Ah Snap It's on the website now so it must be true!

I figure you guys elected me to the board to do something so here's my shot. I'm actually trying to turn the PDGA upside down. The PDGA in the past has really only been useful to tournament players. Well the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of players that never play tournaments and there are tons of players that show up to the weekly action at their local course. So I'm trying to reach out to more of the recreational players and introduce the PDGA and the ratings system to them. At the same time provide a service for tournament players to build their own PDGA player rating.

So lets get into some of the details, This is a forum where I will be answering your questions and concerns.



� Start of the leagues in March after daylight savings time. (March, 11, 2012)
� A league will run from a minimum of 6 to a maximum 12 week (Spring, Summer, Fall )
� Leagues will pay the PDGA a $25 sanctioning fee for each season and a $1 per player, per week fee. (With a 50/50 split of $1 fees between League & PDGA)
� All players will need to provide a first and last name. They also need to provide a PDGA number if applicable.

The 50/50 split is important to make sure the leagues get money to invest back into their leagues for course improvements, or it can be used for payouts, local charities, your club fundraising, etc. it's up to you. Once the machine is rolling the PDGA will give back a percentage of it's take in providing rewards for leagues (free memberships to give away, PDGAShop.com coupons, disc golf swag etc.)



� Format will initially be limited to singles and scratch scoring.
� Each week all divisions will play the same exact course layout.
� Each nights of the league will be scored like a 1 round tournament.
. PDGA will not determine entry fees or payout structures.
� Payouts will not be reported to or tracked by PDGA.

Each town has their unique action and the size of purse everyone agrees to play with so we are NOT going to meddle with what you want to charge for your local play. It can be free for all we care, and with that said you can payout any way you want also. We can suggest a buy in format, but it's up to what you and your players want to do.



� Discounted PDGA Memberships will be available for players signing up for the PDGA through their leagues with promo codes; each league will have its own unique promo code.

Discounted PDGA Memberships for league members will happen eventually, it may not be available in the initial Spring season roll out phase. The new website has priorities to our IT staff.


The big question of course is what about beer? This rule has not been officially passed yet so this is why it's in red, but I am presenting the case that the PDGA alcohol rule for leagues be relaxed.
Alcohol rules will be based on local park or city/state laws for consumption of alcohol in the park

Can you imagine being in a Bowling, Billards, or Softball league without having a pop or two. Right now I'm guessing there will probably be a waiver situation that you sign, and the players will be responsible for their own behavior or actions.

Feel free to respond on here with your questions and concerns and I will be happy to attempt to answer your question. There are still a few details in the works but most of the fine details are worked out.


Q & A

Q:
With the $25 sanctioning fee do you get 12 weeks of league insurance?
A:
YES, PDGA League sanctioning includes insurance coverage under the PDGA tour policy.

Q:
How will scores be submitted to the PDGA?
A:
We have developed a simpler version of the PDGA TD Report to upload the scores. The Excel spread sheet provided to League Directors will also have a tracking system where you can track your week to week performance, points standings etc. All the LD's will need to do is input the names, PDGA#, & scores, and the power of Excel will take care of the rest.

PDGA will not determine entry fees or payout structures.
Payouts will not be reported to or tracked by PDGA.
However, any divisions the League Director decides to offer must follow the official PDGA division guidelines with the same age or ratings breaks. Players will earn PDGA points based on their final standings in the division(s) they entered during league. Yes, each week players may choose to compete in a different division that they qualify for but will not be required to move up for any remaining league nights after a PDGA ratings update if their rating increases to where they must enter a higher division in other PDGA events.

So if the PDGA is not dictating payout structures, I don't see any reason why a league couldn't payout based on a handicapped based system and report raw scores to the PDGA.

That's correct. However, I'm not convinced that raw scores thrown in handicapped play are as high of "quality" for ratings purposes as those thrown in a scratch score format. There's more incentive to increase your scores even higher when you're having a bad round to boost your handicap. Controls to prevent score padding in handicap leagues are typically not implemented or done well other than the DGU approach.

The same argument goes for league rounds vs tournament rounds. Two things that keep tournament players from manipulating their ratings is cost per round and not precise enough information on what score is going to be a certain rating. With local league play, the cost per round can be only a buck and playing the same course every week will allow players to better gauge what it takes to depress their rating without tripping the safeguards built into the rating system.

hey Kevin.....

great news.....love what you've come up with.....

im seriously considering running a league on my new course on my new oasis literally across the street from the warwick course. because my property is obviously private property, and because we've already started microbreweing on site, alcohol consumption during play will be permitted.

here's a question:

how will scores be submitted to the pdga? will there be some sort of "internet portal" where TD's can simply input scores, as opposed to the current tedious submission process we have to go thru with normal pdga events?

thanks.....

Dan Doyle

There are various dynamics that can come into play for leagues versus tournaments, some which might lead to increases in ratings for some and decreases for others. But ratings are a zero sum game each round where the average rating of the propagators equals the average of the round ratings produced each week. So overall, leagues cannot increase nor decrease the amount of ratings points injected into the ratings pool for all PDGA members. There will also be a longer delay for players seeing the impact of their league rounds on their official rating compared to most tournaments since it may take around 4 months from the first week a 12-wk league starts to seeing those first week rounds in their official rating.

here's a question:

how will scores be submitted to the pdga? will there be some sort of "internet portal" where TD's can simply input scores, as opposed to the current tedious submission process we have to go thru with normal pdga events?

thanks.....

Dan Doyle

Dan we are in the process of putting together a more simple TD report to upload the scores. The spread sheet provided to League Directors will also have a tracking system where you can track your week to week performance, points standings etc. All the LD will need to do is input the scores once and the power of Excel will take care of the rest.

so if we run "league" 2 times a week and have 30 people show up everytime what do we as a club get for our $1,560 that the pdga gets for the year.thats after the "split with the club"?

This may be a great success and very much worth the effort. Yet, it feels to me like it will cheapen the ratings. Were I to play league play, I don't know if it would inflate my rating (playing my home course, where I've played hundreds of rounds) or deflate it (due to my tendency to try new discs and new shots in local play, especially when I'm already playing poorly). Regardless, current ratings are based on my tournament play, which is the highest and most serious level of play for me. Ratings based on local play, even if they end up similar, won't seem the same.

Which isn't to say sanctioned leagues is a bad idea. But even if wildly successful, this is a drawback I'll lament.

i often wonder why so many players put what seems like such an over-emphasis on their rating.

i recognize that the ratings system is still fairly new and will continue to evolve over time. it doesnt matter much to me other than as a source of curiousity and pride what my rating is. i dont play for my rating - it is simply a statistical snapshot of my performance that i prefer to measure in terms of my enjoyment, the competition, and the social aspects.

other than events like last year's USDGC, what difference does it make if one's rating is anywhere within a 20 or 30 or 40 point range? no one is getting rewarded or penalized as a result of their rating, are they? in other words, even if one's rating were to be "tainted" because league rounds were utilized in its computation, does this really matter in the grand scheme of our participation in this great game?

im all for allowing league results to be used for ratings purposes.

Hey Kevin,

My questions are in regard to this:

� Payouts will not be reported to or tracked by PDGA.[/COLOR]


What advantages does a league have of doing this if this is not the case? Outside of a possible increase in attendance and ability to have rounds rated, I don't see too much without the payouts being tracked. Are points rewarded like standard PDGA Tour points?

And since payouts and such are not reported, does this mean that PDGA rules, including possible PDGA discipline, are in effect.

Thanks in advance

other than events like last year's USDGC, what difference does it make if one's rating is anywhere within a 20 or 30 or 40 point range? no one is getting rewarded or penalized as a result of their rating, are they? in other words, even if one's rating were to be "tainted" because league rounds were utilized in its computation, does this really matter in the grand scheme of our participation in this great game?


Having a depressed rating doesn't mean much if you are 960+. For those that play in the various amateur levels, it can change which divisions you qualify for. My rating flip/flops over one of the ratings lines. If it is above, I don't win anything. If it is below, I generally will take something home. Artificially depressing my rating using league play could be advantageous if I want to bring home more plastic. I don't personally plan on doing this, but it would be easy enough to do.

Much like recent rounds are double weighted, league rounds should be half-weighted IMO.

To 16670:
That's a $52 per player fee to the PDGA for 104 rounds if the same 30 players played for 52 weeks. Right now, only 10 PDGA members have at least that many rated rounds in a year. I'm thinking the $2-$3-$4 PDGA fees they paid would exceed $100 let alone a significant cost for their net entry fees and travel costs over league entry fees to play the same number of league rounds.

Originally Posted by ninafofitre http://www.pdga.com/discussion/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.pdga.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=1465124#post1465124)
� Payouts will not be reported to or tracked by PDGA

MTL - What advantages does a league have of doing this if this is not the case? Outside of a possible increase in attendance and ability to have rounds rated, I don't see too much without the payouts being tracked. Are points rewarded like standard PDGA Tour points?
The main reason for not tracking league payouts is to allow Ams to accept cash and not have it affect their am status. Ams enter pro divisions in many leagues and sometimes cash. Plus, some leagues pay cash in all divisions so they don't have to deal with merch. If payouts were reported and tracked by the PDGA, Ams who cashed would be converted to Pros and fewer leagues might participate.

Yes, you will earn points for your finish position in league, probably B-tier equivalent.

i often wonder why so many players put what seems like such an over-emphasis on their rating.

i recognize that the ratings system is still fairly new and will continue to evolve over time. it doesnt matter much to me other than as a source of curiousity and pride what my rating is. i dont play for my rating - it is simply a statistical snapshot of my performance that i prefer to measure in terms of my enjoyment, the competition, and the social aspects.

other than events like last year's USDGC, what difference does it make if one's rating is anywhere within a 20 or 30 or 40 point range? no one is getting rewarded or penalized as a result of their rating, are they? in other words, even if one's rating were to be "tainted" because league rounds were utilized in its computation, does this really matter in the grand scheme of our participation in this great game?

im all for allowing league results to be used for ratings purposes.

I don't play for my ratings either. I think it's cool and interesting as a summary of my tournament performances. I find it less so as a composite of my tournament and local league performances. That's all.

This may be a great success and very much worth the effort. Yet, it feels to me like it will cheapen the ratings. Were I to play league play, I don't know if it would inflate my rating (playing my home course, where I've played hundreds of rounds) or deflate it (due to my tendency to try new discs and new shots in local play, especially when I'm already playing poorly). Regardless, current ratings are based on my tournament play, which is the highest and most serious level of play for me. Ratings based on local play, even if they end up similar, won't seem the same.

Which isn't to say sanctioned leagues is a bad idea. But even if wildly successful, this is a drawback I'll lament.
I think your concern is really only well founded if all leagues converted to PDGA leagues, and I don't see that as being the case. In which case, if the league is PDGA sanctioned, why wouldn't you simply treat that league in the same manner as a PDGA-sanctioned tournament in terms of your attitude and actions on the course? In other words, if you wouldn't experiment (discs, shots, etc) in a tournament, you wouldn't do it in the league either. And if you want to play a league where experimenting is an option, you can always choose a non-sanctioned league.

Personally, my concern is only if I play in a local league that's sanctioned. And it is, to me, a minor drawback---as I stated, this could end up being successful and (otherwise) well worth the effort.

You're correct that I could treat sanctioned league play as seriously as tournament play....except I doubt I actually can bring myself to that point.

Anyway, outside of this....it'll be interesting to watch how this idea plays out. Surely a lot of details to iron out in the first year.

The main reason for not tracking league payouts is to allow Ams to accept cash and not have it affect their am status. Ams enter pro divisions in many leagues and sometimes cash. Plus, some leagues pay cash in all divisions so they don't have to deal with merch. If payouts were reported and tracked by the PDGA, Ams who cashed would be converted to Pros and fewer leagues might participate.

Yes, you will earn points for your finish position in league, probably B-tier equivalent.

Intersting. Thanks for the info. That makes a lot of sense.

I have a couple of questions, first off, you stated there will be divisions within the league format. I assume you can play MA1, MA2, MA3, etc.? Since my player rating allows for me to play MA3 in tournaments I generally play within that division, but I can also play Advanced Masters. Technically I can gain points in ADV. Masters within my league, and REC in tournaments, correct?

