PDGA Ratings System
Definition: The PDGA Ratings System is designed to estimate how well a disc golfer scores relative to the rest of the disc golf community. Unlike a handicap system, it is a performance rating system. A player's rating represents the quality of scores they have actually shot in sanctioned competition. The PDGA rating has some similarities in function as the regular golf handicap or a batting average in baseball. It is an Elo-style rating system (though calculated differently from the Chess rating system). A rating of 1000 has traditionally been considered elite professional-level golf.
How It Works: Each sanctioned tournament round is assigned a rating. The PDGA determines what score would be worth 1000-rated golf on that course and layout that day for the sanctioned event (for example a score of 48 might be rated 1035, while a 50 would be rated 1015, a 52 rated 995, and a 54 rated 975). Thus, an easy course might rate a 50 as 980, while a difficult course might rate a 60 as 980 – thus, even though there was a ten stroke difference in scores the ratings would be the same (normalizing for difficulty). To determine the round value for each course on each day the PDGA uses experienced players known as propagators who played the round, examining their scores and their current ratings to set the ratings numbers for the round. For a round, each throw has a PDGA set value, which, by way of example, can be 7-8 for an easy course, 9-10 for an average course, and 11-13 for a difficult course.
Player Ratings: A player's PDGA rating is essentially the average of recent rated rounds. Rounds from the most recent rating period are used with recent performance heavily weighted and older rounds dropped – nevertheless this system reduces the impact of unusual rounds. Ratings are updated monthly.
Term Observations:
- Ratings allow players to compare performances across different courses, weather conditions, states, countries, and tournament fields.
- A 1000-rated round at DiscLula, Maple Hill, Idlewild, or Nokia is intended to represent roughly the same quality of golf, even though the actual scores may be very different.
- Portability makes the PDGA ratings system one of the most respected performance-measurement systems in sports.
