a given time period, instead of ratings.

Ratings being what they are, you should always consult the Vegas line before betting more than you can afford! :D

Fixed course SSAs are a big FAIL for tournament quality ratings and just not workable. Ball golf wishes they could use a system like ours (actual words to me from their handicap committee 2001) but their clubs are too invested in the current financial dynamics of their handicap system to change.

Every time I do the ratings there are new and temp courses being played that would need to get added to the database. Where would those ratings come from? In order to add new courses to the database for future events, the TDs would have to become course designers: record the wind, calculate foliage density and measure hole lengths accurately.

Some TDs are still challenged even now with just entering course layouts, number of holes and divisions for the current system. Maybe only half enter lengths for each layout. It's apparent a fair percentage of those are guesses or worse when the short and long layouts are each entered as the same length.

I believe the current system is as objective as we can get. Every breath of wind at any time during the round is automatically accounted for via the scores thrown. There's no subjective judgment nor any judgment at all involved. Everyone's ratings are processed for every round using the same formulas for round ratings and everyone's ratings update is calculated the same way. The only judgment comes in for the few events when there aren't enough propagators and we have to make some judgment calls using objective information.

The new league program is further proof that the current dynamic system is the fairest way to do ratings. We have reports from several leagues that course SSAs are coming in 2-3 shots lower than events run on the same course. However, the average ratings aren't any lower because the system doesn't allow it. Several people were concerned that ratings would get inflated from league play but it's not happening and actually can't happen.

The important thing to note is we're getting confirmation that the nature of the event itself seems to impact the SSA of the course that day. Top players are always more impressed with say a 47 rated 1070 shot at an NT or Major than a 47 shot during a C-tier or league. Well, what we're discovering is that the ratings show that score during a Major should be more impressive because that 47 in league might only be rated 1052, not too shabby, but not 1070. Fixed SSAs could never reflect that difference in round quality. The current ratings system does and SHOULD have that capability.

Since the next ratings update is after your June event, you need to contact the TD to switch divisions to Intermediate. The TD also may see the problem before the event and contact you about switching.
Just seems strange that a tourney in early March isn't included in the May updates...

Just seems strange that a tourney in early March isn't included in the May updates...
It appears the tournament results haven't been officially submitted to the PDGA offices, as the event results still show up as "unofficial". That would be the reason they haven't been included in the ratings updates...they can't include what they don't yet have. I'd contact the TD and find out what's up. Yours seems a good case for having a beef with them not doing their duties in a timely manner.

The TD's know almost exactly what their tournament courses are as far as Par goes.
While that might be true for NT's, as you work your way down to C-Tiers I doubt it. Out of the 1300+ 2011 events how many TD's are also course scoring experts?

Does the sport even have a widely accepted quantitative definition of "Par"?

There is a way to do an SSA for each course based on every hole is a Par 3 and some holes play 1 to even 3 strokes harder. You have enough stats to be able to add in factors of tightly wooded verses open course slopes as well as how much more difficult a course is in 12 mph verses 25 mph or in rain.

There is so much subjectivity required there.

How is a TD in AZ who has never played in MI or NC supposed to accurately judge his course's woodedness?

What about rounds that start with calm wind, have a storm come through in the middle with heavy gusting winds, and then end calm again?

The examples are endless....

I'll take a look at men showing up in the search for women's statistics. Thanks for the heads up on that!

Currently, the statistics search only displays players who have competed during the current calendar year in any given age bracket that you are searching within. As it stands now, if a pro woman player plays in any amateur division they show up when searching for amateur women. I've been trying to get a consensus on this and am leaning more and more towards simply not including pros that play in am divisions and ams who play in pro divisions in the search results.

Like Chuck alluded to, there is a lot that is wrong with the statistics search. I've spent some time tweaking it recently and expect that work to continue over the next few weeks.

I will definitely add clarification on how the statistics search works right there on the page so at least people will know what to expect when they perform a search.

Thanks Steve. I'm sure you have other priorities right now, but if it would be possible to add in additional search filter options for 40+, 50+, etc. I'd really appreciate that. You don't necessarily need to do away with the the existing age filters of under 40, 40-49, etc. Just adding the additional ones would be appreciated.

...
"The 95% error range is directly affected by how many props shoot scores on a layout, not how good the ratings are of the props."
...
If I had my preference, Global events would be at least four rounds so the statistical fluctuations on all of the sites have a chance to converge toward the "true" numbers whatever those may be. We went with three rounds the first Global to see players' acceptance of the format as an option. The Women chose two rounds not because it was good enough statistically but because they felt this would be more likely to increase participation which was a more important goal for them.
...
If you look at the final rankings, there were very few surprises in the rankings compared with their initial ratings. Only the unrated non-PDGA players in some of the lower divisions surprised by not knowing where their skills currently were in comparison to the division they entered.