Secondly, is there a minimum amount of PDGA members required to constitute a sanctioned league? In our league there are only 3 players who are members of the PDGA, with others who occasionally play in one or two sanctioned tournaments, which leads me to my next question:

will non-members who participate in a sanctioned league receive player ratings? if so, and they play in a PDGA event, will their rating dictate the division they play in? If a non-member carries a 954 league rating and plays in a C tier, will they be limited to only playing Advanced or Open?

You'll need a minimum of 5 PDGA members with established ratings to run a PDGA league since ratings will have to be produced each league night.

Nonmembers will receive ratings that are not published until they join. TDs for league and events in the area will get info from the PDGA indicating the lowest Am division a member can enter but not their specific hidden rating (at least that's supposed to be how it works).

since leagues can run from 6 to 12 weeks long, can the league establish it's own start and end week? or will the pdga mandate starting weeks?

There will be quarterly periods 13 weeks long and your league fits in that time window. So there's flexibility on when a 6-week league can start but not much for 12-week leagues.

Chuck, I appreciate you answering the questions today, Courtney's Grandmother passed monday and we laid her to rest today, but I am here now and will be answering as many questions as possible. If I can edit my original post I will also be adding some of the Frequently asked questions on the first post and just make it a running Q&A Forum.

McCoy

Ok so I've really thought about this today. I want to stress these opinions are mine and not of North Carolina Disc Golf.

I really supported Kevin in the BOD election for this idea alone. It's a fantastic one. However, I'm not very pleased with the current proposal.

There are four point of views in this. The PDGA, the player, the club and the TD.

I see the PDGA really coming out good in this. More revenue, more exposure, a lot more of the things they want. The only downside I see for them is more work for the staff due to more sanctioning agreements and such to process.

The clubs also should like this. This ideally will increase attendance at events and no matter if your club does cash or merch, you come out ahead. In merch payouts, the financial aspect of coming out better is simple to understand with larger fields. With cash payouts, if you have more people, then you get more $1 fees.

However, I really don't see much of any advantage for a player or the TD.

The player really suffers due to the $25 per week fee (I really don't like this. I think it should be 25 - 50 for an entire series of events). This fee has to come from somewhere and it certainly will come from players' pockets. Either their payout suffers or their entry fees increase. It's that simple.

Think about it this way. Your club charges $10 a head and has one division for league night. You average 40 people. The club takes $1 a head out for the club. That's $360 of payout. In this structure, the payout would be $25 less AND the club would lose $20 of revenue since half of that dollar fee is now going to the PDGA. If you add in the same $1 structure in this mix, now payout is $65 less and the club only comes out $20 more than they were before.

The TD really suffers as well. Now they have TD reports to complete, online scoring to post and things like that. I know that in our summer league in Raleigh, points are generally updated a few days after the tournament. No one really cares because as long as it is done by the next week, it really doesn't matter. However you throw the aspect of ratings in the mix and now scores really need to be up quickly because players are chomping at the bit to see those.

You may ask how that is different than your standard event but it really is. When I run a PDGA event I have the luxury of the weekend to complete this and generally finish our rounds by 5 - 6PM. Leagues won't start until then so now I am up at 9:00 posting scores when I have to get up and work the next morning and possibly losing that little time with my family I have that night.

Overall I think this is a great idea, however I think the aspects of it are a little off. The $25 per week fee, in my opinion, will turn away many clubs from doing this. This needs to be seriously lowered to a flat fee for a series or a minimal per player fee. And this adds a lot of work for a TD which I imagine will turn even more people off.

I enjoy running PDGA events - but I will not run a league. I can't imagine all that time and effort each week - 2 to 3 times a year is enough for me. And I'm 28 and single. (For the record, I don't run local league play now, so this is not like I'm saying I would not use this program for my league).

The player really suffers due to the $25 per week fee (I really don't like this. I think it should be 25 - 50 for an entire series of events). This fee has to come from somewhere and it certainly will come from players' pockets. Either their payout suffers or their entry fees increase. It's that simple.
The $25 IS a one-time per league fee. Basically a sanctioning fee no different than $50 for C-tier, $75 for B-tier, etc that we pay for tournaments. It's not an weekly thing nor is it an individual player thing, it's paid once to register the 6-12 week league with the PDGA.

Re-reading Kevin's original post, I can see where you might get the idea that the $25 is per week, but it's simply poorly worded on his part. This is effectively a 12 week long tournament, which costs $25 to sanction.

The $25 IS a one-time per league fee. Basically a sanctioning fee no different than $50 for C-tier, $75 for B-tier, etc that we pay for tournaments. It's not an weekly thing nor is it an individual player thing, it's paid once to register the 6-12 week league with the PDGA.

Re-reading Kevin's original post, I can see where you might get the idea that the $25 is per week, but it's simply poorly worded on his part. This is effectively a 12 week long tournament, which costs $25 to sanction.

Correct

The $25 IS a one-time per league fee. Basically a sanctioning fee no different than $50 for C-tier, $75 for B-tier, etc that we pay for tournaments. It's not an weekly thing nor is it an individual player thing, it's paid once to register the 6-12 week league with the PDGA.

Re-reading Kevin's original post, I can see where you might get the idea that the $25 is per week, but it's simply poorly worded on his part. This is effectively a 12 week long tournament, which costs $25 to sanction.

Ooooh that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clarifying. Yes, I was confused by the wording. I'm much more at ease about this now!

You'll need a minimum of 5 PDGA members with established ratings to run a PDGA league since ratings will have to be produced each league night.

so if a league/club doesn't have 5 PDGA members with established ratings playing each week, then essentially the league can not be sanctioned? What if the course has an established SSA? of course, it's impossible to find this information since the PDGA has removed the SSA resource from it's site.

Based on this information my weekly league can't be sanctioned since we will not have enough "PDGA" members, which kind of flies in the face of the objective to entice those players who play local leagues but not tournaments to get involved with the PDGA, don't you think?

How would you propose ratings be done? Even if we have an SSA, it would not be the best choice for leagues for two reasons. (1) players may play better on their home course in leagues which means the SSA on league nights may be lower than in weekend events. (2) Weather has more impact on single round ratings than in multiple round events. So the ratings calculation needs to be done each week with the weather being automatically taken into account simply by the scores posted that week.

There's no reason leagues can't be PDGA sanctioned even with the likelihood of fewer than 5 players some or all weeks. You can't get ratings but you can get points. Many doubles events are PDGA sanctioned every year and players do not get ratings but earn points. Sometimes the reason for sanctioning is insurance required by the course owner. Insurance may not be a factor for existing leagues which already have permission. But it may allow other leagues to operate if they sanction so they can get the insurance required by the Parks Dept.

so fo $25 you get 12 weeks of league insurance?

so if your league has 8 pdga members and on a given nite only 4 of those folks show up, is it correct that the scores for the 4 players that attended will NOT count towards their pdga rating?

if correct that seems kind of unfair to those that attend, but i cant offer a suitable solution right now.

The unofficial ratings software online will not calculate ratings for that night. However, when you submit your report for official calculations, we'll figure out a way to get ratings for all nights even if one or two did not have at least 5 propagators. The only time we would resist doing ratings is if the TD told us on that particular league night, there were wailing winds out of character with the typical weather on other nights.

What about monthly leagues? In Pittsburgh we run monthly events at our three championship courses.....Deer Lakes, Knob Hill and Moraine State Park. Is there an exception to the "12 week" period for clubs who host monthly leagues rather than weekly leagues?

Not for now but maybe in the future. We're trying to keep it simple in the beginning to get the system set up and any admin issues worked out. For example, in your case the problem is getting the rounds reported and posted. If we waited a whole year before your league submitted final results, the early rounds could be a year old before they were posted to a player's rating. At this point, we don't have a way nor want to deal with league TDs having to send interim TD reports during the middle of leagues, just final reports.

If you consider doing two 1-round events per month instead of just one, then you could qualify as a league since you'd have 6 rounds during the 3-month period. No, you can't do three 2-round events over three months to count as a league. That's three C-tiers.

What if we grouped our three monthly leagues together for each 12-week period? For example:

Week 1 : Knob Hill Monthly
Week 2 : Moraine Monthly
Week 3 : Deer Lakes Monthly

Week 4 : Knob Hill Monthly
Week 5 : Moraine Monthly
Week 6 : Deer Lakes Monthly

....and so on. It would be a Pittsburgh weekly league that utilizes three courses in rotation.

No problem with that. Leagues can play a different course each week if they wish. The only stipulation is that all league players play the same layout on whatever course is played that day. In your example, you could have a 9-week league that fits in the 3-month period.

Something to consider because all three are Championship caliber courses, is to sanction two leagues running at the same time so you don't brutalize the lower level players having to play the blue or gold layouts. Sanction one league that includes only Pro and Advanced divisions and they play the blues or golds. Sanction a separate league for Ams at Intermediate and lower levels plus Juniors (if any). They would play the Whites or Reds. League players are allowed to switch divisions each week if they wish. So an Intermediate could still play up in Advanced some weeks if they'd rather play the blues on a course.

Excellent idea, Chuck. I suspect we could throw an additional course into the mix so we could host a sanctioned event each week of the month. Thank you.

Here are a couple Buy In Examples I would consider

All the monetary values can be dictated by your preference, but here are a few different style that may work for your group.


Standard Cash
$10 buy in each week
$5 for the action
$3 for 3 Cash CTPS,
$1 Progressive Ace Pot,
$1 Player Fee

One-Time Fee
$12 One Time for dues
Free weekly play with optional side bet
Use Extra money from players that don't show up every week for end of season payout.

Hans Solo
$1 weekly buy in for dues
Optional side bet
Optional CTP and Progressive Ace Pot

so fo $25 you get 12 weeks of league insurance?

PDGA League sanctioning includes insurance coverage under the PDGA tour policy.

I would like to agree 100% with comments that we should not focus on rating, just play and enjoy playing, but:

In Sweden where I live, discgolf is increasingly popular:D, there are many players but competitions are far apart, both in distance and time. The start fields fill up fast and the waiting lists are long.
When registration for national tournaments open, they open in three steps and it is your rating that determine at what step you can register. In this situation, being two rating points above the �line� or two below, determine if you can play or not. Rating IS important!
Upto now the problem has been seen mostly at National level but last year we could also see start fields at regional level that where filled within days.
The opportunity to get rating from local leagues is therefore a god thing and essential for players to improve the rating in order to compete on the �next level�.
However, given the important role of rating to secure a place in the tournaments, I see a potential problem:

Some players tend to DNF bad rounds during tournaments to �rescue� the rating, these local leagues gives increased opportunities for those players to manipulate the rating in their own favor by using the DNF weapon.

Are there any plans on how to deal with possible DNF issues in these local leagues?

The PDGA has been monitoring DNFs for a while in case certain players have a pattern of dropping out of rounds, especially when the TD reports the player played most of a round and either did not complete it or missed 10 putts on the last hole to increase their score so the round rating would be dropped from their rating. Suspicious DNF's have been a very, very small problem in the U.S. as a percentage of all rounds. A few players have been warned or disciplined for a pattern of DNF behavior. In some cases, it appears to be players trying to boost their rating so they can get or retain sponsorship. Some sponsors monitor whether their players DNF rounds to do this.

But I can see where we may need to monitor league results more closely to make sure this doesn't become a problem for the reasons you indicated. Only a few events in the U.S. use ratings to determine when players can enter. So there's not as much incentive to increase your rating using DNFs. Thank you for your comments on this topic. I think we may need to alert League TDs to report the reasons for each player's DNFs beyond simply entering 999 for their score.

Kevin & Chuck, these pDGA leagues are a great idea! Thanks for offering something other than tournament sanctioning. It is great to see the pDGA trying something new and relatively simple.

These leagues might be enough to get me to renew for 2012 in fact. I have three questions for the panel:

Question #1: Can league play begin anytime after daylight savings time begins at 2 a.m. on Sunday March 11?

Question #2: We have a lot of potential players who are past members of the pDGA but for various and usually justifiable reasons they won't pay the outrageous annual pDGA membership fee. Would these players who have a pDGA number and past rating count towards the 5 player minimum required to propagate?

Question #3: Our league directors are not pDGA current. Does the League Director have to be a current pDGA member?

I'll let Kevin handle Q1 & Q3 although I suspect it will be a requirement that the League Director be PDGA current and have passed the Officials test. But like TDs, the $10 cost of the Officials test may be waived.

