PDGA Rating
In disc golf you'll often come across the abbreviation PDGA, which stands for "Professional Disc Golf Association". The PDGA is the international disc golf union and is responsible for maintaining the official rules as well as player ratings for disc golf players all over the world.
Disc golf tournaments are often played as PDGA-sanctioned, which means that at the tournament you play by the official rules and guidelines from the PDGA. When you play a PDGA tournament, all results are reported to the PDGA, and each player gets a PDGA rating. To take part in PDGA tournaments you must be a member of the PDGA, which is easy to become and doesn't cost very much.
The PDGA's rating system can seem a little complicated when you first come across it, and below you'll find a walkthrough of how it works. It's not something you need to know anything about in order to play, but when you start going a bit deeper into your game, it's nice to know a little more about the process.
What is a PDGA rating?
A PDGA rating is a number that says something about the level you play at when you're at a tournament. It's the official rating that all disc golf players get once they've played a PDGA tournament. You can use the rating system to follow the development of your game, and it's used for many tournaments as a guideline for which division you as a player should sign up for and play in.
As a beginner you'll find that your rating will typically be between 600 and 800. The best players in the world are around 1060 in 2021.
To understand how the rating system works, there are various components you need to know:
- A player's personal PDGA player rating
- A PDGA rating for a single tournament round
How and when is my personal rating calculated?
A disc golf player gets a rating for each round they've played in PDGA-sanctioned tournaments. These ratings form the basis for calculating the player's personal rating. A player's personal rating is calculated based on the last round a player has completed and all rounds in the 12 months before it. In the event that a player has played fewer than 8 rounds in PDGA-sanctioned tournaments in that period, rounds from the last 24 months are counted instead.
Once the PDGA has identified the rounds to be counted in the player's rating, the most recent 25% of the rounds are given a higher value so that they count double. Furthermore, any rounds that are significantly below the player's rating are removed, and significantly is defined by the PDGA as more than 2.5 standard deviations or 100 rating points. In this way a player's personal PDGA rating is based on all the most recent tournament rounds they've played, with the exception of any rounds where they've played well below their normal level.
The official rating is updated once a month on the second Tuesday of each month.
How is my rating calculated for a tournament round?
When it comes to calculating the rating for a tournament round, it gets a little complicated. At a tournament, the rating for the individual player's round is calculated relative to what a theoretical 1000-rated player would score on the round. This is calculated based on how the field at the tournament performed on the round and their current rating. This theoretical value is called SSA, which stands for Scratch Scoring Average. An example of an SSA could be that the theoretical 1000-rated player would complete the round's 18 holes in 55 throws. In that case the SSA value is 55.
For the calculation of the SSA value, not all players in the field are included, but only those players who have completed a minimum of 8 PDGA-sanctioned tournament rounds. So the scores made by newer players are disregarded. It's not described precisely why this is so, but one can guess that it's because new players will typically fluctuate more in level in their first tournaments and therefore their ratings will be a little unstable at the start.
Once the SSA value is found, a value is determined for each throw a player at the tournament was better or worse than the SSA. The value of a throw is typically between 8 and 12 rating points per throw. It depends on the day and how much spread there is among the players at the tournament. Once both the SSA for the theoretical 1000-rated player and the rating value per throw are calculated, the PDGA can determine a rating for every player's round on the day.
As an example: The theoretical 1000-rated player uses 55 throws on 18 holes and the value per throw is set at 10 rating points. A player at the tournament has used 60, which is 5 throws more, and is therefore given a PDGA rating of 950 for that round. The calculation is thus: 1000 - 5x10 = 950. It can of course also be that a player completes their round in fewer throws than the theoretical 1000-rated player, and then they get a round rating of over 1000.
Which division should I play in at a tournament?
Both as a beginner and an experienced disc golf player there are many opportunities to get out and play tournaments. There's room for everyone and competition takes place in several different divisions for both men and women.
Most tournaments have a good description of which division the different players should sign up for. Below you'll find a description of the different divisions, and which guidelines apply for entering them according to the PDGA.
| Division | m/f | Level | PDGA rating requirement |
| MPO | All | Professional Open | No requirement |
| MA1 | All | Advanced | No requirement, 935 or higher must play here or MPO |
| MA2 | All | Intermediate | Under 935 |
| MA3 | All | Recreational | Under 900 |
| MA4 | All | Novice | Under 850 |
| FPO | Women | Professional Open | No requirement |
| FA1 | Women | Advanced Women | No requirement, 825 or higher must play here or FPO |
| FA2 | Women | Intermediate Women | Under 825 |
| FA3 | Women | Recreational Women | Under 775 |
| FA4 | Women | Novice Women | Under 725 |
*Players with a rating above the defined PDGA rating requirements for MA1 and FA1 must therefore play at least in MA1/FA1 or the professional divisions.
Not all tournaments offer the divisions above, and there are also further divisions for junior players as well as players aged 40+. Besides the divisions mentioned here on the page, there are also many tournaments where everyone can enter and where there's only a single division to play in.
Summary
As may have become clear, the rating system is a little complicated, and most important of all is probably to say that you don't need to understand it in detail or pay much attention to it. It all runs automatically when the person responsible for the tournament uploads the results to the PDGA, and on the PDGA's website you can look up your rating and see which rounds have been counted.
The main points about PDGA ratings can be summarised as follows:
- Your rating is updated on the second Tuesday of each month
- Your last tournament round and all rounds 12 months before it are counted - with a few exceptions
- At each tournament it's assessed what a theoretical 1000-rated player's score is, and all participants are given a rating for their round based on this score.