Would it be possible to develop a confidence metric for a set of ratings on a layout based on how many propagators played, and then correct or adjust an entire set of low confidence ratings in a global event by comparison to sets of ratings having higher confidence metrics and the ratings of players therein?

I'm trying to think of how it might work.

I recall at one point you said players are statistically improbable to shoot more then 50 points (or something like that) above or below their rating, and that the statistical improbability is greater with higher rated players.

If a certain percentage of player's ratings on a layout are higher or lower than expected, and the number of propagators is low enough, and the rating of a player is high enough, could it trigger a thresholding effect to normalize the ratings on that layout for all players on that layout, or adjust them upwards or downwards?

Or could you determine the course SSAs for each round at each event, adjust raw scores of players in a weighted fashion (based on number of propagators for that SSA, and how high above or below a player's own rating they shot) to put them all on the same "virtual layout," and refigure the ratings for everyone participating in the global event?

If you had an expected SSA range for each course layout, could you use that to detect a need to adjust ratings on that layout? If so, maybe you could develop expected SSA ranges for commonly recorded course layouts in the ratings database, and require that global events having less than a given number of competing propagators be played on such a known layout.

Requiring higher minimum number of propagators for events to be included and playing at least 3 rounds would be better ways to improve the quality of the ratings generated for global events. If certain locations pay into the global purse and don't meet the criteria, you just rebate their entry fees for their global not their local competition. That way the ratings for every site and player are calculated the same way and you can handle still new courses or temp courses where there's no data to adjust things as you propose.

Ratings being what they are, you should always consult the Vegas line before betting more than you can afford! :DThis past weekend at the tournament I played, you got a 25 point boost if you played in the Advanced division at The Ponds versus the Intermediate Division. (Compare MA1 Rd 3 to MA2 Rd 1). The weather conditions were the same and the PDGA will erase that difference when the rating go official by calculating one averaged rating for the three tournament rounds played on that layout.

However, none of the MA1 played The Ponds short tees. Whatever ratings detriment the MA2 and MA3 divisions incurred during that round will not get corrected by averaging with some other MA1 round.

Once a year, when they let 945 rated players into USADGC, I'd rather have those 25 points. 20 times a year, I'm fine with having the choice to play MA1, MA2, MM1, MG1, MPG and MPM.

I have been contemplating trying to intentionally jigger my rating up by only playing at tournaments where there are different layouts for pro and advanced so that my rating does not suffer the MA2/MA3 mathmatical suppression effect. And then I think, why do all that to get into USADGC? Why not just practice your putting a little? :D

Requiring higher minimum number of propagators for events to be included and playing at least 3 rounds would be better ways to improve the quality of the ratings generated for global events. If certain locations pay into the global purse and don't meet the criteria, you just rebate their entry fees for their global not their local competition. That way the ratings for every site and player are calculated the same way and you can handle still new courses or temp courses where there's no data to adjust things as you propose.

Do global event TDs already have the option of imposing a requirement for a higher number of minimum propagators? If so, all that remains to do is start asking for the higher minimum number.

Chuck (or maybe Steve?),

The new tourney results listings are now showing some player ratings in bold font.
Is that to indicate propagators?

E.g.
http://www.pdga.com/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=1052&d=1337786194

That is correct. Also, if you hover over the player rating it will display a tooltip that says "propagator".

The Coolness Committee officially approves. Can you also make it so that if a player is registered for a division that he is not eligible to play in, his name appears in red bold type. The tool tip could say, "bagger."

:D

Steve also made it so you can mouse over a player's name to see their hometown and state/country. Nice additions.

That is correct. Also, if you hover over the player rating it will display a tooltip that says "propagator".
Excellent!

On a related note... any progress towards locking the display of those player ratings to the players' ratings at the time the event was played? That way when you go back and look at old tournaments it doesn't show 950-rated players in REC divisions.

I'll put it on my list of things to look into to.

Excellent!

On a related note... any progress towards locking the display of those player ratings to the players' ratings at the time the event was played? That way when you go back and look at old tournaments it doesn't show 950-rated players in REC divisions.

I'm not sure I'd like this. When there is a ratings update, I can go to a local tournament and see how all my friends ratings improved (hopefully). I like that better than looking people up one by one.

On a related note... any progress towards locking the display of those player ratings to the players' ratings at the time the event was played? That way when you go back and look at old tournaments it doesn't show 950-rated players in REC divisions.I'm not sure I'd like this. When there is a ratings update, I can go to a local tournament and see how all my friends ratings improved (hopefully). I like that better than looking people up one by one.
The other indirect benefit the present system has is that you can look up the current player rating of any player, even if that player isn't current on their PDGA membership.