Q2: If a player has a PDGA number, an old rating and is noncurrent, their rating will still be updated when they play league but they won't be able to see their rating unless they renew. If their rating is too old (say most recent round was before 2009), it will take 8 league rounds before they become a propagator. Likewise, new league players who have never joined the PDGA can become propagators once they have 8 rated rounds with a hidden rating over 799, even though they won't be able to see it until they join.

At this point, league results will not be officially rated until the league is completed. So new league players or renewed veteran players will not be able to be props until the next league after the point their first league has been officially rated and they have a PDGA rating whether they can see it or not.

How would points work for a handicap league where all players are in one division?

I think this is a great idea. Thanks for making it happen. I have a few questions:

Dan we are in the process of putting together a more simple TD report to upload the scores. The spread sheet provided to League Directors will also have a tracking system where you can track your week to week performance, points standings etc. All the LD will need to do is input the scores once and the power of Excel will take care of the rest.

Yes, you will earn points for your finish position in league, probably B-tier equivalent.

How will league winners be decided? Is there a default on how the spreadsheet will track points, or will that be left to the club? Could a club set it up so that your best five rounds out of the league count towards final standings, for example?


At this point, league results will not be officially rated until the league is completed. So new league players or renewed veteran players will not be able to be props until the next league after the point their first league has been officially rated and they have a PDGA rating whether they can see it or not.

Will unofficial ratings be instantly computed when the spreadsheet is uploaded, as they currently are for tournaments? I think that the instant gratification of immediate unofficial ratings will be one of the main draws for the this whole league concept.

@joegraham
It's a good question we'll have to ponder. The initial league program isn't intended for handicap leagues but won't necessarily exclude them either. Actual scores will have to be reported to the PDGA each week and at league end. Points will only be awarded based on your version of the final standings provided to the PDGA by the TD. Players will have to be listed as finishing in a division they qualify for. My first thought would be to simply rank every Pro player and every Am player, male and females together, into these two divisions simply for points calculations. That would work for now until we can come up with a better way to do it. If you wish to make the effort to break out players into their usual divisions simply for final standings and provide your report that way, that should also be okay.

@gregorvn
League winners and final standings can be determined any way the League Director desires. The PDGA isn't involved with that. All the league director has to do is report actual scores thrown under PDGA scoring rules and Final Standings however the league decides to do them. Just like tournaments, the League Director will be able to upload scores to a new League area on the PDGA site and unofficial ratings will be calculated if you have at least 5 props who didn't "tank" that round.

Great, thanks for the quick reply. I like that we have options for how we want to do the league standings.

Kevin & Chuck, these pDGA leagues are a great idea! Thanks for offering something other than tournament sanctioning. It is great to see the pDGA trying something new and relatively simple.

These leagues might be enough to get me to renew for 2012 in fact. I have three questions for the panel:

Question #1: Can league play begin anytime after daylight savings time begins at 2 a.m. on Sunday March 11?

Question #2: We have a lot of potential players who are past members of the pDGA but for various and usually justifiable reasons they won't pay the outrageous annual pDGA membership fee. Would these players who have a pDGA number and past rating count towards the 5 player minimum required to propagate?

Question #3: Our league directors are not pDGA current. Does the League Director have to be a current pDGA member?

Q #1: It's even OK to start at 12:01, 2 hour before dst actually kicks in

Q #2: Hopefully the Leagues will be popular so we can bring the PDGA membership prices down to the bare minimum of cost.

Q #3: It would help, how about I say it's highly recommended ;)

First, a splendid idea with PDGA supported leagues. So far the majority of our club members are positive!

There are of course a few things to sort out.

Q1: Payment has not yet been covered, how often should the club pay the fees? Once after each 12 week leauge, or every week? The reason is that for us in Sweden, the bank fee for a foreign money transfer is quite substantial, and with weekly payments the bank fees would be huge. ...or could we transfer the fees to our national federation, who then could summon all club league fees in one payment to the PDGA?

Q2: Our league rotates on three courses, for about 30 weeks in total. (April thru September). If I understand the previous posts right, we will then divide the league in three chronological parts, but can still play three courses in each league?

Q3: We actually have two leagues, one with handicap and one scratch league. Both are calculated from the same scores, we simply keep two tables with and without handicap. Since we have an application programmed that calculates points automatically for both leagues, there are no problems to keep that league system I guess? Simply, we do want rating updates, but we do not need some kind of league result.

Thanks,
/Mike
Malm�, Sweden

Q1: No need to pay every week. Pay your total league fee at the end. It also makes sense for your National Federation to consolidate fees into one payment for all leagues.

Q2: Yes, you may play three different courses in a league. The PDGA leagues will be played during three 13 week periods with each league including from 6 to 12 league days.

Q3: No problem. Leagues may do their local scoring however they wish including handicaps as long as they submit scores for players thrown under PDGA rules for singles play.

Some players tend to DNF bad rounds during tournaments to �rescue� the rating, these local leagues gives increased opportunities for those players to manipulate the rating in their own favor by using the DNF weapon.

Are there any plans on how to deal with possible DNF issues in these local leagues?
I would hope that the PDGA Competition Manual would still be in effect for PDGA-sanctioned leagues, in which case there is a very simple solution to the intentional DNF or tanking to preserve one's rating: DQ.

Section 3.3 Player Misconduct
A. The PDGA adopts a strict policy of appropriate behavior and comments to the media. Any conduct deemed to be unprofessional is subject to disqualification by the Tournament Director, and may also be subject to further disciplinary actions from the PDGA.

B. Players are expected to behave in a professional and sportsmanlike manner while participating in a PDGA sanctioned event. Actions that are in violation of this conduct include but are not limited to:
(13) Deliberately seeking to manipulate ones player rating through intentional misplay or withdrawal.

The only exception to the PDGA Competition Manual for leagues I can think of at the moment is that alcohol is allowed during league play if the park allows alcohol.

The big question of course is what about beer? This rule has not been officially passed yet so this is why it's in red, but I am presenting the case that the PDGA alcohol rule for leagues be relaxed.
Alcohol rules will be based on local park or city/state laws for consumption of alcohol in the park

Can you imagine being in a Bowling, Billards, or Softball league without having a pop or two. Right now I'm guessing there will probably be a waiver situation that you sign, and the players will be responsible for their own behavior or actions.

Any word on if the board has addressed this issue? As much as I hate to say it, their decision has some effect on whether or not I will run a PDGA sanctioned league.

It's official. If the park rules allow alcohol consumption, then it will be okay to consume during league if you're of legal age. No drinking while "driving" though... ;)

Any idea what responsibility the LD (league director) has if any player consumes too much alcohol during a sanctioned round and kills someone while driving away from the event? I know that seems pretty far-fetched but I've seen people get pretty wasted while playing weekly/monthly events. And if the pDGA says it's OK to consume alcohol while playing their sanctioned events, will they share any responsibility? Will it be the LD's responsibility to monitor all players and set limits for consumption?

Although they might try to come after the LD and PDGA, the Park Dept is the entity that has the rule that allows alcohol consumption. The league wouldn't be doing anything to encourage nor discourage drinking although it might be helpful if the LD reminded players to keep it under control.

It would seem little different if the player played a rec round in the park, got drunk and drove having the accident or was just at the park sitting around drinking then drove off drunk. It's the park rule that's involved. TDs in all sanctioned events are under insurance coverage just by sanctioning. The optional $50 insurance fee is simply to pay the insurance company for the paperwork to include the Parks Dept or course owner under the policy.

I think Chuck left out the part about while he may be correct it is never a bad idea to seek legal advice from your own local jurisdiction

Making sure your event is legal based on local laws is always prudent. There are differences in various states and localities even though it seems like our formats are legal everywhere because we rarely hear about issues.

I have to point out that, currently, league night and weekend PDGA tournaments are quite different in formality, structure, and conduct.

Should I assume that when playing a PDGA league an individual represents the PDGA?

Will there be behaviors that I need to report or eliminate in order to ensure league night doesn't offend the innocence of toddlers (just in case they show up)?

I'm assuming there are no plans in the works now, but I'm wondering what will need to be banned in the future to make league night "look good".

.............There will also be a longer delay for players seeing the impact of their league rounds on their official rating compared to most tournaments since it may take around 4 months from the first week a 12-wk league starts to seeing those first week rounds in their official rating.

Ok so for a 12 week league the ratings "may" not be posted until 4 weeks after the league is over?

Quote:
Originally Posted by 16670
so fo $25 you get 12 weeks of league insurance?

PDGA League sanctioning includes insurance coverage under the PDGA tour policy.

...............The optional $50 insurance fee is simply to pay the insurance company for the paperwork to include the Parks Dept or course owner under the policy.

So does the $25 sanctioning fee cover the insurance or do you have to pay the option $50 to get it added on.

......
Q2: If a player has a PDGA number, an old rating and is noncurrent, their rating will still be updated when they play league but they won't be able to see their rating unless they renew. If their rating is too old (say most recent round was before 2009), it will take 8 league rounds before they become a propagator. Likewise, new league players who have never joined the PDGA can become propagators once they have 8 rated rounds with a hidden rating over 799, even though they won't be able to see it until they join.

At this point, league results will not be officially rated until the league is completed. So new league players or renewed veteran players will not be able to be props until the next league after the point their first league has been officially rated and they have a PDGA rating whether they can see it or not.

So why would a non member sign up for this again, the player rating that they dont get to see?

Last question.

You will have people that sign up because its the only league in their market. The new players have to be educated on the PDGA rules, are you sending them a rule book so that i dont have to explain to them everytime they do something wrong.

while i tend to see everything the ORG does at this point as a money grab i think this program may actually be a step in the right direction. at least it's not just jacking the same old membership base for more and more dough in order to finance a bunch of crap. hopefully it will be such a success that member costs can go down as kevin suggested earlier in the thread. i'll actually renew in 2013 if that should be the case.

The basic PDGA sanctioning fee whether for leagues or tournaments covers the TD/club hosting it. It does not cover the course owners or Park Dept unless they ask or need to be covered. In that case, you pay the additional $50 to pay the insurance company to prepare the paperwork so the course owners are also covered.

Nonmembers choose to play sanctioned tournaments all the time and now can also choose to play leagues. Leagues will be a less expensive option than tournaments for all players and there's no $10 nonmember fee.

PDGA leagues may not be a good choice for localities with few PDGA members and it's not even an option if you don't have at least 5 current members with established ratings who you expect will play most weeks. Even then, sanctioning may be required by the Park Dept to run any league due to insurance. Running PDGA leagues may be a better way to get more players interested in joining the PDGA and playing events in your area.

It's going to be a PDGA member who decides to run a sanctioned league, making the effort to provide this competition environment not only for them but for enough PDGA members in the area who want the opportunity. TDs who make this mostly volunteer effort, should get to make the call on sanctioning their league or not. Nonmembers who don't wish to participate can continue to step up making their own efforts to run non-sanctioned leagues just like they do for non-sanctioned tournaments.

As far as learning the rules, they aren't just PDGA rules but rules of the game whether you are a PDGA member or not. If you're playing disc golf competitively in leagues or events, players need to learn to play by the rules. They are provided by the PDGA free online for anyone to print and carry. So getting players to learn and follow the basic rules is not an issue unique to PDGA events and leagues. Now, the Competiton portion of the PDGA rules is another layer but those have been deliberately relaxed for league play.

Chuck, or anyone else:

Do you know if anyone is planning on running a PDGA league in the Detroit area?

Haven't heard of any mentioned yet. But then we won't have sanctioning forms and details completed until early February to allow potential leagues to make plans and sign up.

Our leagues are always one large field (no divisions), playing for bagtags each week against the entire field using raw score. We track both raw score and handicapped score each week and give a trophy for each category after the final league round.

So herein lies the question - will we be forced to start categorizing players into divisions? If so, that would seriously dampen the spirit of our league, which encourages Pros and Ams to play together in mixed league groups for the purpose of strengthening the skillset of our Am players.

No multiple divisions required. One division handicap leagues should simply upload raw scores with every player in Open so preview ratings can be calculated and viewed each week. But handicap leagues can also have divisions if they wish and they would place each group in an appropriate division coded for uploading each week. If you do have a league with divisions playing scratch scores, not handicaps, they should follow the published ratings breaks.

