Tournament ratings question

[thumber_guy]

I'm about to play in a tournament. I looked up the 2018 and 2019 official results, and in 2018, scoring 48 was rated 999. But in 2019, 48 was rated 982. Does that mean that it was a little tougher to play in 2018, like maybe it was windy or some other factor?

[Cgkdisc]

Originally Posted by thumber_guy

I'm about to play in a tournament. I looked up the 2018 and 2019 official results, and in 2018, scoring 48 was rated 999. But in 2019, 48 was rated 982. Does that mean that it was a little tougher to play in 2018, like maybe it was windy or some other factor?

Yes. Not just windy but same wind, different direction or possibly rain. Another factor is sometimes the tournament layout is not exactly the same if the course has alternate pin placements.

[Martin Dewgarita]

Could be anything, It's not uncommon to have that big of a ratings different from day 1 to day 2 on the same layout. Was it the exact same layout? Maybe the players party in 2018 was bigger and half of the field was hungover. Maybe it was a full moon with mercury in retrograde. Maybe in 2019 there was an escort service available and half of the field felt loose and confident. Ultimately 17 point difference in a year is not unexpected.

[DiscFifty]

I wonder if we're in rating shift paradigm...where once older ams were the majority are now shifting towards younger players being the majority? The end result could be older players having a harder time getting higher rated rounds due to the influx of younger players with better skill sets. I would love to see avg rating per age over the past 10 years or so.

[Cgkdisc]

Originally Posted by DiscFifty

I wonder if we're in rating shift paradigm...where once older ams were the majority are now shifting towards younger players being the majority? The end result could be older players having a harder time getting higher rated rounds due to the influx of younger players with better skill sets. I would love to see avg rating per age over the past 10 years or so.

Here's a study I did on how ratings decline for Pros as they age: Hanging On

[thumber_guy]

Exact same layout, and both rounds were played as the first round of the tournament on Saturday morning.

On a somewhat related note, is it commonplace to make every division shoot from the pro tees (when there are white tees available)? Rec/junior/women/50+ are not equipped for that layout.

[Cgkdisc]

The same wooded course layout can get easier every year if it has good traffic simply due to progressively less brush off the fairways and natural loss of trees here and there.

[DiscFifty]

Originally Posted by thumber_guy

On a somewhat related note, is it commonplace to make every division shoot from the pro tees (when there are white tees available)? Rec/junior/women/50+ are not equipped for that layout.

In my experience technical difficulty isn't a factor, but on shorter courses it's commonplace. On longer courses not so much. But this is all very specific TD related. I personally prefer everyone play the same layout for ratings purposes.

[krupicka]

It depends on course and format. If I am doing shotgun starts, I pretty much always have everyone play the same set of tees. If tee-times and the course has a significant difference in difficulty between the layouts I may have MA4, MA60, and women play the shorter layouts.

Keep in mind pace of place and flow. With a shotgun start, if one group is playing shorter layout, they may end up constantly waiting if the division ahead of them are playing a much more difficult layout. With Tee times that can be avoided by having divisions playing the shorter layout go out first.

[Norvelljeff]

Another thing that nobody has mentioned is the factor of propagators. The second-year could have had higher rated players, which would cause the same score to be rated higher.