Running a Season Long Fantasy Golf League
Are you looking to jump into the world of fantasy golf, but would like to better understand how it all works? Or are you an existing fantasy golf nut looking to learn about new fantasy golf formats or the best place to manage your league? If so, I've got you covered! Below I have put together a comprehensive list of topics regarding season long fantasy golf.
What are the most popular fantasy golf formats?
Unlike other fantasy sports, the fantasy golf communitity has never really adopted a standard when it comes to a particular format. Because of this, there are many different formats and variations in the community. However, there are some popular fantasy golf formats that have been implemented over the years, and I have outlined them below.
One & Done
The One and Done fantasy golf format has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. This unique format allows fantasy owners to select a single golfer before each tournament, with the caveat that they cannot select the same golfer more than once. This means that once you select a golfer, you cannot use that golfer for the remainder of the season.
There is a significant amount of strategy with this format, because fantasy owners need to consider future tournaments and whether a particular golfer may be better to save rather than using them immediately. This is not a very forgiving format, as there is a significant amount of importance with each and every selection you make week to week. This format works for both small and large leagues, but I'd recommend it for larger leagues.
Salary Cap
Another popular format for season long fantasy golf is the salary cap option. This option can be implemented in numerous ways, and is intended to limit the talent pool each team has to choose from. With salary cap leagues, team owners must stay under a specific salary cap when selecting their rosters. Each golfer is assigned a salary based on their skill level, and as the fantasy owner selects golfers for their roster, the salaries are accumulated and must stay below the salary cap. This prevents fantasy owners from simply selecting all of the best golfers.
With this format, you can choose to allow team owners to select their rosters one time at the beginning of the season, or you can allow owners to select new rosters each week. When done weekly, the golfer salaries will vary week to week based on their recent success and the strength of the tournament field. For leagues that have one-time roster selection at the beginning of the season, the two most common approaches to golfer salaries are previous year's earnings and custom amounts determined by the commissioner of the league or the fantasy golf provider.
Tiered Golfer Selection
In a tiered fantasy golf league, the commissioner of the league defines different golfer tiers for fantasy owners to choose from when making up their rosters. The commissioner also determines the number of golfers that must be selected from each tier. Golfers can be grouped into tiers manually by the league commissioner, or they can be automatically assigned by the fantasy golf provider based on the number of tiers and the amount of golfers in the field.
Some tiered leagues will have a one time selection at the beginning of the season where golfers are grouped once and a golfer's tier will not change. Other leagues allow fantasy owners to select golfers each week, where golfers may move from one tier to another from week to week based on their recent performance.
Depending on the fantasy golf service that you choose to run your league, you may even be able to set up unique tier groupings for each tournament in your league schedule. For example, you could set up standard tournaments to require owners to selct two golfers from tier A, three golfers from tier B, and one golfer tier C. Then for major championships you could require owners to selct three golfers from tier A, two golfers from tier B, two golfers tier C, and one golfer from tier D.
Draft or Auction
One of the key differences between a draft or auction fantasy golf league and all of the other formats in the list, is that golfers in a draft or auction league can only be on one team's roster at any given time. The other season long fantasy golf formats allow team owners to select golfers regardless of whether any other team has them on their roster.
Draft League
With a draft league, typically there are a limited number of fantasy teams allowed in the league to make sure each team can make up a full roster, since there are only so many golfers to go around. A draft order is determined ahead of the draft, and then selections are ordered based on whether you are performing a snake draft or a round robin draft.
With a snake draft, the first round will be ordered from the first team in the draft order to the last team in the draft order. Then in the second round, the order will flip where the last team in the draft order will go first and the first team in the draft order will go last. Then for round three, the order will flip back to be in the same order as round one. This continues until all rounds are completed. This method is typically done to prevent the draft order from having a large impact on the level of talent a particular team can draft.
With a round robin draft, the first round will be ordered from the first team in the draft order to the last team in the draft order. The second and every subsequent round will continue to have the same draft order, so the team with the first selection in the draft order will always have the first pick in each round. This method gives a much larger advantage to having the first pick in the draft order.
Auction League
With a fantasy golf auction, there is no set order for how team owners select their golfers. There typically is an order for team owners to suggest a golfer to be bid on, but which team wins the golfer solely depends on who the highest bidding team is. With this format, while the auction is in progress, one team could have five golfers on their roster and another team may not have any golfers yet.
With an auction, each team owner has an amount of auction dollars that they can use to bid on golfers to make up their roster. For each golfer that is announced for bidding, the highest bidder is awarded that golfer, and the amount is removed from that team owner's auction dollar amount. Golfers are announced and bidded on until all team owners have completed their roster requirements.
League Transactions
Because draft and auction leagues only allow a golfer to be on a single roster at any given time, this allows these types of leagues to implement trading, free agency, waiver wires, and blind bidding.