Great to know, any suggestions for Pros who think this method will hurt their rating?

Play well? There's nothing about the league format that will produce ratings any different from playing a one round tournament on Saturday morning at the same course. It's more likely for some players in a handicap league to give up and start tanking when things aren't going well part way thru the round. But this still doesn't undermine the ratings because those players' scores won't be used in the ratings calculations and those round ratings will likely not be used in those players' ratings.

Thanks Chuck, I'm merely asking questions/concerns coming from our community and have linked to this thread from our forum so that everyone can see your answers.

To pros worrying about how PDGA leagues will affect their rating, I would say, Innova, Discraft and the rest care more about how you will represent their product than whether your rating is 998 or 1002. They would rather you were actively involved in the local disc golf scene promoting their product than working angles to jigger your rating up 5 points.

If it turns out there is some unanticipated league effect on ratings, the ratings people will either end the experiment or tweak the way league rounds are rated. We still have yet to see whether this is the latest flash in the pan format tweak, like 150 Class, or R-tiers, or SuperClass, or something enduring.

Worry about bigger things: killer bees, killer asteroids or the coming ice age.

Worry about bigger things: killer bees, killer asteroids or the coming ice age.

I concede your point but wouldn't the coming ice age take care of the killer bees?

To pros worrying about how PDGA leagues will affect their rating, I would say, Innova, Discraft and the rest care more about how you will represent their product than whether your rating is 998 or 1002.

I haven't been paying attention lately so maybe its changed, but in the past men had to have a 1000+ rating to make the top Innova team status.

We just use the $5 iphone app from the pdga to figure our ratings at our weeklies.

We just use the $5 iphone app from the pdga to figure our ratings at our weeklies.

What if you don't support that particular evil empire?

any info on kc mo pdga league as far as location pretty eccited

What if you don't support that particular evil empire?

I'm sure that someone in your area has the pdga app. I'm just saying that if you spend $5 on the app, you don't have to spend any more $$ and all of the entry fees to your league will go to the players. Your league can generate those prescious player ratings without a middle man.

There is a giant difference...

PDGA App = Pseudo Ratings
PDGA League = Actual Ratings

And who says you need to pay entry fees for your league? My League is only going to be $1 to play, with an optional side bet.

Will the league ratings be grouped in with actual pdga tournament ratings? I was thinking that league ratings should be separate like super class ratings are separate from "normal" pdga tourney ratings.
If most leagues are like ours, there are going to be some inebriated rounds going toward players' league ratings.

Will the league ratings be grouped in with actual pdga tournament ratings? I was thinking that league ratings should be separate like super class ratings are separate from "normal" pdga tourney ratings.
If most leagues are like ours, there are going to be some inebriated rounds going toward players' league ratings.
I've read this concern elsewhere and I don't really understand it. If a league is PDGA-sanctioned, and the participants are aware, why wouldn't they take it a bit more seriously than your typical league? In other words, maybe they don't consume a six pack on the front nine or do keg stands on hole 15 during the PDGA league like they might at another league.

To me, a PDGA league round vs a typical league round should be roughly the same as a PDGA tournament vs a local mini/monthly tournament. I would hope that PDGA leagues aren't going to entirely replace whatever already exists in local areas, just add another alternative.

Unless someone is seriously concerned about his rating, why would he take PDGA-sanctioned league more seriously than regular league? It's the same bunch of local players and the same prize structure.

You're assuming sanctioned leagues springing up, in addition to non-sanctioned leagues. I assume some existing leagues will transition to being sanctioned. My assumption is just a guess---you could be right.

I rarely play league or monthlies anymore, yet when I do I take them seriously, sanctioned or not. But I take sanctioned tournaments more seriously. They're the biggest event I play in, mostly away from my home course (so I have less casual familiarity with the course), and with players from around the state and beyond, rather than just the regular guys I see all the time.

I care little about payouts but, for those that do, the stakes in league play, sanctioned or not, aren't that great.

Two questions

#1 When do the quarterly "start dates" happen? If our org is going to run a PDGA league this season we need to plan ahead, and accordingly, to this time frame.

#2 We utilize MULTIPLE courses, but some courses we have to adjust divisions appropriately and let them use separate tees. From what I understand, that is a "no go", or can that be tabulated as well?

"Once the machine is rolling the PDGA will give back a percentage of it's take in providing rewards for leagues (free memberships to give away, PDGAShop.com coupons, disc golf swag etc.)"

If I can get some examples, I would appreciate that. For instance, if our league had 50 players for 12 weeks, what can we estimate these benefits and prizes would be? ROI is a huge thing.

We are planning on discussing this at our club meeting tomorrow night. It would be nice to know how the PDGA give back is going to work

The orginal idea of breaking league into 4 set quarters during the year has been set aside to allow more flexibility. Leagues can start any time after Daylight Savings starts in March and run for at least 6 weeks and no more than 12 weeks before starting a new one. In other words leagues can start when you want to start one. It's not that leagues can't run longer than 12 weeks but we need to make sure there's an official reporting point no longer than 3 months from when a league starts so the official ratings don't get too old as players improve. So if you run your league for 20 weeks or all year long, just break it into sanctioned segments up to 12 weeks at a time.

A specific sanctioned league cannot have divisions play more than one set of tees on a night but can play a different course or layout each week. If you find it necessary to have some divisions play separate tees on the same night due to the difficulty of some courses, the solution is to sanction two leagues on the same night so every division in one league plays the shorter tees when available and the divisions in the other league play the long tees where available. The goal is to keep uploading and reporting simple for TDs so players will hopefully see both accurate official ratings and preview (unofficial) ratings. Uploading and getting multiple layouts and course assignments done properly for tournaments has already proven challenging even for some experienced TDs and we want to keep the uploading process as simple as possible for league directors.

Initially, there will be no special PDGA "giveback program" for leagues other than splitting the $1 per player league fee 50/50 with the TD. That may happen sometime down the road once the league process can be streamlined and the admin costs of the league program are clear.

So you have to be a TD/take the test to run the league correct?

Yes.

where do we/who do we contact to get the paperwork and disc rolling?

PDGA office is working on the Sanctioning form. I'm hoping they'll have it ready to go by next Monday if not later this week. You'll either see an announcement or story on the PDGA Home page. Kevin said he's gotten 75 email inquiries regarding the league program so he may try to send emails to those who contacted him when the sanctioning form is ready.

Unless someone is seriously concerned about his rating, why would he take PDGA-sanctioned league more seriously than regular league? It's the same bunch of local players and the same prize structure.

You're assuming sanctioned leagues springing up, in addition to non-sanctioned leagues. I assume some existing leagues will transition to being sanctioned. My assumption is just a guess---you could be right.

I rarely play league or monthlies anymore, yet when I do I take them seriously, sanctioned or not. But I take sanctioned tournaments more seriously. They're the biggest event I play in, mostly away from my home course (so I have less casual familiarity with the course), and with players from around the state and beyond, rather than just the regular guys I see all the time.

I care little about payouts but, for those that do, the stakes in league play, sanctioned or not, aren't that great.
I'm not assuming that all PDGA leagues will spring out of nothing. I do expect that most PDGA leagues will be existing leagues adding the sanction. However, I don't expect every single league to make that transition. I'm not even expecting half the existing leagues to transition. So my assumption is that for every PDGA league, there are going to be 2-3 other options in the area for folks who don't want to do the PDGA thing.

Just speaking from my local perspective, there's a league or league-like activity going on six days a week at various courses within 30-45 minutes of me, some running at the same time on the same day. Just one course in the area is going to run a PDGA league, at least to start. That leaves five days/nights and a dozen alternatives for the "less serious" folks, without even considering that more can be started, possibly in direct competition to the PDGA league. Leagues are way too fluid and flexible to think that players won't have alternatives if they're hell-bent on maintaining the relaxed/inebriated style of playing league rounds.

I guess you can argue that perhaps that ignores the areas that only have one course or one active league, but like I said, there's nothing to stop a second league starting up if there's enough disinterest in the PDGA, maybe even running on the same course at the same time. Players can choose to play which ever type of league suits their fancy, just like they can choose to play the type of tournament that suits their fancy. I know plenty of players who only play non-sanctioned tournaments or only play doubles tournaments because they're not enamored with one aspect of another of PDGA-sanctioned or plain singles play. Same principle should apply to leagues. Given enough alternatives, everyone should get what they want out of the deal.

And honestly, aside from wanting to build one's rating, what is the impetus for participating in a PDGA league vs a generic non-sanctioned one, at least for PDGA members?

.....I would hope that PDGA leagues aren't going to entirely replace whatever already exists in local areas, just add another alternative.

Apologies. I read that sentence a little too quickly, and assumed too much.

And perhaps posted too quickly. I might say that I envision, or I imagine, existing leagues coverting to PDGA sanctioned, or not. I hadn't really thought about additional leagues springing up, to be sanctioned.

Is the software capable of allowing multiple entries in one week? In other words, what if our league plays multiple rounds/days (the assumption here is it is at the SAME course per week), can that be processed correctly? Or is the software only able to include one round, per player, per week?

Each round stands alone so in theory, you could do a 12 round league in 12 days. But the intent is for one league round to be played once per week. More than one round a week and you're encroaching on sanctioned events where you could play a C-tier with one round on Tuesday and one on Thursday and combine scores, for example.

It would be better if you want to do more than one round per week that you have separate leagues with Tuesday as one league and Thursday as another league for reporting purposes. Remember that the primary purpose for sanctioning a league is to produce round ratings for your players. If you wish to combine your scores from say Tuesday and Thursday rounds on your own league Excel spreadsheet, that's perfectly fine. The PDGA doesn't care how your league is managed in terms of handicaps, points, payouts and how standings are determined. But just one round per week should be reported for each PDGA league even if those rounds are part of something bigger that you manage at the local level.

We discussed running our first league at a club meeting on Monday and have a few questions. We have Tuesday doubles night and other events but never a league.

For this PDGA League:
Does the LD have to be present for all events or can a designate run individual weekly events? Does a certified Official need to be on site every week?

We are just trying to see if we can split up the duties or if one person will have to be there every week of the league and what minimum qualifications need to be met on top of spreadsheet skills, internet connection and a willingness to upload every week.

Does a player have to commit to 12 rounds if the league length is 12? If someone only comes for 5 weeks does he/she still have to pay $12 in PDGA League Fees (50% PDGA / 50% Club) or just the weeks they actually play.


When you create the excel file will it be locked or may it be modified by the LD? For our monthly we have a player table that we use in a drop down list for consistent input and would like to incorporate something like that for the league spreadsheet that includes name and PDGA number (if available). Or maybe some excel guru (maybe Chuck knows someone) could provide a modifiable player table and drop down that is part of the master file. Seems almost a simple as adding another sheet that is for player name and pdga number that would be the table for player input and a drop down list on the scores pages.

Thanks, we look forward to trying this.

I had updated the normal tournament spreadsheet last year to do exactly that. It would do lookups in the Player database sent to the TD so that entering the PDGA# was sufficient to fill in the names and check that they were eligible for the division that they entered.

Would you mind sharing?
PM me please.

edited because

Never mind. I was thinking about the online information, not the regional database that we can get from PDGA Central.

The LD or another certified official(s) designated by the LD should be available or playing each week to referee any rules calls.

Players do not have to commit to play any number of nights to participate just like most other leagues. Show up and play one time and paying your fee for just that night is fine. However, if it's going to be a small league averaging around 10 players, the LD should be concerned about having enough attendees play who have established ratings so ratings can be calculated each night.

The PDGA League spreadsheet will have certain areas locked down and other areas available for modification by the LD or their local Excel specialist to adapt it for how they run their league to deal with handicap, points, best X of Y and payouts. There will be a master list of players that must be maintained but it can be fed by pasting entries from external player lists. Players without PDGA numbers will each have to be assigned some unique code within the League master list so they can be tracked for the 12 weeks. But I suspect leagues already do this even if it's simply using last names for tracking.

Got it, at least a certified official every time during league play.

Hope you smiled about the 'knowing someone' aside.

Thanks as always, look forward to seeing you somewhere. Did I ever send your USDGC pictures from last year?

I got a few good ones of you, and for a small 'consideration' I won't post them here.....