E.g. Casey Guthrie #28668 isn't a current member (as of this writing):
"This player's PDGA membership is not current. Individual statistics, including player ratings and tournament history, are a benefit of PDGA membership."
--http://www.pdga.com/player_stats/44091

But a simple Google search (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Apdga.com%2Ftournament_results+28668+guth rie) will return 50+ pages of tournament results that all show Casey's current rating is 964.

http://www.pdga.com/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=1053&d=1337830378

However, for accurate historical data it makes no sense to show current player ratings for old tournaments. Look at the REC division results below from a tournament three years ago (http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/14194%252634894834)... 15 of the top 25 finishers are currently rated over 900. How stupid does that look now? It'd be more informative if those results showed the sub-900 player ratings that those players had at that time.

http://www.pdga.com/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=1054&stc=1&d=1337831603

Chuck my quest to better understand the ratings continues.

I understand why in some tourneys the ratings for different rounds might be averaged so a 51 in a morning round might match the rating of a 51 in an afternoon round on the same course..

Take a look at these results.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/79035

This was a 2 day event. Round 1 was a 21 hole course in Pueblo's City Park. For round 2 about 10-12 holes were moved to longer harder positions. Round 3 was at Widefield, a completely different course in a different city.

Shooting a par round of 63 gets a rating of 984 regardless of which layout or course was played.

I don't think so. Can you please explain why the ratings for this event were done this way? They are in no way an accurate representation of what happened at this event.

Thx

The ratings can only be as accurate as what the TDs provide us for who played what course layout. If they are indicated incorrectly on the TD report, we don't know how to do them correctly without feedback from players. If you or anyone else thinks the course layouts were done incorrectly, contact Andrew at PDGA HQ to check it out.

After finishing the first part of our league,
(http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/90687%2526340285996#MPO)

we have almost only positive feedback from the players. However, there is one question that I really cant answer:

-Is the rating system designed so that what one players gains in rating, another looses? That is, assuming that all players only participate in the local league and nowhere else, is there a grand total of ratings to play for and divide among the players? Some people are scared that it becomes like living in an isolated pond, it is hard to get higher ratings unless some other players really underachieves?

Yes, that's true for propagators. Those newer players (non-propagators) who don't have a rating based on at least 8 rounds yet are not part of the fixed ratings pool and can shoot as high of a rating as possible without taking points from others.

This fixed pool of propagator ratings at a league or tournament has been a fundamental basis of the system from the beginning. Think about an isolated island of players. If the only people they ever play are each other, then it doesn't matter if some players are taking rating points from other players because the system simply shows how much better some players are getting in comparison to the other players on the island. It doesn't matter how their ratings compare with players located anywhere else in the world since they aren't playing them.

Now if some of those players play in events outside the island, they will either gain or lose points from players who are part of the much bigger "island" and their ratings will eventually adjust. This is what happened when the players outside the U.S. came to play events like Worlds and the USDGC in the first years the ratings system started a decade ago. They played in the large island of the U.S. and their ratings gradually got adjusted. These ratings were brought back to Europe, Japan and other countries and helped adjust the ratings of those smaller disc golf islands relative to the U.S.

So it's true that leagues provide the opportunity to improve your rating only relative to the other players on your island. If you want to improve it relative to bigger or other islands, you need to also play in those other locations and player pools.

@Chuck, my understanding is there can only be one 1st place winner in a division. However, looking at the Sylmar Open on 4/1/12, both in the Masters and Novice division there are two 1st place winners. When looking at these four players individual stats they are all listed as 1st place. You can probably tell in the Masters Division who was the winner, one player earned $340 and the other player $215. In that case the 'Place' should be corrected.

The main reason I brought this up is that I'm calculating league points using this event.

Perhaps the date of the event has something to do with it? :)

Contact asweeton at pdga.com to get that resolved.

Hey Chuck, how can we get this issue fixed? I have sent a note to the TD.

2012 Buckhorn Open
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/78761

Intermediate division seems to be listed as playing a harder layout than the rest, look at those ratings. I'm not sure how this happened...

I shot 8 strokes worse than the Int division winner, and I averaged 959.75. The int winner averaged 998.75

All divisions played 1SHORT 2LONG 3SHORT 4LONG - EXCEPT the intermediates who shot from the shorts all 4 rounds.

This pretty much compromises everybody's rating average for the event, but it seems they are listed as playing a HARDER layout as their ratings are oddly higher than the same rounds in other divisions.
I'm thinking the layout fields got screwed up with the Intermediates getting Long Short Long Short and the rest of the field getting Short Short Short Short. As opposed to the REST of the field playing Short Long Short Long and Ints playing Short Short Short Short.

I'm not sure, perhaps you can look into it and contact Scott Anderson to correct it.

The TD report shows the Intermediates playing the long tees all four rounds and everyone else playing LSLS. I'm guessing that was not the case. I presume they played the shorter layout all four rounds?

I sent a note to Sweeton to check with TD to confirm. It will be corrected in the July 3rd update.