Many draft leagues allow team owners to make trade deals to swap players between rosters. Typically a team owner will make an offer to another team owner, where they offer up one to many of their golfers and request one to many golfers in return. The team who has been proposed the trade offer can then determine if they want to accept the offer, decline the offer, or propose a counter offer. Once a trade is accepted, the rosters are updated for the two teams involved in the trade.
Draft and Auction leagues can also allow team owners to pick up and drop players as the season progresses. This is typically done through free agency, waiver wires, and blind bidding. Free agency is the period of time that a league allows team owners to pick up a golfer immediately, updating their rosters as soon as they make the transaction.
A waiver wire allows multiple teams to place waiver requests for a golfer who is not on any roster. The commissioner of the league will set the start day/time and end day/time for the waiver period. During the waiver period, team owners can place their golfer requests and at the end of each weekly waiver period, golfers will be awarded based on the waiver order. Waiver wire order is typically determined by last transaction date or by the current standings.
With blind bidding, team owners can bid on golfers who are not on any rosters, and the highest bidder is awarded the golfer. Some leagues may have limited bidding dollars per team, while other leagues may have unlimited bidding. During the blind bidding period each week, team owners can place bids on players and those players are awarded at the end of that period.
Limited Golfer Selection
Another popular format in the world of fantasy golf is limited golfer selection. With this format, fantasy owners choose golfers weekly and are allowed to chose any availalble golfers as long as they have not exceeded the number of selections for a particular golfer.
The league commissioner will set a limit for the number of times any golfer can be selected by a team. For example, a league may be set up to only allow a golfer to be selected 5 times throughout the season. In this example, team owners can select any golfers to make up their roster each week, but once they have selected a golfer five times they can no longer select them for the remainder of the season.
Create a Fantasy Golf League at BuzzFantasyGolf.com
Not quite ready, continue reading to learn more about scoring options and fantasy golf websites.
How does scoring work in fantasy golf?
Scoring for fantasy golf works similar to other fantasy sports. In fantasy golf, a team will accumulate points based on the roster of golfers that were selected for that team. The big difference with fantasy golf compared to other fantasy sports is the amount of options available for determining fantasy points. While most sports score based on the primary stats within that sport, fantasy golf has a wide variety of methods it uses to accumulate fantasy points. I have detailed a list of popular methods for which fantasy golf leagues award points below.
Golfer Earnings
This is likely the most popular scoring method used in fantasy golf. Each week when golfers compete in a tournament, they end up winning money based on the tournament payout and where they landed in the final standings. Leagues that accumulate points based on golfer earnings will sum the total earnings for their roster each week. One caveat to this scoring method is that amatuer golfers will not receive any fantasy points because they do not collect any money, regardless of where they finish in the standings.
This scoring option is probably the easiest to implement and to understand, and is likely why it is the most used. Below is a simple example of earnings scoring.
| Place | Golfer | Official Earnings | Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | $1,800,000 | $1,800,000 |
| 3 | Adam Scott | $680,000 | $680,000 |
| 27 | Jason Day | $97,000 | $97,000 |
| CUT | Zach Johnson | - | $0 |
| Total Score: | $2,577,000 | ||
Points Relative to Place Finished
With this scoring method, fantasy golf teams will earn points based on where each of their golfers finish in the tournament standings. The commissioner of the league will assign a point value for first place and then set an amount to substract for each place below 1st place. A fantasy team's roster will accumulate points based on where all golfers finish in the tournament. Golfers who miss the cut receive no points.
The example below shows results for a team where the league assigns 100 points for 1st place, and substracts 3 points for each position below 1st place.
| Place | Golfer | Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | 100 |
| 3 | Adam Scott | 91 |
| 27 | Jason Day | 22 |
| CUT | Zach Johnson | 0 |
| Total Score: | 213 | |
Points Based on Strokes
This fantasy golf scoring option is similar to the place finished scoring, but it assigns points based on the golfer's strokes rather than the place they finish in. This type of scoring was first introduced with Yahoo Fantasy Golf, which has since closed shop. When setting up this scoring method, the commissioner will assign a point total to be awarded to the player with the lowest number of strokes. The commissioner will also assign the value to be subtracted for each stroke above the lowest stroke amount.
Let me provide an example. Let's say I set 50 points for the lowest stroke total, and I set 2 points to be substracted for each stroke above that amount. If the winner of the tournament had 280 strokes, below is an example of how points would be accumulated.
| Place | Golfer | Total Strokes | Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | 280 | 50 |
| 3 | Adam Scott | 284 | 42 |
| 27 | Jason Day | 298 | 14 |
| CUT | Zach Johnson | - | 0 |
| Total Score: | 106 | ||
With this scoring system, margin of victory has more of an impact on the overall points. Although the example above was done using total tournament strokes, this scoring method can also be scored round by round. When scoring round by round, team totals are typically much higher.