Not sure I saw your photos but my current profile pic on Facebook was a shot someone took at USDGC right after my 17 on hole 5.

Yes, you will earn points for your finish position in league, probably B-tier equivalent.
Any update or final word on the point values tier level?

No question it will be B-tier points for final standings in leagues that run with conventional divisions and determine their final standings based on points or best 4 weeks out of 12 league nights, for example. We haven't yet determined the best way to award points based on final standings in handicap leagues where the final raw scores won't bear any resemblance to the final standings.

My "league" runs starting with the time change in March and finishes about as late as we can play into the year considering daylight, which is end of September. That's ~29 weeks. I'd guess I'm not alone in that timeframe.

Financially, I'd prefer to pay one $25 fee for the entire 29 week duration, but I understand the desire to make ratings official while they're still relevant. As such, was there any consideration given to 14-15 week sessions to better fit leagues that run during generally available daylight times?

Alternatively, a $25/YEAR flat fee would make me amenable to splitting into three 10-wk sessions.

The league sanctioning fees and player fees are already significantly lower compared to three B-tiers that have four rounds each equaling 12 rounds. I wouldn't think paying $75 total in sanctioning fees is unreasonable to ask for sanctioning three consecutive 10-week leagues especially when you consider insurance coverage for TDs is already included in that cost plus the admin efforts at PDGA to handle communications with TDs and process the reports. Going 10 or 9 weeks instead of 12 for each league session would also be better for players so ratings get processed a few weeks earlier.

As a sidebar, I don't understand why going more than 10-12 weeks in a league before standings and payouts for that time period are calculated would be good for the players? Your amateur players in particular can have a skill level change over 30 weeks. It's also difficult for players to maintain the same level of commitment for that length of time to do what's needed (minimum number of rounds) to be competitive for league end awards simply due to seasonal changes in their life responsibilities and available time. Other recreational sports don't have seasons longer than 3 months or so before they have Fall winners or Spring winners. That type of thinking is partly behind the choice of the 12-week time frame for one session of PDGA league competition.

As a sidebar, I don't understand why going more than 10-12 weeks in a league before standings and payouts for that time period are calculated would be good for the players? Your amateur players in particular can have a skill level change over 30 weeks. It's also difficult for players to maintain the same level of commitment for that length of time to do what's needed (minimum number of rounds) to be competitive for league end awards simply due to seasonal changes in their life responsibilities and available time. Other recreational sports don't have seasons longer than 3 months or so before they have Fall winners or Spring winners. That type of thinking is partly behind the choice of the 12-week time frame for one session of PDGA league competition.

Chuck,

I completely agree with your sidebar. That's why my "league" isn't so much a league as it is a "series". When I took over running it three years ago I didn't want players to have to committ to showing up every week; I wanted to give them the flexibility to make it on the weeks they could and not be penalized when they couldn't. So each week is a self contained event with its own buy-in and payout.

The series aspect comes from the fact that players earn series points based on their order of finish each week. Series points are used to determine season ending standings and prizes, as well as for invites to the Series Finale Invitational Event (the largest cash payout mini in Houston). The Invitational has grown attractive enough now that I get a decent number of players that show up almost every week.

Oh yeah, and I use a one-division, intelligent handicap format for all the events.

So far I've read nothing in this thread that would preclude me from sanctioning this under the PDGA League umbrella. The only complication to what I do already is that I would have to track separate series points for weeks 11-20, and 20-29 for the purpose of reporting three PDGA session standings. Well... that and paying the sanctioning fees.

any updates on the paperwork for this stuff? id like to get it together as early as possible so i can get the info out there to the locals.

Just cleaning up a few minor details on the regular PDGA sanctioning form to include leagues. Look for an announcement later today or Monday that it's ready to go for league sanctioning.

PDGA league sessions for the time being can include up to a max of 10 weeks at a time instead of 12 weeks as originally planned. The IT guys discovered our current online system was set up to only display a max of 10 rounds with Worlds sometimes being 8 Prelim rounds plus a Semi and Final. So additional database and web programming will need to be done later this year to increase the number of league rounds that can be displayed to 12 or perhaps more.

Any word on Sanctioning forms? we are starting our league on March 12th and would like to get everything ready?

Sanctioning form is live. It's part of the same form used for regular sanctioned events.

http://www.pdga.com/online-sanctioning-agreement

We haven't yet determined the best way to award points based on final standings in handicap leagues where the final raw scores won't bear any resemblance to the final standings.

Any update on this aspect?

No final determination on this yet but it will be C-tier points. The current leading proposal is to give everyone in the handicapped league the number of points the middle person would receive if everyone in the league was in the Advanced division in a C-tier.

Are PDGA leagues going to be listed on the pdga.com website anywhere?

Yes, but in a separate listing being worked on. You can get to the list of five leagues already set up by using the Advanced Search function on the Event Calendar page by clearing all of the tiers at the bottom and selecting just the new L-tier.

Note: All of the League FAQs are now set up with answers to a lot of questions: http://www.pdga.com/faq/leagues-0

Chuck or Kevin,

Here in Pittsburgh we have a "monthly" league which rotates around our three championship courses. For example, here is our proposed schedule for March, April, May:

Mar 11 (Sun) ~ Knob Hill Monthly
Mar 24 (Sat) ~ Moraine Monthly
Mar 31 (Sat) ~ Deer Lakes Monthly

Apr 7 (Sat) ~ Knob Hill Monthly
Apr 15 (Sun) ~ Moraine Monthly
Apr 28 (Sat) ~ Deer Lakes Monthly

May 5 (Sat) ~ Knob Hill Monthly
May 12 (Sat) ~ Moraine Monthly
May 19 (Sat) ~ Deer Lakes Monthly

We schedule our leagues like this as to not conflict with local/regional events, PDGA one-day tournaments, etc. Periodically we will reschedule an event when something on the PDGA event calendar pops up (i.e. we have a monthly scheduled for Saturday, but then a one-day C-tier pops up on the schedule for that same day, thus, so we reschedule our monthly event to Sunday).

I understand we cannot schedule more than 10 events in a 10 week league, but what if one of those weeks had the Knob Hill event on Sunday and Moraine was on the following Saturday? Are then any problems with this type of scheduling in regard to league sanctioning / scoring requirments?

If you're flipping back and forth between Sat and Sun with 6 or 7 days in-between, that's okay. The problem would be if you did a Sat/Sun on the same weekend. Is that what you were asking?

6-7 day spread between events.

No final determination on this yet but it will be C-tier points. The current leading proposal is to give everyone in the handicapped league the number of points the middle person would receive if everyone in the league was in the Advanced division in a C-tier.

The League FAQ (http://www.pdga.com/faq/leagues-0) now says:
Do players earn PDGA points? (http://www.pdga.com/discussion/../faq/leagues/do-players-earn-pdga-points)
Yes. Players will earn C-tier points based on their final finish position as reported to the PDGA by the League Director.No differentiation for handicapped leagues, right?

If the League Director reports players in finish positions in standard PDGA divisions, that will be how points are awarded even if the league was run using handicaps. If no finish positions are provided, then (not certain yet) everyone will likely get the same amount of C-tier points for participation.

Say I have a single-division handicapped league and 49 of the 50 players are Ams, but one guy is a registered Pro rated 975. I obviously want to report the results under MA1 so the vast majority of players get Am points. What happens to the 975-rated Pro's ratings and points, since under normal circumstances he would be ineligible to play MA1? If I report those results under MPO, then 49 Ams would get Pro points which are virtually worthless to them.

Is there a good way to report results such that registered Pros earn Pro points and Ams earn Am points when everyone is playing in a single-division handicapped league?

It's being discussed right now. Our regular league teleconference is on Wednesday morning when I suspect we'll have an answer if not before. Regardless how the points are calculated, a player will get those points added to their Am or Pro point total based on whether they are listed as Am or Pro on the PDGA membership list.

Regardless how the points are calculated, a player will get those points added to their Am or Pro point total based on whether they are listed as Am or Pro on the PDGA membership list.
:) Good answer.

Really? The 1 pro beats 49 Ams and gets 245 pro points?

I guess I don't understand why that is a good idea. I know it is an extreme example though but I still don't understand the logic of it all so I hope it gets explained better.

Pete, you missed the part about everyone getting the same number of points in the case of this 50-person handicap league. Just a matter whether they are pro or am points.

If the League Director reports players in finish positions in standard PDGA divisions, that will be how points are awarded even if the league was run using handicaps.

Pete, you missed the part about everyone getting the same number of points in the case of this 50-person handicap league. Just a matter whether they are pro or am points.

Okay, I'm confused again.

Every player will likely get the same number of Am or Pro points in a handicap league based on whether they are Am or Pro. How that fixed number of points will be calculated hasn't been decided.

The only way it would be different for handicap leagues is if players actually competed in separate handicap divisions for the whole league. Then, their finish positions as reported by the TD could be used to award points based on finish position.

Players do not have to commit to play any number of nights to participate just like most other leagues. Show up and play one time and paying your fee for just that night is fine.
This points method of "everyone gets the same number of points in handicap leagues" does a disservice to those who show up all ten weeks and work their way to the top of the handicap standings by awarding them the same number of points as the guy who only played one week.

If there's an attempt to calculate Final standings in properly run handicap leagues, mathematically it should end up with most players in their original rating order because you can't cumulatively make up for the percentage reduction built into properly calculated handicaps over that many rounds. Handicap leagues should be run with payouts calculated and paid out each night so players who beat their handicap that day get rewarded. No reason to deduct carryover toward any final standings payouts. Awarding points for final standings in handicap leagues is dicey at best. Some in the PDGA discussions would prefer no points (or handicap leagues not be included in this initial rollout for leagues due to these complications) but hopefully there will be some points for participation.

Pete, you missed the part about everyone getting the same number of points in the case of this 50-person handicap league. Just a matter whether they are pro or am points.

I still don't get it. Thanks for trying to help me get it but we aren't there yet.
Are you saying the 1 pro gets pro points, say 245. And all the Ams get 245 AM points?

Is that what you mean by everyone gets the same number of points?

Yes. Likely not as high as 245 with 50 players. More likely every player would earn participation points between 40-100 in this example based on the options being discussed.

Ok thx. I get that part of it but still don't see the need for it but I'll keep watching it evolve.

When will "The Excel spreadsheet provided to League Directors" be available? The start of play is less than 2 weeks away and some sort of direction is needed if we want these leagues to be a success. Also, please make this spreadsheet available on the PDGA website under Tournament Directors > Documents and Resources.

Heres' the link to the League TD Report. Check it out and provide any feedback.

League TD Report (http://www.pdga.com/leagues/league-report-spreadsheet)

Thanks Chuck,

Some of the Yellow Boxes on the INFO worksheet are in Date format. For example, when I entered my PDGA # on "League Director PDGA #" it translated "25139" to "28-Oct-68" :-)

This occurred on a couple of the yellow cells, another was the # of Weeks box.

Will report more once I start entering in more data. Thanks for all your assistance guys!

Thanks! I'll go tweak those cells. All input appreciated.

Fixed. Version 12.0a available.

Except for alcohol and payout do all other PDGA rules apply?

Say a league has a semi-flexible start time between 5:30-6:00pm. All the groups have started by 5:45pm and are teeing off on their second hole when a late player shows up. Historically, this player would have been allowed to jump on a card starting on the second hole and finish on the hole they missed (with an escort). Now in a sanctioned league is that player taking par+4 on the hole they missed?

Also if a league has not historically stroked players for mis-added scorecards are they required to do so in a sanctioned league?

If you specify that the league has a "rolling start" (i.e. you can start "late" and make up the hole) then you could follow that policy. We have a league with a combination rolling start in the afternoon and shotgun at 5:30 "or so".

I think you need to abide by the adding a scorecard correctly rule. Leagues are where players should get the good habit started.

Of course, you would need to directly ask Andrew who doesn't post here.

Heres' the link to the League TD Report. Check it out and provide any feedback.
League TD Report (http://www.pdga.com/leagues/league-report-spreadsheet)
In the W1-W10 tabs: cell F2 is referencing $INFO.C2 and I think you mean to reference $INFO.C1.

The Instructions tab makes reference to using Open Office. I've got the latest OO version (3.3.0) and it doesn't appear as though the macros work (yes, I enabled them upon opening the file). Apparently you need the macros to import the player names into the W1-W10 tabs. Has anyone at the PDGA confirmed this works with Open Office?

