PDGA TD School | Episode 14 | Ratings
The PDGA TD School series continues with Episode 14: Ratings. This video delves into one of the organization's most valuable member benefits, exploring its origins and purpose. The rating system was initially developed to address sandbagging, a common issue in amateur divisions, and has since been refined over the years. Chuck Kennedy, a PDGA Hall of Famer, played a key role in creating the system alongside Roger Smith, using data from the 1998 Pro Worlds as a starting point. The video explains how ratings work, including how they're calculated based on scores and course difficulty, to provide a single scale of comparison for players across the world. It also touches on the theory behind PDGA round ratings, highlighting the importance of evaluating courses objectively rather than subjectively. By understanding the rating system, players can better compare themselves to others and set realistic goals, making it an essential resource for Tournament Directors and players alike.
Expert pros share expert tournament rating strategies in PDGA TD School Episode 14, covering key considerations for accurate ratings.
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Welcome back to TD School, our video series for Tournament Director training. In this episode, we're going to talk about one of the PDGA's most valued and debated member benefits - ratings. Let's get started. A common question that's asked is where did ratings come from? Ratings were initially an attempt to deal with sandbagging - players entering a division below their skill level, which was a big problem 20 years ago. Imagine trying to put players in different amateur divisions without ratings. PDGA Hall of Famer Chuck Kennedy and Roger Smith developed the rating system based on scores from the 1998 Pro Worlds, with a few refinements being made as years have passed. Since 2002, the PDGA and PDGA tournament directors have used ratings to divide amateur players into skill level-based divisions such as FA1 or MA2. Player ratings provide a single scale of comparison for all players across the world, no matter their age or gender. You can use your player rating as a handicap to compare yourself to other players, from juniors up to the best touring pros. Your PDGA player rating is a number that shows how close your average scores are compared to the course rating, called the scratch scoring average, or SSA, of the courses you've played in competition. Players who averaged the SSA on courses played will have a rating of 1000. But how is it calculated? While the algorithm is incredibly complex, the theory it follows goes like this. In order to calculate how well you played a course, we first need to determine how hard that course is. Rather than try to manually evaluate a course by looking at the hole length, number of trees, elevation, foliage, etcetera, we take a group of players who we know the skill level of, have them play the course, then compare their collective skill level to that course. A couple of quick calculations later and we have a numerical value for how difficult the course is. This is the fundamental basis for PDGA round ratings. On average, players will play to their average ability. Some players might shoot better, some players might shoot worse, some players might shoot right at their average. Put enough people together and the power of statistics takes over. Player A might shoot a personal best, but player B will most likely cancel it out by shooting a bad round....
