Junior Golf Rankings

Course Condition Adjustment

From time to time courses do not play as they are rated particularly when comparing different areas of the country during the same months of the year (i.e Michigan vs Florida). This discrepancy can include:

• Weather
• Course setup
• Dry or wet fairways and greens
• Yardage played or mistakenly reported
• Very favorable conditions
• Fast or slow greens
• Course redesign and not re-rated
• Recent re-rating,
• Or other factors such as USGA slope which we do not use

To account for these conditions, the Junior Golf Scoreboard Rankings (c) will now include a round by round Course Condition Adjustment (CCA) for events beginning October 31^st, 2020 or later. Please note, no specific numerical value is assigned to these conditions. Please see our methodology below.

Please note:

• Tournament directors and organizers do not report any course conditions and have no input to any Course Condition Adjustment made.
• No system is perfect but this represents our best effort from nearly a year of testing.
• As shown below, only fields with 10 or more ranked players will be considered for adjustment.
  • Fields with 5 or more players finishing will still be eligible to have results posted as before.
• Our analysis has shown that out of more than 5,000 age group competitions, the number that have both less than 10 ranked players AND potentially needing a course condition adjustment (CCA) is minimal. Our data also shows that virtually all competitors ranked in the upper part of their grad year play in fields that have 10 or more ranked players.
• Players competing in fields not rating adjusted will still have only 75 % of their best differentials counted in their ranking.

To explain, our system:

• For fields of 10 or more ranked players, statistically looks at the historical playing ability of the middle of the field (not the best players or the weakest). It does that by statistically analyzing their scoring differentials from the rankings date closest to the start of the tournament.
• Compares that analysis to the same group's differential for each round
• For split field events where the field is split each day on different courses, the Course Condition Adjustment is computed for that course in that round using the players who played the course that round.
• Determines if the difference between those two averages is statistically significant and either decreases or increases the course rating accordingly.
• Has a maximum rating increase adjustment of 4 shots, decrease adjustment of 2 shots and adjusts ratings by whole shots only.

As always, as more data becomes available, we will evaluate refinements and adjustments as they become apparent.