Thanks Chuck. I wonder how much this messed up player ratings for new intermediates... let alone hurt those of us who shot better...

well here's your answer...
Paul Rohrbaugh #35004
Player Info

Location: Cary, NC, USA

Classification: Amateur

Current Rating: 954 (as of 15-May-2012)

Player Statistics | Ratings Detail | Ratings History
Ratings History
Effective As Of Rating Rounds Used
15-May-2012 954 6
23-Mar-2012 877 2
25-Nov-2008 890 10
9-Sep-2008 865 7
29-Apr-2008 860 3

Wow. Big jump, ehh?

Well, NC players are always touting how fast players develop there...

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/79706

Hi Chuck. For the above event, the only people who played the long tees were MPO, MPM, and MA1. All other divisions played the middle tees. The event was played on three different courses. All divisions played the same course at the same time but from different tees as listed earlier. As you can see, identical scores shot by players in other divisions are rated the same. I contacted the TD to tell him he needed to change the layout codes in the TD report but he refused and said the PDGA would do it. What can be done to rectify the situation? Thanks!

TDs are not required to upload scores and correct course layouts for unofficial results. What your TD apparently is saying (hopefully) is that the TD report he submits to the PDGA will have the correct course assignments so the official ratings can be done properly. But he's not going to mess with the online system to correct the layouts for the unofficial results. There's nothing you can really do to get unofficial results corrected.

Thanks as always for your help and insight chuck!

No problem. Ideally, it would be nice if all TDs attempted to do the course layouts properly when they upload scores. Hopefully, the process will be simplified when the scoring upload process is revamped in the next year and more TDs will be willing and able to do it.

When calculating round ratings, are all scores of all propagators weighted the same, or is score from a propagator having 80 rated rounds over the past year weighted more heavily than that of a player having 8 rated rounds over the past year?

All propagators are weighted equally. We did a study to see if just using "better" propagators with more consistent ratings might reduce the swings in ratings on the same layout. But it turns out that more propagators is still better than fewer but more consistent props.

After the change below, old tournaments no longer show propagators in bold. Any plans to restore that level of detail?

We recently published some changes to the way tournament results are displayed to implement one of the most frequently requested enhancements: displaying the historical rating of a player when viewing past tournament results.

First, let's describe the three different views of tournament results:


Current Registration

Displays a list of registered players prior to the start of an event. This view includes a players current rating, hometown, and sometimes membership and official status depending on the tier of the event.


Unofficial Results

After an event has begun, you will see this view. It will includes scores and unofficial round ratings plus prize money if provided by tournament staff.


Official Results

This is what you see once a tournament is complete, the tournament report has been submitted to the PDGA office, and it has been processed. This view includes points, final places, prize money and, after the next ratings update, you will see official ratings.



Previously, all views of tournament results would display a players current rating no matter when the event took place. Now, the player rating displayed for Official Results is the rating the player had at the time of the event. This includes current and former members.

On the Current Registration and Unofficial Results views, the player rating displayed for active members is their current rating as has always been the case. If a player is not a current member, we do not display a rating. So, if you're an active player who isn't a current member, make sure to renew your membership today (http://www.pdga.com/join) if you want to know what your current rating is.
Now you can look back and reminisce and remember what you were rated way back when. Enjoy!
-- http://www.pdga.com/announcements/website-update

I'm guessing not. The old ratings are being pulled in for the old event display and there's no direct database history to grab identifying who was a propagator at the time.

As a player I like this new feature of keeping the historical rating. As a league and tournament director, I despise it greatly.

As a player I like this new feature of keeping the historical rating. As a league and tournament director, I despise it greatly.
I can totally understand the need to be able to quickly look up a player's current rating at a glance. I will be building out a special registration/results view for tournament directors as part of a tournament administrator application upgrade in the future. Until then, you can always check the spreadsheet the office provides in advance of the tournament.

One issue to be determined for league results would be which historical rating to use for players since it's likely there will be a ratings update sometime during league. Presumably, the rating when the league started would be the one to use.

One issue to be determined for league results would be which historical rating to use for players since it's likely there will be a ratings update sometime during league. Presumably, the rating when the league started would be the one to use.
That makes the most sense.

Does the established par of a course for a tourney have any bearing on ratings, or does it only matter your score relative to everyone else? Last week I shot my second round (tentatively 1001-rated) on a course that was a par 58. Unfortunately the TD copied the par from the first round (56) for that 2nd round, so instead of finishing the tourney at +1, I finished at +3.

Personally I don't care at all about the + or - strokes, but will the rating be at all different when the proper par is allocated to that final round (knowing it's only a difference of two strokes)?

Does the established par of a course for a tourney have any bearing on ratings, or does it only matter your score relative to everyone else? Last week I shot my second round (tentatively 1001-rated) on a course that was a par 58. Unfortunately the TD copied the par from the first round (56) for that 2nd round, so instead of finishing the tourney at +1, I finished at +3.