EDIT: Not surprising but it doesn't look like "Copy for Upload", "Division Sort", or "Name Sort" macros work under Open Office either.

Ten round results page layout needs some work:
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/Disc%20Golf%20Events/SWHC2012/swhc10layout.jpg

Thanks for the feedback, Eric. Version 12.0b of the League template is now available for download. Macros will not work in Open Office so instructions are now provided for Open Office users to execute the macro button functions manually.

Excuse the possible TD ignorance here but...

I did the Results Upload for the league and things look fine:
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88558

Then I was poking around the Tournament Admin Panel and saw the Per Hole entry... so I entered those values:
http://www.pdga.com/tournament/live.php?TournID=13326&Div=MPO

Now the Live Scoring page looks correct, except for the "to par" values in the "Current" column. They're all double what they should be. As I was entering the per hole values the Total was already pre-filled and each hole added to the Total, so now the totals are all doubled:
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/Disc%20Golf%20Events/SWHC2012/holescore.jpg

The online results (http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88558) still look okay from the upload.

Something is a bit amiss. Is there a document (not http://www.pdga.com/pdga-documents/uploading-players-and-scores) that explains the Round Entry vs. Hole Entry difference and data entry procedure?

Excuse the possible TD ignorance here but...

I did the Results Upload for the league and things look fine:
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/88558

Then I was poking around the Tournament Admin Panel and saw the Per Hole entry... so I entered those values:
http://www.pdga.com/tournament/live.php?TournID=13326&Div=MPO

Now the Live Scoring page looks correct, except for the "to par" values in the "Current" column. They're all double what they should be. As I was entering the per hole values the Total was already pre-filled and each hole added to the Total, so now the totals are all doubled

Eric, unless you are planning on recording the scores hole-by-hole as they happen, you should delete that live round and just specify total par for the layout.

"Players will see preview (unofficial) ratings each week when the TD posts the scores online just like regular tournaments."

When will these "unofficial ratings preview" be functional for the online League results?

Should be functional right away if TD uploads scores. Let us know if it's not working.

It's not working, on most league event results the "Show Round Ratings" option is not available.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/83651

Thanks. See next message where Steve indicated there weren't enough props to display ratings.

Joshua - You didn't have enough propagators to produce round ratings for Week 1. So the "Show Round Ratings" link does not get displayed. You need at least 5 players with established ratings over 799 to produce Preview (unofficial) Ratings. If you get enough in later weeks, you should see the "Show Round Ratings" link and ratings for those weeks. The good news is even though you didn't have enough props for week 1, your players will still get official ratings for all weeks (even when there aren't enough props) because we use a slightly modified process to produce them.

Good news, thanks!

wow....so points are now going to be given to players from this PDGA leagues.....that seems pretty darn harmful towards the intent of having the best players at worlds theory doesn't it?

I mean Des Moines (as an example) when I played in leagues up there was constantly over 70 people as they have a single night, then here in KC where we have 10 leagues during the week wouldn't have that same option to garner points.

It seems to me that this is a really bad idea on giving away points to people based on "local rules" vs, an actual PDGA sanctioned event that points are given.

I have played in C-Tiers with less people than our standard league, to me this really seems harmful towards a true reflection of the players ability during tourney play.

You can state as much as you want that the events (pdga leagues) are being done by a certified official, but league play is league play, it closely follows the rules of the game, but has many people that may not know all of the rules, and therefore the scores turned in will not be an accurate reflection on the people playing.

This will in turn give false readings on players that are newer to the sport, and harm them in the development of their game, would it not?

Am I the only one with concerns about this?

Don't you think a different mechanism to qualify for Worlds, other than points, would be more appropriate if the goal were to have better players qualify, including ratings minimums and caps on the number who could participate in each division?

wow....so points are now going to be given to players from this PDGA leagues.....that seems pretty darn harmful towards the intent of having the best players at worlds theory doesn't it?

I mean Des Moines (as an example) when I played in leagues up there was constantly over 70 people as they have a single night, then here in KC where we have 10 leagues during the week wouldn't have that same option to garner points.

It seems to me that this is a really bad idea on giving away points to people based on "local rules" vs, an actual PDGA sanctioned event that points are given.

I have played in C-Tiers with less people than our standard league, to me this really seems harmful towards a true reflection of the players ability during tourney play.

You can state as much as you want that the events (pdga leagues) are being done by a certified official, but league play is league play, it closely follows the rules of the game, but has many people that may not know all of the rules, and therefore the scores turned in will not be an accurate reflection on the people playing.

This will in turn give false readings on players that are newer to the sport, and harm them in the development of their game, would it not?

Am I the only one with concerns about this?
What do points really have to do with ability, though? You get points for how many you beat, not necessarily how well you play. Points tend to reward playing often rather than playing well. If you play a bunch of tournaments and always finish middle of the pack, you'll probably accumulate just as many points as a better player would playing well in half the total number of tournaments.

Besides, a league is essentially a single ten-round C-tier. I don't think a player is going to earn that many more points from a league than he would playing three C-tier tournaments, or one big B or A-tier tournament in the same 10-week period.

Ultimately, all points get you is a first-wave invitation to Worlds. And has there been a Worlds yet that didn't open up registration to first-come, first-served after the initial registration period expired? So I think the idea that Worlds is a "best of the best" competition is idealistic, but unrealistic in practice.

Version 12.0b of the League template is now available for download. Macros will not work in Open Office so instructions are now provided for Open Office users to execute the macro button functions manually.
Following the Open Office instructions and trying to sort the Upload sheet you get a pop-up/error saying that "Protected cells cannot be modified".

Might want to either unprotect the sheet -or- add further instructions to use Tools->Protect Document->Sheet, and make sure it's not checked.

Chuck, How are League rounds going to factor into player ratings from the perspective of "the most recent 25% of rounds are double weighted"?

Each league round, once they get official ratings, will be listed with the date of the round in a player's most recent 12 months of rated rounds and will be included (or not) in their most recent 25% based on those dates intermingled with any tournament rounds.

Version 12.0c is now available for download. Added "unprotect" instruction for OpenOffice and also reminded TDs to replace codes assigned to nonmembers with their PDGA number in all locations when players join during league and get their new PDGA numbers.

Hey Chuck,

I still don't see the "Preview Ratings" even after submitting a round containing 5 players with established ratings over 799. Check it out - http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/83651

Thanks!

"Established Rating" means the player is a propagator whose current rating is based on at least 8 rounds. I just checked and Warman for example only has four rounds in his rating. Because leagues last for a while, it's possible a player might become a propagator if there's a ratings update before the league is over.

I know the leagues are developing and some requirements that were stated at the beginning of the thread seem to have been modified which is fine and expected.

Is it now OK to have a 10 week league spread over 10 courses?
Will non-PDGA members get ratings just like members?

Yes, that's been an option from the beginning.
Non-current players with PDGA numbers will get ratings they won't be able to see. Those who do not have a PDGA number will only get ratings if they join by the end of league or sometime later this year.

To Chuck:

In answer to your question above:
"Don't you think a different mechanism to qualify for Worlds, other than points, would be more appropriate if the goal were to have better players qualify, including ratings minimums and caps on the number who could participate in each division?"

Yes.

I'm hoping the early full registration in many divisions for the upcoming Worlds provides the impetus for the Board to look into a better way to qualify for future Worlds than the out dated point system which is more about how many events you can play or even just one big one like BG Ams.

Just quit my first ever "PDGA" round at a mini last night and had a few things to ask about this new policy.

How should cards be selected for these leagues? Should it be by tags, random, ratings, ect.

As I have learned in Sports Economics, Golf is a relative performance sport where winning by 1 stroke is the "same" as winning by 5. The payout structure in these sports is high at the top and quickly tapers off to promote increased effort among players players to achieve first place. The prize must be high because the Marginal Cost of each extra stroke is greater when one accounts for all outside factors like practicing. ( this increasing Marginal cost of each extra stroke is some thing that is wrong with ratings on higher SSA courses but I digress)

With that said how does this work at a mini where one pays $9 to enter and even if they win will only receive $12 for their efforts? Not only is first place $12 but 4th receives $6-$7 for shooting 6 strokes worse.

The payouts are very flat but only takes about 970 golf to win the majority of the time.

Now why would anyone rated above 1000 want to play in these leagues if they are placed on a cards with 3 sub 900 golfers? Now I am not saying I don't like playing with these guys but these leagues are just for fun in my mind. Even with a lackluster round I would be likely to win unlike a REAL tournament with other Pros or even high level Adv. players. At these minis a 920 round will still cash and get $6 so please tell me why ratings are relevant in many of these cases where the whole tournament incentive has been taken away?

This is not to say all members feel this way and I would argue it is a good idea to reach many golfers who could not get enough rated rounds under the past system.

Basically what i am asking is how do you rate "practice" rounds? I ask this because I would also argue most players who play a lot of tournaments don't give much credence to minis.


(All of this depends on many things including the course played, mini demographics, and payout structure) Some minis would be great for this system but they bring in a more varied group of players and higher payouts and entries.

I'm hoping the early full registration in many divisions for the upcoming Worlds provides the impetus for the Board to look into a better way to qualify for future Worlds than the out dated point system which is more about how many events you can play or even just one big one like BG Ams.

You should tell that to some of the manufactures who use that as their ranking standard. Regional bias in many cases among other problems

wow....so points are now going to be given to players from this PDGA leagues.....that seems pretty darn harmful towards the intent of having the best players at worlds theory doesn't it?

I mean Des Moines (as an example) when I played in leagues up there was constantly over 70 people as they have a single night, then here in KC where we have 10 leagues during the week wouldn't have that same option to garner points.

It seems to me that this is a really bad idea on giving away points to people based on "local rules" vs, an actual PDGA sanctioned event that points are given.

I have played in C-Tiers with less people than our standard league, to me this really seems harmful towards a true reflection of the players ability during tourney play.

You can state as much as you want that the events (pdga leagues) are being done by a certified official, but league play is league play, it closely follows the rules of the game, but has many people that may not know all of the rules, and therefore the scores turned in will not be an accurate reflection on the people playing.

This will in turn give false readings on players that are newer to the sport, and harm them in the development of their game, would it not?

Am I the only one with concerns about this?

Me too! Not a fan of being a stickler in league rounds but do we now have to stroke the 800 rated guy who steps on his mini every throw?

Also the 1 Pro numerous AMs thing could be a problem.....Heck I am an "Adv" player at the local leagues here because there are no "pros"

There's no statistical evidence that players play better or worse regardless of the ratings of those they play with. Climo always played with players who averaged lower ratings than him for 20 years and his rating is higher than in 1998.

Pros play for money. If your efforts at league will not pay off, then don't play. Are payouts that different in your PDGA league than non-PDGA to make a play/not play decision?

There's no statistical evidence that players play better or worse regardless of the ratings of those they play with. Climo always played with players who averaged lower ratings than him for 20 years and his rating is higher than in 1998.

Pros play for money. If your efforts at league will not pay off, then don't play. Are payouts that different in your PDGA league than non-PDGA to make a play/not play decision?

No the payout is bad either way....which is why I just try to have fun and don't care about my score. Sometimes I shoot great but other times when I play bad there is no sense of urgency to play better.

How should cards be selected for these leagues? Should it be by tags, random, ratings, ect.

I would imagine just like in a PDGA sanctioned tourney, according to section 1.6 of the competition manual....

A. Professional and Amateur players should not be grouped together, and players competing in different divisions should be segregated from each other during play as much as practicable.

I would imagine just like in a PDGA sanctioned tourney, according to section 1.6 of the competition manual....

A. Professional and Amateur players should not be grouped together, and players competing in different divisions should be segregated from each other during play as much as practicable.

I will pass that along! They currently pick cards using tag #s and since I have decided to not buy one usually end up on a low card.

I have similar thoughts on this as the kid does. I am not a 1000+ rated player but Id like to be, and now I am reluctant to play these local events that are PDGA leagues or minis because you can no longer do so 'for fun' or just practice.

Sometimes its nice to compete in a semi-serious setting but not worry about your rating. Well thats not really possible anymore. These used to be events that you could play to prepare for tournaments and get yourself into competition mode, but now with the pressure of ratings every single time you compete it takes alot of the fun out

I have similar thoughts on this as the kid does. I am not a 1000+ rated player but Id like to be, and now I am reluctant to play these local events that are PDGA leagues or minis because you can no longer do so 'for fun' or just practice.

