When to move up in tournaments?

[cjman]

My personal belief is that playing up in tournaments and getting your arse handed to you is not really much of a learning experience- particularly when playing up to REC or INT. Playing practice rounds with better players will indeed help you though. Tournament play is where you find out how much you have actually learned. There is also something to be said for experiencing the pressure of playing in the lead group regardless of division.

The only person handing out ass at an event is yourself. This is disc golf, not hockey.

Play int, grind it out, keep your head up.

 

[ejvogie]

Sandbagger: Someone in your division who shot better than you.

When you win a division, everyone else there wants you to move up so you quit taking their money (scrip), and everyone above you wants you to move up so they can take yours. Play where you're comfotable, and when someone calls you a sandbagger, smile, wave, and go home with your stacks of plastic.

 

[Thumber]

Play open ya Nancy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Timeetyo]

When you win a division, everyone else there wants you to move up so you quit taking their money (scrip), and everyone above you wants you to move up so they can take yours.

So very true.

 

[Beardface]

what about those of us who have never played a tournament but are interested? Is there a way to find what a 1000 rated played would shoot on my local course, or 900, or 800 so I can compare scores and make a semi educated guess towards category? Or should I just blindly sign up and see how it goes?

 

[krupicka]

Look at pdga.com for the results from last year's event, that can help get you an idea. Note though that for some event there may been extra holes, special rules, etc. that factor into those scores.

 

[JRW III]

Everytkme I play I can see myself getting better. Do I wait until my rating gets to 850 to start playing am3?

In most cases, I would say play your rating. There are a few exceptions. One is personal choice and two is when you rating does not reflect your current play due the lag factor. This lag often occurs for new players and those coming back from injury.

In short, don't wait until your PDGA rating is 850, wait until your current play reaches 850, or move up if you feel it is right and is the choice you want to make.

 

[Stardoggy]

what about those of us who have never played a tournament but are interested? Is there a way to find what a 1000 rated played would shoot on my local course, or 900, or 800 so I can compare scores and make a semi educated guess towards category? Or should I just blindly sign up and see how it goes?

Play a round with a tournament player. They should be able to tell you pretty quickly where you stack up.

 

[Shamis]

Unless you are really just starting out I don't see any reason to play am4. You'll want to get up to am2 quickly because that's where the players finally start to be semi-serious and you can start to learn things from people who aren't atrocious.

 

[_MTL_]

When I was ready to move up from a division I started to notice a few things.

1. If I played well, I would win easily.
2. If I played average, I likely would still win or be very close to the win.
3. If I played below average, I would be top 3 and have a chance to win.
4. If I played poorly, I would finish 5th or 6th.

 

[Barefoot744]

I used this site's ratings to help figure out where I should be. You can either join the site and put your scores in to get an average rating calculated if you religiously enter your scores or for a single round go to that course's page and click on the numbers (xx/xx) "Rounds Recorded / Average Score:" and that will bring up a list of all the recorded scores for that course and if find someone who threw the same score from the same tees as you, bam! there's your rating for that round. Yes, yes there are lots of reasons this may not be perfect but it will get you an idea; let you know if you are around a 750, 850, 950 player. I find that DGCR Rating is often a little inflated (10-20 points?) but pretty good.

This is what I did to try and figure out where to play in my first tournament three weeks ago. At the time my DGCR Rating was about 930 so I played Int/MA2. The final PGDA Ratings from this tournament came out to average 921. It was a very windy snowy day but I shot pretty well. I had some nerves that added a few strokes to the tournament rounds so I think the DGCR estimate worked well in estimating my skill level.

EDIT: looking back the DGCR for those two tournament rounds were calculated at 955 compared to the PDGA 921... So it is a good guide but from n=1 statistics take it for what it is, haha.

 

[ejvogie]

If you've never played a tournament and don't have a rating:

Take your average score on the course they'll be using (assuming, of course, no extra/changed holes). Add 3 to 5 strokes. Presume that's what you'll shoot. Look at the tournament history and see where that score would place you and choose a division accordingly.