Personally I don't care at all about the + or - strokes, but will the rating be at all different when the proper par is allocated to that final round (knowing it's only a difference of two strokes)?

With the sole exception of application of section 1.5B(1) (par+4 for late arrival), par is irrelevant in disc golf. It has no bearing on ratings whatsoever. If the ratings change at all, it won't be because of the par, it will be some other factor.

As a player I like this new feature of keeping the historical rating. As a league and tournament director, I despise it greatly.
Completely agree.

I can totally understand the need to be able to quickly look up a player's current rating at a glance. I will be building out a special registration/results view for tournament directors as part of a tournament administrator application upgrade in the future. Until then, you can always check the spreadsheet the office provides in advance of the tournament.
I never got a spreadsheet with the sanctioned league that I'm running. Was I supposed to have received one?

Thanks Josh, that's what I thought. Chuck, give that man a cookie for making your job easier. :D

One issue to be determined for league results would be which historical rating to use for players since it's likely there will be a ratings update sometime during league. Presumably, the rating when the league started would be the one to use.
What about the case where a player starts a league mid-way through, after a mid-league ratings update?

E.g.
League started on 13-Mar.
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88558%2526s%3D1361046908

Ratings update on 23-Mar.

Sheldon Jefferson doesn't play his first league event until 24-Apr.
Glen Russell doesn't play his first league event until 8-May.

Should those players use historical player ratings from 13-Mar or what they were after the 23-Mar update?

After the change...old tournaments no longer show propagators in bold. Any plans to restore that level of detail?
Thanks for bringing that up. We actually do keep a historical record of propagator status. Official Results now show the historical propagators in bold.

Very cool. I didn't think the historical prop detail got carried over to the PDGA database.

I'm not sure if Roger can use the ratings of the players if they change during league or if the ratings at the start of league will be used all the way thru.

Thanks for bringing that up. We actually do keep a historical record of propagator status. Official Results now show the historical propagators in bold.
Keep rockin' the great updates Steve! Lovin' it. :D

I never got a spreadsheet with the sanctioned league that I'm running. Was I supposed to have received one?
Yes, every event director should receive a Member List on the Wednesday prior to the start of their event but it looks like L-Tiers were inadvertently excluded from this process. I will make sure this is corrected for future events.

One issue to be determined for league results would be which historical rating to use for players since it's likely there will be a ratings update sometime during league. Presumably, the rating when the league started would be the one to use.

If there is a ratings update mid-league, wouldn't that then change the round ratings for the league? If so, it would make more sense to use those ratings as the displayed historical rating since those are the ones that were used to calculate round ratings. If that is not the case, then IMO it should be since the update could include a previous league with rounds potentially played 2 or 3 months previous.

What will likely happen is the unofficial ratings for every week will be recalculated using the newer player ratings when they are published mid-league. However, I believe we'll be able to use the ratings of propagators at the time they play each of their league weeks when the official ratings are done once the league is completed.

The Buckhorn ratings from FEBRUARY are still not even close to correct, Chuck.

Can you fix it and REUPDATE THE RATINGS or are we going to have to continue to wait?

Chuck, I don't see any of the rounds from the first league session showing up in my players ratings detail:
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88558%2526s%3D407379381
League ended May 15 and Report was in well before the deadline.

A quick check of a few other leagues doesn't look like any of them got included in the ratings update either. :confused:

Before everyone gets into a full-blown panic, remember that last update it took ALLLLL day for the update to finish. It appears the same thing is happening again. The update is probably in process, but it is not done yet. So if you're not seeing everything you think you should see, give it some time before you think the event(s) in question were left out.

As for the leagues, that's explained in the announcement (http://www.pdga.com/announcements/pdga-players-rating-update) already. Leagues will be added with a special update "within the next few weeks".

The Buckhorn ratings from FEBRUARY are still not even close to correct, Chuck.
That's Andrew's area to process corrections. I'll let him know it didn't get done.

The league reports can't (yet) be processed as part of the regular event ratings process. So, all completed leagues will be processed separately in the next few weeks as noted above.

Is there a deadline for getting the league reports in for that update? I have one that I need to turn in this evening.

I think it will make it. The deadline for the August 14th update is July 31st so the next update is coming fast so the Worlds can be included.

Why is there a delay with getting the league round ratings? We had a decent number of local players that joined the PDGA because of the league sanctioning. For some of the players, the league rounds are their only rated rounds (or the majority of their rated rounds); thus, they don't have player ratings, or they would already be propagators with league rounds included which affects unofficial ratings in the current league and possibly which division they are eligible to play in.

The data format for importing information into the PDGA database and processing ratings is a whole new animal compared with regular events. The IT guys are developing new coding to automate that process so each league doesn't have to be processed manually which is how it would have to have been done for the recent update. We also wanted to isolate league processing the first time to resolve any problems that might be seen in the procedure or calculations.

