Pool rules
How Golf Pools Pro works
The short version
The pool runner creates a pool for a tournament and chooses how many golfers each entrant picks. Everyone makes picks before the pool locks. Once the tournament starts, Golf Pools Pro follows the leaderboard and totals each entry.
1. Pick golfers
Each entrant chooses the required number of golfers from the tournament field.
2. Best scores count
The pool counts only the best scores set by the pool runner. Lower totals rank higher.
3. Follow the board
After scoring starts, the leaderboard updates and shows each entry's counted golfers.
Example
A pool can be set up as pick 8 golfers, count the best 4 scores.
If your golfers are -3, -1, E, +2, +4, +5, cut, and withdrawn, your counted score is -2 from the best four active scores: -3, -1, E, and +2.
Pool types
Open Picks
Pick from the full tournament field with no tiers or groups.
Tiered Picks
Ranked by World Golf Ranking. Entrants pick the same number of golfers from each tier.
Clubhouse Chaos
The field is randomly shuffled, then divided into groups. Everyone plays from the same shuffled board.
Tiered-pick example
Setup: 6 tiers, 2 picks per tier, best 8 scores count.
In Tiered Picks, Tier 1 might include Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, and Rahm. Tier 2 might include Morikawa, Hovland, Fleetwood, and Cantlay.
In Clubhouse Chaos, those names can be mixed across groups after the shuffle. The groups stay the same for everyone after they lock.
Groups auto-lock Tuesday morning of tournament week when the field is available. The pool runner can also lock groups once the official field is posted.
Out of bounds golfers
A golfer is out of bounds if he misses the cut, withdraws, does not start, or never posts a usable score. OB only matters when your entry needs that golfer to fill one of your counted spots.
Typical OB example
Pool setup: pick 8 golfers, count the best 4. OB penalty: worst active counted score in the pool plus 2.
Your entry has three active counted scores: -4, -2, and E. Your fourth needed golfer missed the cut.
If the worst active counted score anywhere in the pool is +6, your OB stand-in becomes +8. That is +6 plus the 2-stroke OB penalty.
Your counted total would be -4, -2, E, and +8 = +2.
Tiebreakers
If two entries finish with the same counted total, Golf Pools Pro uses a scorecard-style tiebreaker.
Final-nine tiebreak
We add up the final nine holes for each entry's counted golfers. Lower total wins the tie.
If that does not break the tie, we keep going back 9 holes at a time: last 18, last 27, last 36, and so on until the tie breaks or there are no more completed holes to use.
Only counted golfers are used. If your pool counts the best 4 scores, the tiebreak uses those same 4 golfers.
If the entries are still tied after all available 9-hole blocks, they stay tied.
Pick privacy
Before the pool locks, entrants can see who joined, but other entrants' golfer picks stay hidden. Once the pool locks or the tournament starts, picks can show on the leaderboard.
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