To-Par Scoring
To par scoring takes the sum of all of your golfer's scores relative to par to make up your team total. With this scoring option, the commissioner of the league will also need to assign a value to set for golfers who do not make the cut. A common approach for handling missed cuts is to assign the worst to-par score and adding a specific number of strokes.
Let me provide a detailed example of this scoring method. In this example, let's assume each team will choose 4 golfers, we will set missed cut to the worst score plus 5 strokes, and last place had a to-par score of +7. Below is a table that displays how this scoring option would accumulate team totals.
| Place | Golfer | To Par | Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | -10 | -10 |
| 3 | Adam Scott | -6 | -6 |
| 27 | Jason Day | +2 | +2 |
| CUT | Zach Johnson | - | +12 |
| Total Score: | -2 | ||
As you can see from the example above, with this scoring system the goal is to have the lowest total. This is the only fantasy golf scoring system where the goal is to have the fewest fantasy points.
This scoring method is commonly used with single tournament leagues. This is a popular scoring option for Masters pools, as the to-par accumulation makes more sense to limit to an individual tournament. Since course difficulty widely varies from tournament to tournament, using this scoring method for a season long schedule really gives an advantage to golfers who get their starts in the easier tournaments.
DFS Style Scoring
This scoring method resembles the common daily fantasy golf scoring approach, where points are awarded based on scorecard statistics, streaks, bonuses, and points for place finished. Players are awarded specific points for each of these data points, and these point values are assigned by the league commissioner. A benefit of using this scoring system is that golfers who miss the cut are still able to earn your fantasy golf team points because they are awarded points regardless if they miss the cut. This method works best with leagues that select new rosters each week. This scoring option isn't ideal for leagues with static rosters because their is a huge advantage for golfers who get a lot of starts. At the end of the season the world's best golfers are not usually earning the most points because they don't have as many starts throughout the season.
Below is an example of how fantasy points could be assigned for this scoring type.
| Data Point | Points Awarded | Data Point | Points Awarded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dbl Eagle or Better | 13 | Eagle | 8 |
| Birdie | 3 | Par | 0.5 |
| Bogey | -0.5 | Dbl Bogey | -1 |
| Triple Bogey + | -1 | 3 Birdie Streak | 3 |
| Bogey Free Round | 3 | All Sub 70 Rounds | 5 |
| Hole in One | 5 | 1st Place | 30 |
| 2nd Place | 20 | 3rd Place | 18 |
| 4th Place | 16 | 5th Place | 14 |
| 6th Place | 12 | 7th Place | 10 |
| 8th Place | 9 | 9th Place | 8 |
| 10th Place | 7 | 11-15th Place | 6 |
| 16-20th Place | 5 | 21-25th Place | 4 |
| 26-30th Place | 3 | 31-40th Place | 2 |
| 41-50th Place | 1 | 51-60th Place | 0.5 |
Result Category Scoring
The final scoring system I'll cover in this article is result category scoring. With this scoring system, points are awarded to golfers based on common golfer result categories. The common categories that can be assigned points are wins, runner-up finishes, 3rd place finishes, top ten finishes, top twenty-five finishes, made cuts, and missed cuts.
Below is an example of how a league might assign points for this scoring option.
| Category | Points Awarded |
|---|---|
| Win | 50 |
| Runner-Up | 30 |
| 3rd Place | 20 |
| Top 10 | 10 |
| Top 25 | 5 |
| Made Cut | 2 |
| Missed Cut | -1 |
Other Scoring Considerations
Below are some additional scoring considerations that can be used in conjunction with the scoring options outlined above.
Best Ball Settings In fantasy golf, many leagues will implement best ball settings or settings similar to best ball. With best ball, a league will take a specific subset of golfers from rosters to determine fantasy points. There are many variations of this, and I have outlined them below.
| Best Ball Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Use the 'X' best golfers each week | If a fantasy golf league has roster sizes of 6 golfers per team, they can choose to only use the 4 best golfers each week. In this scenario, the commissioner would set the league up to throw out the two worst golfers each week. |
| Throw out the 'X' worst golfer(s) each segment | With this option, if a league is broken up into multiple segments, the league could be set up to throw out each team's worst golfer each segment. (Or they could throw out any number of the worst golfers) This would typically be done when rosters remain the same throughout the season and don't update from week to week. |
| Throw out the 'X' worst golfer(s) for the season | This is the the same scenario as described in the option just above this one, but it is only enforced once for the entire season rather than per segment. |
| Throw out the 'X' worst weeks per segment | A league can be set up to remove each team's worst week or numerous weeks per segment. This acts as a muligan for each team, preventing them from falling way behind if they have a particularly bad week. |
| Throw out the 'X' worst weeks per season | This is the same as the option above, but enforced for the season rather than each segment. |
Multipliers With multipliers, a league can multiply fantasy points based on the tournament. For example, a league commissioner could decide to multiply fantasy points by 3 for The Masters tournament. Then multiply the PGA Championship by 2, and the all other tournaments by 1. This gives the league the ability to weight each tournament in their league schedule.