Chuck This completed event does not show any prize money for the Masters division. Any idea why it doesn't?

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88580/Open

The league reports can't (yet) be processed as part of the regular event ratings process. So, all completed leagues will be processed separately in the next few weeks as noted above.
Kinda disappointing that rounds from almost four months ago aren't included in this update. The advertised thought process behind a maximum of 10-week sessions was to prevent a large lag between when rounds were played vs. when they were included in a player's rating. Hopefully, this is just growing pains that come with the first implementation of league ratings.

The data format for importing information into the PDGA database and processing ratings is a whole new animal compared with regular events. The IT guys are developing new coding to automate that process so each league doesn't have to be processed manually which is how it would have to have been done for the recent update. We also wanted to isolate league processing the first time to resolve any problems that might be seen in the procedure or calculations.

Thanks for the explanation; that's understandable. Hopefully, the process won't take too long.

The devil is always in the details. Sanctioned leagues sounded like a no-brainer, great concept to get players more options to get rated rounds. But as we've seen, it brings up a variety of new issues not handled by the weekend event process. I know Steve Ganz wants to automate the processes when the time was right. But we all wanted to see if there were any tweaks or enhancements that were wanted/needed in the league program before it was worth it to automate those elements like we've done with weekend events over the past 12 years.

Before everyone gets into a full-blown panic, remember that last update it took ALLLLL day for the update to finish. It appears the same thing is happening again. The update is probably in process, but it is not done yet. So if you're not seeing everything you think you should see, give it some time before you think the event(s) in question were left out.

As for the leagues, that's explained in the announcement (http://www.pdga.com/announcements/pdga-players-rating-update) already. Leagues will be added with a special update "within the next few weeks".

The front page of the website has announced the update as complete

What's an "S" tier and how many points is it worth? I don't see anything in the 2012 Tour Standards Doc about an S-Tier.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/Disc%20Golf%20Events/s_tier.jpg (http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/94401)

Haven't heard. Contact Ganz or Sweeton.

Special event it sounds like to me.

Andrew has updated Am & Junior doubles events to C-Tier.

Andrew has updated Am & Junior doubles events to C-Tier.

Will PRO also be changed from S to a C-Tier?

is the trophy for "2011 PDGA Points Leader" the same as winner?

I presume so. Not sure it could be anything else.

So I guess points earned by a woman playing a men's division don't count toward the points total for the award. One girl had 1300+ points but only played one women's amateur event (all the rest in a men's amateur division) and another had 600+ all in a women's amateur division and the one with 600+ won the trophy. Is my assumption about which division the points are earned in a factor in determining the winner correct?

If that is the case I'm not sure why the points multiplier factor is different for comparable men's and women's divisions.

Contact PDGA office for answers. Not sure how they do the Men/Women crossover points totals.

I'm going to assume the 1300 pt Am Woman would be Kelsey. That would stink if they didn't give it to her.

I'm going to assume the 1300 pt Am Woman would be Kelsey. That would stink if they didn't give it to her.Kelsey is sitting next to me here at a McDonalds somewhere in Charlotte. She has so many obelisks, she does not mind if they change the rules and give it to someone else. In fact, she thinks it would be the fair thing. In the recent past, you have had to play in the division once to win the obelisk, but pro pooints and am points have been the only two kinds of points they consider.

If it rains and players quit, is that a DNF, or do they take a 7 on every hole they didn't finish? TD insists the PDGA changed the rule so no voluntary DNFs are not allowed, and he's giving 7s.

If it rains and players quit, is that a DNF, or do they take a 7 on every hole they didn't finish? TD insists the PDGA changed the rule so no voluntary DNFs are not allowed, and he's giving 7s.

Quits during a round? DNF. There is no way to take "7" on holes after a round has started. The par+4 penalty only applies for holes missed at the start of a round.

Quits between rounds? In theory, they can take par+4 for each hole they miss starting with the first one of the round, and return late in the round or in the next round.

The PDGA has changed nothing about this rule in years, and I would think if they did, it would have been widely announced and the internet would be abuzz with the news. This isn't 1995 anymore.

My whole card of two complete women's divisions quit because we all thought it was unsafe to continue, but the TD saw no problem in trying to throw from dirt tees in knee deep flowing water (flash flood warning) with the ground lighting up around us from lightning overhead. My understanding is that he called it for a while, and we were too far from HQ to hear the horn, and decided to go in. On the way in, we heard a double horn blast as we got close to HQ, which it seems was his signal to restart. So when we got there, he was telling everyone to go back out and finish or take 7s on every hole they didn't finish. Everyone in my division and in the other women's division decided not to finish, and just take the 7s. I think maybe if the other division had known a DNF was on the line, they would have finished, because the second round took one of them up into a tie for first. The awards have been completed based on that and everyone was happy, I think. Those low round ratings from taking all those 7s will probably be low enough to be dropped for most of us. So if I ask the Tour Manager to look into it, it could really upset some stuff, but I'd like for this TD to understand the rules properly. Could he simply put in the actual scores for the second round for the ladies as on a different layout, or does he really have to DNF everyone? And what happens to payout when everyone DNFs?

