Ratings updates occur on the second Tuesday of each month. The online event report submission deadline is the Sunday prior to the ratings publication date.

Your PDGA Player Rating is a number that shows how well you have played in PDGA competitions in the past year in comparison to the Scratch Scoring Average (SSA) of the course layouts you played. Players who average the course layout SSA will have a rating of 1000. As of 2021, top pro players who average scores lower than SSA have ratings over 1000 ranging up to 1050. PDGA amateur men average around 860 and women around 725. Each additional throw in your score will reduce your rating from 7 to 13 rating points depending on the SSA of the course.

Your first rating can be calculated after just one valid round of tournament play. It will be posted on the PDGA website the next time the ratings are updated.

All amateurs with the exception of aged based divisions, like Juniors or Masters and older, compete in divisions based on rating levels. You may not play in a lower division if your rating is above a certain number. The ratings breaks for each division is shown on page 5 of the PDGA Tour Standards. In addition, there are ratings events where everyone – Ams and Pros – play in a division based on their rating. Players are allowed to enter divisions higher than their current rating, just never below (except in Ratings Events where every player must play in the division their rating places them in).

Tournament Directors may upload tournament scores using the PDGA Tournament Manager web app. Preliminary unofficial ratings will be calculated for each round (click on the Show Ratings link). The results of the event at this stage are considered  "Unofficial Results". When the PDGA receives the official tournament report from the tournament director, course layout assignments are verified, points are calculated, and scores are certified as official. Round ratings for each event are then officially calculated and player ratings are updated for all members with new events played since the last update.

Your rating is only updated when an event director has submitted an official event report for an event you played in by the deadline before each update is posted. If you haven't played in any new events or in those that have been reported to the PDGA, your update date and rating will remain unchanged. League rounds are not counted until the entire league has been completed and the report submitted.

If you are looking at Unofficial Results or ratings, contact the TD about making corrections. The PDGA office cannot help you since they do not have the tournament report from the TD yet. If you are looking at Official Results and see a problem, send email to [email protected] and include a link to the event.

The unofficial ratings for each round are calculated from only the scores the propagators threw that round. Their scores will naturally vary from round to round even when it looks like the weather conditions are similar either on the same day or even the next week with a completely different set of propagators. The typical variance in a round rating for the same score under similar conditions can range up to 25 rating points (about 5%). If it's more than that, it's possible the weather was significantly different or perhaps the TD did not set the course layouts properly when uploading scores.

Yes. The weather and tournament pressure are automatically taken into account resulting from the typically higher scores propagators shoot in tougher conditions. These higher scores thrown by propagators will produce higher ratings for the same score on the same course layout compared with rounds played in milder conditions and recreational play.

Sometimes. The official ratings (not unofficial) can end up different for the same score thrown early versus later in the day when weather changes significantly. This special process to calculate ratings by time segments over the day is done when the TD or another official notifies the PDGA that certain rounds had significant weather differences, especially wind. The ratings team will either break up the scoring data for those rounds by time segments within a single large division (more than 80 players) or by grouping smaller division(s) who played near the same time of day. Preliminary SSA values will be calculated separately for each time of day grouping.

If you do not complete a round for any reason other than manipulating your rating, and if you inform the TD that you will not be completing the round, you will receive a score of 999 indicating you Did Not Finish (DNF) that round. You will not get a rating for that round but will receive ratings for any other rounds you completed before and sometimes after that round (if TD allows). If you complete a round, you will receive a rating for the round, regardless of whether you were sick, injured, or otherwise impaired. So keep that in mind when deciding whether to complete the round.

When reported by the group to the TD, the offending player will receive an 888 DNF for trying to manipulate their rating. The 888 triggers a penalty lowering the player's overall rating up to 5 rating points for a 6 month period. If their current rating is within 5 points of dropping into a lower division, their rating will only be dropped enough to keep them in their current division.

At least 13 holes must be played by the field to produce an official round rating. For courses with less than 13 holes, scores from two rounds can be combined to produce an official round rating. Official ratings can be produced for rounds up to 36 holes long. The number of holes in each round is weighted to determine a player's PDGA rating.

In theory, yes, but it has a very low probability of happening. We know that a propagator will throw more than three shots better than their rating about 1 in 6 rounds. We calculate ratings based on at least 2 propagators. And normally, we have more than 20 in most events. But let's say we just have 5. The odds that all 5 propagators will shoot more than 3 shots better than their rating in a round is 1 in 7776 rounds (1/6 to the 5th power). If we rated 100 rounds a year with only 5 propagators, we would have just one round in 78 years with all 5 propagators shooting more than 3 shots better than their rating.