Sometimes its nice to compete in a semi-serious setting but not worry about your rating. Well thats not really possible anymore. These used to be events that you could play to prepare for tournaments and get yourself into competition mode, but now with the pressure of ratings every single time you compete it takes alot of the fun out

I 100% agree with the notion that it's sometimes nice to compete in semi-serious settings without worrying about one's rating. But why is that not possible anymore? I count 31 PDGA leagues currently under way with 12 more sanctioned but yet to begin. That tells me that not every league has suddenly changed to PDGA sanctioning. I'd bet for every PDGA league, there are 100 more that aren't sanctioned. So how is it that semi-serious (i.e. unsanctioned) settings are not possible anymore?

If you don't want to play PDGA sanctioned leagues, don't. If the only league at your local course happens to be PDGA sanctioned, and you'd prefer a league that isn't, step up and run it. What's stopping you?

I understand the reasons why one might be wary or reluctant to play a PDGA sanctioned league. I don't necessarily agree but I understand. But don't portray it like the PDGA thing is being forced and that there isn't an alternative for the semi-serious and relaxed leagues to continue to exist.

For the May ratings update, what happens if our spring league runs past the deadline for submission? We have an 8 week league and would be able to submit the first 7 weeks by the deadline, but the 8th week happens afterwards.

a. Do the weeks played prior to the deadline get counted?
b. Do all of the weeks get pushed to the next official ratings update?

It would be great to go ahead and get as many rounds as possible included in the May update. As a league director, this is a question that I am getting asked. Everybody's curious as to when these rounds will be included, and I haven't been able to give them a definitive answer.

Thanks!

I 100% agree with the notion that it's sometimes nice to compete in semi-serious settings without worrying about one's rating. But why is that not possible anymore? I count 31 PDGA leagues currently under way with 12 more sanctioned but yet to begin. That tells me that not every league has suddenly changed to PDGA sanctioning. I'd bet for every PDGA league, there are 100 more that aren't sanctioned. So how is it that semi-serious (i.e. unsanctioned) settings are not possible anymore?

If you don't want to play PDGA sanctioned leagues, don't. If the only league at your local course happens to be PDGA sanctioned, and you'd prefer a league that isn't, step up and run it. What's stopping you?

I understand the reasons why one might be wary or reluctant to play a PDGA sanctioned league. I don't necessarily agree but I understand. But don't portray it like the PDGA thing is being forced and that there isn't an alternative for the semi-serious and relaxed leagues to continue to exist.

The problem I have is that there is no option. If I want to join the league or mini, why cant I do so without the PDGA being involved? I am just giving a hypothetical situation here, its not every league and mini yet, but it of course could be eventually. It just so happens that some of the good courses are PDGA events now and some of the less desirable places to play are not.

The problem I have is that there is no option. If I want to join the league or mini, why cant I do so without the PDGA being involved? I am just giving a hypothetical situation here, its not every league and mini yet, but it of course could be eventually. It just so happens that some of the good courses are PDGA events now and some of the less desirable places to play are not.

I was under the assumption you COULD choose to play for ratings or not at these leagues....is this wrong?

I sure hope not as I had planned on just playing the local minis without paying the extra dollar for the #s.

The problem I have is that there is no option. If I want to join the league or mini, why cant I do so without the PDGA being involved? I am just giving a hypothetical situation here, its not every league and mini yet, but it of course could be eventually. It just so happens that some of the good courses are PDGA events now and some of the less desirable places to play are not.

This is like asking why you can't play a PDGA tournament without the PDGA being involved, is it not? If you don't want to play a PDGA league, just don't play it. Play a non-sanctioned league elsewhere or start your own league at the same course on a different night. I can't buy the "no option" argument because THERE IS ALWAYS AN OPTION.

And there's no way there will ever be a time where every single league/mini is PDGA sanctioned. Never. If there was that possibility, wouldn't the same principle apply to PDGA tournaments. Last I checked, there are plenty of unsanctioned alternatives to choose from and there always have been. For every PDGA tournament, there's probably a couple dozen unsanctioned events on the same day. Just like for every PDGA league out there, there are dozens upon dozens of unsanctioned alternatives.

Is there a reason the "good courses" can't offer both a PDGA and a non-PDGA league/mini? I mean, leagues only run once a week. Seems that would leave six other days on which another league/mini could be run without PDGA sanction if the demand is there for it. All it needs is someone to step up and organize it. Seems simple enough to me.


I was under the assumption you COULD choose to play for ratings or not at these leagues....is this wrong?

I sure hope not as I had planned on just playing the local minis without paying the extra dollar for the #s.

Can you choose to play for ratings or not at PDGA tournaments? Do you get to withhold your $2 or $3 player fee at a PDGA tournament if you don't want to get ratings/points? Of course not. If it's sanctioned, and you participate, you're going to get rated just like everyone else. There's no opt-in/opt-out for this stuff. It's all in or all out, period.

This is like asking why you can't play a PDGA tournament without the PDGA being involved, is it not? If you don't want to play a PDGA league, just don't play it. Play a non-sanctioned league elsewhere or start your own league at the same course on a different night. I can't buy the "no option" argument because THERE IS ALWAYS AN OPTION.

And there's no way there will ever be a time where every single league/mini is PDGA sanctioned. Never. If there was that possibility, wouldn't the same principle apply to PDGA tournaments. Last I checked, there are plenty of unsanctioned alternatives to choose from and there always have been. For every PDGA tournament, there's probably a couple dozen unsanctioned events on the same day. Just like for every PDGA league out there, there are dozens upon dozens of unsanctioned alternatives.

Is there a reason the "good courses" can't offer both a PDGA and a non-PDGA league/mini? I mean, leagues only run once a week. Seems that would leave six other days on which another league/mini could be run without PDGA sanction if the demand is there for it. All it needs is someone to step up and organize it. Seems simple enough to me.




Can you choose to play for ratings or not at PDGA tournaments? Do you get to withhold your $2 or $3 player fee at a PDGA tournament if you don't want to get ratings/points? Of course not. If it's sanctioned, and you participate, you're going to get rated just like everyone else. There's no opt-in/opt-out for this stuff. It's all in or all out, period.

Sure, I could not play, but is that really the objective here? I don't think that is the desired result.

I can understand PDGA tournaments, Im not talking about those. But these are leagues and minis that should be accommodating all players without having to deal with PDGA ratings if they dont want. Thats all Im asking, is for that option.

I have run leagues and minis before. Right now the calender is pretty much full and I dont have time to run one myself.

I was under the assumption you COULD choose to play for ratings or not at these leagues....is this wrong?

I sure hope not as I had planned on just playing the local minis without paying the extra dollar for the #s.

Nope I don't think they are giving this option, which is the main problem I have with the whole concept

As a director of one of these sanctioned leagues I would not want the additional hassle of tracking who is in-for-ratings and who isn't, along with dealing with different buy-in amounts for that option.

Just my http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/2c.gif.

As a director of one of these sanctioned leagues I would not want the additional hassle of tracking who is in-for-ratings and who isn't, along with dealing with different buy-in amounts for that option.

Just my http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q193/ejubin/2c.gif.

The league director here was going to do just that but I guess I won't be attending anymore weekly minis in Nacogdoches.

Seriously, what incentive is it to play well when 1st place makes $5?

PDGA minis- "great for people who think minis are tournaments!"

This past week the hot score was a 45 which was rated 953.

Last year at the annual B-tier the same score was rated a 980 and a -7 was just over 1000.

Basically the ratings were 27 points lower and instead of -7 being the mark needed for a 1000 rated round it was now -10 in the mini.

Without changing anything Nikko would have to shoot -14 to shoot his rating...........a round that WITH Nikko at the tournament would have rated over 1080.


Basically playing these minis as a high rated player is a sham......unless there is a well developed player pool in the area.

Sounds like the league isn't a good fit for you.
You shouldn't play.
The folks who think it is a good fit for them should play.

Sounds like the league isn't a good fit for you.
You shouldn't play.
The folks who think it is a good fit for them should play.


You're right.....I should stop showing up and playing one time a week in between schoolwork.

They don't need CTP prizes anyway.

Just got conformation that they are giving us an option so I am just going to refrain from the PDGA sanctioned section of the league.

You're right.....I should stop showing up and playing one time a week in between schoolwork.

Oh boo freaking hoo. The world's got to revolve around you, huh?

I hope that if you're allowed to skip out on the PDGA sanction of the league, you're put in your own division/league, completely separate and uninvolved with those paying to participate in the PDGA league.

Because the Sanctioning Agreement states that by signing, the league director acknowledges that he must... Agree that all players competing in the event will enter an officially recognized and reported division. Due to tour insurance liability issues non-sanctioned or unofficial divisions will not be allowed.

Oh boo freaking hoo. The world's got to revolve around you, huh?

I hope that if you're allowed to skip out on the PDGA sanction of the league, you're put in your own division/league, completely separate and uninvolved with those paying to participate in the PDGA league.

Because the Sanctioning Agreement states that by signing, the league director acknowledges that he must...

Well they are running two separate leafues in some respect and handle the payout their own way.

BTW I should be in my own division because I am rated 60pts higher than the next guy but instead the place me in ADV.

Not saying the world should revolve around me but I am trying to point out why many established tournament players may find these unappealing. This is not to say the rated leagues are a bad idea for 90% of players but I would assume their accuracy varies on a case by case basis.

The whole point of this is why league rounds are rated when in ALL cases they are not tournaments and in MOST they are nothing like a tournament.....besides the fact you keep score.

I could pick my card in one league and play with the same guys every week or get stuck with 3 guys rated 100pts lower in another.

Inconsistency is my issue when it comes to rating these rounds which, to many, aren't even competitive.

I posted my first week of Leagues online, but the Show Round Ratings Button isn't there. Any ideas?

http://www.pdga.com/tournament-results?TournID=13159

Ratings are there now. I think when Ganz changed some of the settings to speed up the website, certain files that are just loaded on the site take longer to see now, especially in IE browser. The Show Ratings may not be seen right away within 5 minutes of posting for example. Normally, if you don't see the Show Ratings, it means there aren't enough props but you have enough.

When using the link provided by Mike you would always get the latest version of the results immediately.

I think what my problem was is I had the got the scores mismatched with the players when I was filling in the League spreadsheet (I have since corrected it). Is there something that in the unofficial rating calculator that realizes when the ratings of the players and the scores seem to not match correctly?

Is there something that in the unofficial rating calculator that realizes when the ratings of the players and the scores seem to not match correctly? Not that I can see. The only time ratings don't show up are when there aren't enough propagators.

For the May ratings update, what happens if our spring league runs past the deadline for submission? We have an 8 week league and would be able to submit the first 7 weeks by the deadline, but the 8th week happens afterwards.

a. Do the weeks played prior to the deadline get counted?
b. Do all of the weeks get pushed to the next official ratings update?

It would be great to go ahead and get as many rounds as possible included in the May update. As a league director, this is a question that I am getting asked. Everybody's curious as to when these rounds will be included, and I haven't been able to give them a definitive answer.

Thanks!

Bumping this post to try to get an answer since the ratings update is coming up.

Thanks,
Clifford Smith
dgb league director

Bumping this post to try to get an answer since the ratings update is coming up.

Thanks,
Clifford Smith
dgb league director
Pretty sure you don't submit anything until the league has completely run its course. So the only way any league rounds get rated in the May update is if they have ended or will end by tomorrow night and are submitted on Tuesday.

At this point we're not set up to process ratings for leagues that haven't completed all of their planned rounds. I hope we'll move toward that goal before yearend.

I'm trying to enter week 6 and have a couple of new players. With the formatting of style sheets setup the way they are I cannot get to the checkbox for the new players thus they keep getting skipped. Any work arounds?

Using Firefox 12.0 and IE8 I get the same behavior.

I'll get that fixed for you this evening and let you know as soon as it's taken care of.

Fix is in place.

Saw your changes when uploading for my tournament this weekend. Thanks for the quick response.

I'm trying to enter week 6 and have a couple of new players. With the formatting of style sheets setup the way they are I cannot get to the checkbox for the new players thus they keep getting skipped. Any work arounds?