If it rains and players quit, is that a DNF, or do they take a 7 on every hole they didn't finish? TD insists the PDGA changed the rule so no voluntary DNFs are not allowed, and he's giving 7s.

My whole card of two complete women's divisions quit because we all thought it was unsafe to continue, but the TD saw no problem in trying to throw from dirt tees in knee deep flowing water (flash flood warning) with the ground lighting up around us from lightning overhead. My understanding is that he called it for a while, and we were too far from HQ to hear the horn, and decided to go in. On the way in, we heard a double horn blast as we got close to HQ, which it seems was his signal to restart. So when we got there, he was telling everyone to go back out and finish or take 7s on every hole they didn't finish. Everyone in my division and in the other women's division decided not to finish, and just take the 7s.

Your original post sounds like a completely different scenario than your second post. If a player quits in the middle of a round, that's a DNF. If play was suspended and then resumed and the player fails to continue play, then what action should be taken? DNF or 7s? It's not 100% clearly defined. I would say it is reasonable that the initial start of play and the resumption of suspended play would fall under the same rules per 1.5 of the Competition manual. If a player decides to not show up after play has resumed, then they should be given 7s. In this case, it seems to me the TD made the right call.

I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation Patrick, choosing not to finish a round that is already in progress sounds like a pretty clear cut DNF to me.

I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation Patrick, choosing not to finish a round that is already in progress sounds like a pretty clear cut DNF to me.

I think I have changed my mind and would agree that it would be a DNF. Reading 1.5 over again, it seems that the assignment of par+4 should only be assessed at the start of a round. Since this situation occurred in the middle of the round a player not showing up could result in a DNF.

I'm looking at the situation like this. Players are called in to TD central to suspend play. At a designated time, the TD announces play will resume at xx:xx time giving players enough time to arrive back at their holes or previous lies. TD signals to resume play. Any player that doesn't arrive on time is given 30 seconds to throw. No show mark a par+4 until player returns. I'm wondering about a late player that arrives a hole later, what to do? Is the player automatically DNF if he/she misses the continuance of the current hole, but plays on for the remaining x # of holes?

At Worlds from time to time the PDGA has allowed a player to take 7s for missed holes. I recall at 2004 Worlds a small junior dropped out during an early round for several holes but was allowed to continue playing the next day. But that is not the rule.

TDs can do almost anything they want so long as they send in a TD report and their player fees.

Chuck, there seems to be a flaw in the unofficial round ratings for MM1. At least, mine. It looks like perhaps after the shuffle players' new pool assignments were retroactively assigned to the earlier rounds.

I started in P pool and shuffled to Q. Wednesday I played Winget first, then Elon. But it looks like my ratings assume I played Elon first then Winget.

A known flaw?

Not important at the moment, but just want to make sure you guys are aware of it.

So what is the deal with pool B open players round rating being 30 points lower than pool a open players? P

Pool b Zach Melton 48 rated 1058, pool a Dave Feldberg 49 rated 1079. Max Nichols pool b 49 rated 1049. This was in round 5. I know they are not official results.

Are they playing a different course on different days or what?

Seems to me pool should not make a difference. Kinda lame and seems like the ratings are padded to make the popular guys look better.

Only some unofficial round ratings can be trusted at Worlds and only the scorekeepers know which ones. With multiple and shifting pools, they just don't always keep up with course assignments for unofficial ratings.

Hello Chuck
I just wanted to make sure you are aware that the ratings for the pro masters At worlds before the shuffle are still incorrect?

Kelsey's rating at Wingnut went up quite a bit when the Friday afternoon rain soaked round got factored in. The low scores shot by the rain squall pool boosted ratings for the pools which played in the sauna rounds. Although she'd like to have a 1030 round in her database, the ratings elves might want to separate the the Friday afternoon round.

For divisions that have multiple pools, the only rounds that are accurate are the semi-finals. For divisions with a single pool, like FPO, the ratings are accurate for all rounds.

For divisions that have multiple pools, the only rounds that are accurate are the semi-finals. For divisions with a single pool, like FPO, the ratings are accurate for all rounds.

I would hope when all is sorted out that the final round at Idlewild will NOT be counted for the GM pool as playing over 2 days with some people completing their rounds in the dark with flashlights, some players NEVER restating at 7PM, and others playing some holes - there is no way that the ratings form those scores are reflective of those conditions being played by all the players on the same course at the same time.