Bonuses Some of the scoring options described above also allow a league to add bonuses for wins, runner-ups, and 3rd place finishes. Certain leagues prefer to add bonuses for these top three positions to separate them from the rest of the tournament finishers and award them more points than the scoring system already credits them.
Weighted Selection A weighted selection system allows a league to create selection groups, with each group earning points based on a multiplier. For example, a league may create three selection groups where Group A is multiplied by 3, Group B is multiplied by 2, and Group C is multiplied by 1. Then the fantasy team owner can choose which group each of their golfers go into. The selections a team is most confident in would likely go in Group A. The selections they are least confident in would go in Group C, and Group B would get the selections somewhere in the middle. This option gives a little more control to the fantasy owner.
Determining the best format for my league
By this point you may be asking yourself, "With all of these options, how to I choose the best format for my league?". Well, there is no simple answer to that question, but based on some factors we can narrow it down a bit.
| Factor | Format Suggestions/Considerations |
|---|---|
| I have less than 15 teams in my league | For leagues with fewer teams, a draft or auction can be a good format since these options are not suitable for leagues with a lot of teams. Although a draft or auction is a great option, any formats work well with smaller league sizes. |
| My league members are busy and don't have a lot of time to manage their fantasy teams. | When availability is a factor, the best formats are ones where team owners select their rosters once at the beginning of the season. This can include tiered selection, salary cap selection, and draft/auction formats. A one and done format would probably not be the best option for this scenario. |
| My league members are golf nuts and love a challenging league! | A one and done league is a great option for leagues that want to make picks each and every week, and want a challenge. Because of the single selection each week, owners can't afford to have a down week. Other great options are limited selection leagues, where owners need to think ahead to make sure they don't use up all of their good golfers too soon in the fantasy golf season. |
| I want to prevent everyone from having all of the best golfers on their teams | Salary cap leagues and tiered selection leagues are great options for this scenario. They allow the ability to put restrictions on the talent level each team is able to select when making up their rosters. |
| My members are not savvy when it comes to technology and I need something simple | For this scenario, I would recommend a tiered selection league as it is probably the most basic method of selecting golfers. I would also lean towards doing a one time roster selection where they can "set it and forget it". |
What is the best website for running a season long fantasy golf league?
Due to the amount of features provided, user experience, and the amount of overall flexibility, I believe the best site to create and manage your fantasy golf league is BuzzFantasyGolf.com. With that said, the answer to this question may just depend on the format and league rules you choose to implement.
I have included a list of websites that offer the ability manage season long fantasy golf leagues below. While I won't go into all of the specifics in this article, I have a separate article that compares all of the available fantasy golf sites that allow you to create and manage custom fantasy golf leagues. Please read our best fantasy golf websites article to find out more about each fantasy golf site.
1. Buzz Fantasy Golf
Buzz Fantasy Golf has one of the most flexible platforms when it comes to managing a season long fantasy golf league. The website covers all of the popular fantasy golf formats as well as all of the scoring options listed above. They have been around since 2010 and have regularly upgraded the platform and user interface.
Although the Buzz platform is extremely flexible and commissioners have an enormous amount of options for setting up league rules, they also offer league templates to make league setup very easy for commissioners who want a standard setup. They offer templates for one and done leagues, salary cap leagues, tiered selection leagues, weekly pick'em leagues with DFS scoring, and a template the resembles the legacy Yahoo fantasy golf format.
Their league interface makes it easy to invite new members to your fantasy golf league, simplifies the golfer selection process, provides league reports, gives special access and tools to league commissioners, and provides real-time live scoring.
2. Pro Tour Fantasy Golf
Pro Tour Fantasy Golf is an owner operated fantasy golf site that allows users to create private season long fantasy golf leagues. Their platform is not as flexible in terms of setting up custom league rules, as you have to choose from their pre-determined formats and pretty much stick to them. They do provide some special commissioner tools that give the league commissioner the ability manage the league throughout the season.
3. FGLWeb
FGLWeb may just be the longest running custom fantasy golf league provider on the web today, and their league interface definitely shows it. The website is up and fully functional, but it doesn't look like it has been updated in well over a decade (maybe two). I imagine they don't get too many new users and are happy keeping the site up for it's diehard loyalists. But if your curious, feel free to look them up and give them a test run.
Have Questions?
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them to me using the main contact form on the website or by reaching out to @BuzzFantasyGolf
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