Using Firefox 12.0 and IE8 I get the same behavior.

This is a moot point since it is fixed now, but the work around is to use your tab button. It will cycle you over to the check boxes that you can't see. I had the same problem, and that worked for me. Thanks for the quick fix guys!

Hi, I am running a sanctioned league and we have had enough propagators until last night. We only had 3 propagators. I didn't think there would be preview ratings when I uploaded the scores but there was. I was wondering why?

Also the ratings are REALLY low. We have experienced lower ratings (as others have been reporting) but if these are SUPER low....an easier layout was played 2 weeks prior and shooting a 54 was rated 37 points lower last night.

Any info on how these ratings are being calculated would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Lee

Oh and here is the link to our results:

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/91650&619145144

The threshold for propagators has been lowered to 3 for doing unofficial ratings so more leagues could potentially see them on nights like the one you mentioned. However, the calculation process will produce wider swings in unofficial ratings. The official ratings process will combine all of the scores on the same layout so you won't see the swings.

Alright thanks for the info! So only if the layout is the same will it "smooth out" the swings?

Yes, although we have other manual techniques to balance things out if that one league day was on a unique layout and only had 3 props.

Just wondering if that "mid-july" ratings update is still gonna happen? Not sure if I got my results submitted in time (july 12th is when I sent it in).

Thanks!

Just wondering if that "mid-july" ratings update is still gonna happen? Not sure if I got my results submitted in time (july 12th is when I sent it in).

Thanks!
The special interim ratings update previously announced for mid-July has been delayed due to a schedule conflict with the 2012 PDGA World Championships. We'll announce a new date as soon as possible.

The special interim ratings update previously announced for mid-July has been delayed due to a schedule conflict with the 2012 PDGA World Championships. We'll announce a new date as soon as possible.


Thanks for the info!

Just mailed in the TD report for my second ten-week sanctioned league session... and players are still asking me when they'll get official ratings from the first session rounds they played four+ months ago.

Since it looks like the special mid-July update didn't happen, is there any word on whether the league results that weren't processed last time will happen on the August 14th date?

I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed that this hasn't happened yet. I generally try not to badmouth the PDGA, and I'm trying to be patient knowing that the first time around there are glitches that need to be worked out, but this is taking way too long.

All the reported league results are in a batch to be processed during this update.

Since it looks like the special mid-July update didn't happen, is there any word on whether the league results that weren't processed last time will happen on the August 14th date?

I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed that this hasn't happened yet. I generally try not to badmouth the PDGA, and I'm trying to be patient knowing that the first time around there are glitches that need to be worked out, but this is taking way too long.
All the reported league results are in a batch to be processed during this update.

Just mailed in the TD report for my second ten-week sanctioned league session... and players are still asking me when they'll get official ratings from the first session rounds they played four+ months ago.

You can tell if an event will be in the next update if you look at the event on PDGA and it says "Official Results" (and there are no ratings shown). If it still says "Unofficial Results" or you see no scores at all, then the PDGA has not received the report from the TD yet.

My second ten-week session is still showing "Unofficial Results".
The report was mailed Jul 26 vs. deadline of Jul 31.
What's up?
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/94102%2526s%3D1088936978

I only got the Southwest Handicap League 3-13 report to process this time. I'm guessing Andrew only processed reports received by mid-July when the special update was going to be done and didn't add any more but you can contact him to confirm.

Chuck, How are League rounds going to factor into player ratings from the perspective of "the most recent 25% of rounds are double weighted"?Each league round, once they get official ratings, will be listed with the date of the round in a player's most recent 12 months of rated rounds and will be included (or not) in their most recent 25% based on those dates intermingled with any tournament rounds.
Did this happen?

Based simply on the Ratings Detail view (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings_detail/50640/2012/34690) it doesn't look like it, but the actual calculations might break out the weeks individually. I can't tell based on my rating because it only makes ~0.4 points difference right now.

It looks like the date for all league rounds will be the first day of league in terms of whether a round gets double weighted. This is one way for league rounds to likely not get weighted as much as regular rounds due to the reporting time delay.

It looks like the date for all league rounds will be the first day of league in terms of whether a round gets double weighted. This is one way for league rounds to likely not get weighted as much as regular rounds due to the reporting time delay.
That's too bad.

That methodology of treating a league session as a one time event with up to ten rounds can further pollute ratings data if some of a session's rounds falls into the "double range". In that case you're going to double the highest rated round(s) from the session even if it/they were thrown many weeks before.

Seems like treating each week separately would give a more accurate representation of the already lagging performance indicator.

True, but we're already using all players' ratings at the end of league to calculate league ratings for each week which will boost them slightly compared with using ratings at the beginning of a league. Frankly, I'm not sure the double weighting is necessary in general but it makes people feel like their most recent rounds are more important, when in most cases, they are just statistical chatter and don't provide enough data yet to indicate a trend. If anything, 8-10 league rounds are a better indication of a player's true rating except for the relatively small number of players who are regular weekend warriors over that time period and have as many or more event rounds.

I am a little confused about the Summary tab in the excel file. is this just an optional tab for the TD or is this required to be filled out before emailing in the report

The Summary tab is an optional worksheet for TDs to modify and use to determine their final rankings for leagues. The PDGA does not need any info from this page.

The Summary tab is an optional worksheet for TDs to modify and use to determine their final rankings for leagues. The PDGA does not need any info from this page.
If that's the case then you should update rows 32-35 of the Instructions sheet:
<table frame="VOID" rules="NONE" cellspacing="0" cols="2" border="0"><colgroup><col width="118"><col width="866"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-top: 1px solid #000000; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FF0000" height="20" width="118"> Summary</td><td style="border-right: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC" width="866"> This page can be modified as required by the League Director to do the calculations for tracking weekly results and</td></tr><tr><td style="border-left: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC" height="20"> (Required)</td><td style="border-right: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC"> payouts based on how the league will be run, i.e. points, so many best scores, handicaps, etc. The only requirement</td></tr><tr><td style="border-left: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC" height="20">
</td><td style="border-right: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC"> is the final standings for each player in each division must be shown in columns A-E so the PDGA can award C-tier</td></tr><tr><td style="border-left: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC" height="20">
</td><td style="border-right: 1px solid #000000" align="LEFT" bgcolor="#FFFFCC"> points to each player based on their finish position.</td></tr></tbody> </table>

Our Tuscaloosa league is 10 rounds between 2 different courses.
We set our minimum rounds needed for payout as 6 rounds (50% field)

So if you have over 6 rounds, you can drop your highest scores.

there were 6 rounds at one course (par54, Bowers Park) and 4 rounds at another course (par58, Palmore Park).

Any guidelines to dropping scores, since our of our 16 players whoosh likely will qualify for the field might not have the same # of rounds at each course?

Wanted to learn if we should have different standards next league?

What about DNF, 888 or 999 rounds?
How do you account for those in your league?
Thanks

We do league payouts on a nightly basis rather than over the season.

Our Tuscaloosa league is 10 rounds between 2 different courses.
We set our minimum rounds needed for payout as 6 rounds (50% field)

So if you have over 6 rounds, you can drop your highest scores.

there were 6 rounds at one course (par54, Bowers Park) and 4 rounds at another course (par58, Palmore Park).

Any guidelines to dropping scores, since our of our 16 players whoosh likely will qualify for the field might not have the same # of rounds at each course?

Wanted to learn if we should have different standards next league?

What about DNF, 888 or 999 rounds?
How do you account for those in your league?
Thanks

DNF, 888, or 999 rounds shouldn't matter at all, and shouldn't need to be accounted for. In terms of scoring for your overall payout, they should be treated as if the player didn't show up at all. So if a player shows up for all ten weeks but DNFs on five of them, he doesn't qualify for your payout since you require six rounds. If there's arguments about it, simply adding the word "complete" to your requirements should cover it. Six complete rounds to qualify for payout.

As for determining which scores to drop when they're spread over two courses, I'd do it based on ratings rather than raw score. Anything using the scores themselves will put anyone who played more rounds on the tougher course at a disadvantage, I would think. Ratings, at least in theory, should be comparative between courses (i.e. a 950 rated round on one course is equal to a 950 rated round on another).

As I look at rounds in so far, scores have been lower and produce higher round ratings at our Par54 course than the Par 58 course.
Maybe have that you must meet some percentage requirement or rounds at both courses,
We had 10 rounds, 6 at one course(Bowers) and 4 at the other (Palmore) players with more rounds at Bowers(54) seem to do better than rounds at the par58 course.

Thanks!

Can someone explain the algorithm used to allocate points for the Leagues that just became official? E.g.

http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/102535/
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/101621/
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/101093/
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/101091/
http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/102534/

Also, the finish order for my league (http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/102535) is neither the order I submitted nor the raw score order...?

Does anyone have a numbers file version of the league TD report?
None of the macros works on my imac?

There are instructions on how to manually do what the macros do. Windows Excel version is the only version of the TD report.

League_Report_v14.0c.xls is online, but the version number shown on the "Instructions" tab is "14.0b". Looks like someone forgot to update that internal version number.

The Upload instructions for single division handicap leagues say "you must indicate ams and pros separately each week in MA1 and MPO, respectively, so each group will earn PDGA points in their am or pro category." Is the only division distinction required MA1 (AM) vs. MPO (Pro)? E.g. if I have an AM woman playing do I need to enter FA1 for her, or is MA1 good enough. I'm guessing this is relevant depending on how points are earned for Worlds invites if points must be earned in specific divisions.

Good question. MA1 is fine for all Ams since they are competing against each other via handicaps. MPO is fine for all pros in the same way since women can enter MPO (or MA1). Some women every year have earned points in a male (universal) division whether pro or am. I did the quick edit so version numbers match and uploaded it.

so question. i started a league. First round i had 4 total on the card but only 2 of us were rated and the second round there was only 2 of us. should i even be charging the pdga fee if these rounds dont go torwards our rating?

Where is the League Report in OpenOffice format?

The "UPLOAD" sheet in the .xls version says:
"Excel buttons triggering automated macros do not work in Open Office.
Please download Open Office version of this League report template where the buttons work."

The regular TD report is available in both formats (http://www.pdga.com/documents/td-report) but not the League report (http://www.pdga.com/leagues/league-report-spreadsheet).

Haven't completed it yet. It's on my to-do list this week.

Haven't completed it yet. It's on my to-do list this week.
Will it be ready by Tuesday (when my league starts)?

Uploaded this evening. Check it out and see how it works.

The league I run only has about ten people each week , so I plan to have 2 divisions , under and over 935. If I do it open and am2, some am1 people still want am pdga points. So I was wondering if I do divisions "gold" and "white" ? Would the gold division still be am pdga points?

The PDGA League spreadsheet is not [currently] set up to allow you to enter division codes for Ratings Based Events, i.e. "Gold", "Blue", "White", etc..

You can use MPO, MA1, MA2, MA3, MA4 & FA2 to emulate the ratings divisions if that's important for your league. Indicate in the Notes for your report you would prefer that the official results be displayed using ratings division codes instead. Note that the League spreadsheet and uploading is mainly a mechanism to allow players to see unofficial ratings.

The league I run only has about ten people each week , so I plan to have 2 divisions , under and over 935. If I do it open and am2, some am1 people still want am pdga points. So I was wondering if I do divisions "gold" and "white" ? Would the gold division still be am pdga points?

No, the Gold division is a Pro division. In order to receive Amateur points they must play in an Amateur division. If you don't have Pro players you could just offer MA1 and MA2, but if you do have Pro players and only want 2 divisions then you would need to offer MPO and MA1 if you want to include everyone.

No, the Gold division is a Pro division.
If that's true it seems to contradict several published PDGA documents including:


The 2015 Tour Standards (Table 3) which states all ratings divisions are for Pro/Am class of "All players" and specifically makes no restriction on Pro or Am defined points in the "Points Factor" columns.

http://www.pdga.com/files/2015_pdga_tour_standards_0.pdf


A ratings FAQ which states: "In addition, there are ratings events where everyone � Ams and Pros � play in a division based on their rating."

http://www.pdga.com/faq/ratings/impact-division-eligibility



If the Gold division is a "Pro" division that should be officially specified somewhere besides a forum post on Leagues.

Does it follow that Blue and lower divisions are "Amateur" divisions for points purposes?