My whole card of two complete women's divisions quit because we all thought it was unsafe to continue, but the TD saw no problem in trying to throw from dirt tees in knee deep flowing water (flash flood warning) with the ground lighting up around us from lightning overhead. My understanding is that he called it for a while, and we were too far from HQ to hear the horn, and decided to go in. On the way in, we heard a double horn blast as we got close to HQ, which it seems was his signal to restart. So when we got there, he was telling everyone to go back out and finish or take 7s on every hole they didn't finish. Everyone in my division and in the other women's division decided not to finish, and just take the 7s. I think maybe if the other division had known a DNF was on the line, they would have finished, because the second round took one of them up into a tie for first. The awards have been completed based on that and everyone was happy, I think. Those low round ratings from taking all those 7s will probably be low enough to be dropped for most of us. So if I ask the Tour Manager to look into it, it could really upset some stuff, but I'd like for this TD to understand the rules properly. Could he simply put in the actual scores for the second round for the ladies as on a different layout, or does he really have to DNF everyone? And what happens to payout when everyone DNFs?

Heard from someone close to the TD today that the TD knows he's not allowed to do that, but he plays his tournaments, and he did it to boost his own round ratings. I don't believe it either, but it's just too funny not to share. ;-)

when i played a 9 hole course, it wouldn't give a round rating because it says there must be at least 12 holes. but what if there is duel tees? any way to play a round from each set of tees and get an 18 hole rating?

when i played a 9 hole course, it wouldn't give a round rating because it says there must be at least 12 holes. but what if there is duel tees? any way to play a round from each set of tees and get an 18 hole rating?

You can look up the course lengths on DGCR to get the total length, and then estimate the scratch scoring average (SSA) as:

(Course length/285)+1.67 * Number of holes

Then, to derive your personal round rating estimate, determine y as the rating-change-per-stroke, using x as the SSA:

For SSA's above 50.3289725:
y = -0.225067 x + 21.3858

For SSA's below 50.3289725:
y = -0.487095 x + 34.5734

Or you can just spitball it by subtracting or adding ten points per stroke above or below the SSA. For some more accurate spitballing, you can use ten points per stroke for a 50 SSA, and more like 13 points per stroke for a 44 SSA, and 6 points per stroke for a 68 SSA.

That should get you a reasonably close estimate for average vegetation and wind. I don't know for sure, but I think the PDGA app uses a formula much like this one to calculate round ratings for courses when tournament data is not available.

If you look the course up on DGCR, it has a calculator that implements this formula (with crude adjustments for vegetation) to automatically produce scratch scoring estimates on the course pages. So you might just be able to look it up there for each layout separately. I don't think they have a function for calculating round rating yet, but maybe if you enter your scores it does that. I don't know.

Another thing that might work is to go into the PDGA course directory and add that 18 hole layout for the course. If you can do that, then I think the PDGA app will pull that layout as a selectable option and produce round ratings based on whatever default formula it uses when there are insufficient tournament results for a layout to use tournament data. However, I just took a tour of the editing interface in there and, while it lets you add an alternate course length, there is no way I see to add layouts having different numbers of holes. It looks to me like you'd have to change the default number of holes to 18, which would make it provide inaccurate information about the course, and produce incorrect results for the 9 hole layouts.

Heard from someone close to the TD today that the TD knows he's not allowed to do that, but he plays his tournaments, and he did it to boost his own round ratings. I don't believe it either, but it's just too funny not to share. ;-)

Wait, so he intentionally inflated scores by assigning erroneous par+4 penalties instead of DNFs in order to inflate his own rating for the tournament? That is a laugh. It's also pointless. Even if any of those affected players are propagators, their high scores pretty much ensure they will be thrown out of the SSA calculation process, so the ratings for the event will be 100% UNaffected by their scores.

What a dope.

For divisions that have multiple pools, the only rounds that are accurate are the semi-finals. For divisions with a single pool, like FPO, the ratings are accurate for all rounds.

Indeed, just a reminder that for the following divisions where there were pools, your unofficial online ratings are no longer accurate:

Pro
Open Division MPO Pools A,B
Masters Division MPM Pools D,E

Amateur
Advanced Division MA1 Pools K,L,M,N
Advanced Masters Division MM1 Pools P,Q
Advanced Grandmasters Division MG1 Pools R,Z

Every other division which did not have multiple pools should have accurate unofficial online round ratings.

Remember, the next PDGA Player Ratings Update is scheduled for August 14th, and your official round ratings for your rounds WILL be accurate when the next ratings update goes through.

Wait, so he intentionally inflated scores by assigning erroneous par+4 penalties instead of DNFs in order to inflate his own rating for the tournament? That is a laugh. It's also pointless. Even if any of those affected players are propagators, their high scores pretty much ensure they will be thrown out of the SSA calculation process, so the ratings for the event will be 100% UNaffected by their scores.

What a dope.

I don't believe for a minute that that's the real reason. I just think he thinks that's the rule. And who knows. Maybe it is the rule.

Will AM Nationals ratings be included in the August update?