4 Simple Masters Pool Ideas for 2024
March 18, 2024 by
After scouring the web to identify the best format ideas for a Masters office pool I realized there was a need for a consolidated list of the best options. Listed below are the four simplest yet entertaining Masters pool formats for 2024, sorted by simplest first.
These are the four best that I could find, but if you have better Masters pool ideas, please share the format details in the comments section at the bottom of this page. We supply online setup and scoring for most Masters Golf Pool formats and other office golf pools.
* Excel tools and online tools are included to help manage different formats. For you Excel wizards out there, I'm sure there's a way to automate these spreadsheets a bit more. Please comment below or email easyofficepools@gmail.com if you have a great Excel solution that would be beneficial for this and I can post it.
Here are the 4 options:
| #1 – Random Selection |
Tools |
| This is the simplest option. Put names of all the golfers in the field into a hat (or into an Excel Spreadsheet, like the one to the right with the field for 2024). Each person draws a golfer until all golfers have been picked. Whoever has the winning golfer wins the pool. | 
Tab 1 |
| #2 – 6 Tiers, Use 4 (recommended option) | |
| This is my favorite option because it involves some strategy but is still simple. Each person selects one golfer from each of the 6 tiers. Tiers are organized based on the world rankings. Once the tournament is completed you take the best four of your six scores and add them together to get your final score. Whoever has the lowest total wins. Any golfer that doesn't make the cut gets an 80 for rounds 3 and 4, respectively. Choose the winning score as a tiebreaker (for example, if the winner posts -12, whoever guessed closest wins the tiebreaker). | 
Tab 2
Manage this format online |
| #3 – Snake Draft, Choose 5 Use 4 | |
| This one involves a bit more effort because you have to organize a draft. Start by drawing from a hat to determine the order of the draft. Once determined, conduct your draft with the snake format (for example, if you have 3 people, the draft order is 1,2,3,3,2,1,1,2,3,3,2,1,1,2,3). Each player chooses the best golfer still available when it's their turn to draft. Once the tournament is completed you take the best four of your five scores and add them together to get your final score. Whoever has the lowest total wins. Any golfer that doesn't make the cut gets assigned a score of 80 for rounds 3 and 4. Choose the winning score as a tiebreaker (for example, if the winner posts -12, whoever guessed closest wins the tiebreaker). | 
Tab 3
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| #4 – Handicapped, Choose 5 Use 4 | |
| This once gets a little trickier because it penalizes players according to their ability (or odds of winning). Each person chooses any 5 golfers from the field. The golfers handicap as subtracted from their final score (for example, if you select Tiger in 2013 you have to add 10 strokes to his score). Once the tournament is completed you take the best four of your five scores and add them together to get your final score. Whoever has the lowest total wins. Any golfer that doesn't make the cut gets assigned the highest scores from rounds 3 and 4, respectively. Choose the winning score as a tiebreaker (for example, if the winner posts -12, whoever guessed closest wins the tiebreaker). | 
Tab 4
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Odds for the Masters can be pulled from vegasinsider.com at a point in time. Normally the field is not set until the Sunday prior to the tournament. Each format listed above can be used to run an office golf pool for any of the major golf tournaments. In addition to the Masters, hosting golf pools for the British Open, US Open, and the PGA Championship can help bolster office camaraderie friendly banter. For more information on how our golf pools work, go here: Golf Pools For A Single Tournament.
Enjoy the Masters!! Please leave a comment below or share this with friends if you found it helpful.
Comments
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Is there a way to have a second pool after the cut on Friday? That is another way to give folks a chance to re-boot after choices have missed the cut.
Hi Shaw- yes you could create a new pool on Friday and have people rejoin.
I have been running a Masters pool for 5-6 years now and I simply attach price tags to all the golfers in the field based on world ranking. Each poolie has a budget of $100 play money and they must purchase a team of 4 golfers but not exceed their budget. For instance, John Rahm might cost $46 and Phil Mickelson might be more in the middle at $26 whereas a guy like Mike Weir might only cost $2. We have grown this pool to over 150 people through word of mouth alone and the format has been very well received. Winner also receives the “Olive Jacket” for the year with their name embroidered on it. Enjoy!
Tyler
So, I started running golf pools about 4 years ago and started with the traditional 6 tiers, pick 1 from each tier, take 4 best scores. What I realized is that often times more than 2 of your picks would not make the cut, making it less fun to have one of your top 4 getting cut scores. It became frustrating for pool goers as the likelihood of winning dropped getting scores of 80 for one of your top 4 guys.
What I’ve done which has worked extremely well is increase the number of picks. I originally tried 4 tiers, picking 2 from each tier for a total of 8 on your squad, and took the lowest 5 scores. After some trial and error and feedback from my group I adjusted to use the following format:
5 tiers, 12 golfers in each tier, pick 2 from each tier
(to be more specific the first 4 tiers have 12 golfers by world rank and then the rest are in the 5th tier)
you have 10 golfers on your team and take the lowest 6
I’ve gone back and forth with cut golfers getting 80 vs the highest carded score, but the reality is that you can usually end up with 6 non-cut golfers on your squad, and if one of your 6 best is cut you aren’t gonna win the pool lol. The beauty with this format is that you get exposed to more golfers, scores and leaderboards turn out to be a roller coaster which makes it more exciting, and you have more golfers to follow, making the tourney more fun. This way, if a few of your guys are cut, you don’t really care and can still root for 6 horses to play well into the weekend.
All in all I love this site, it’s super easy to set up pools and even easier to follow and enjoy. I usually do a daily low score winner and then 1st/2nd/3rd and in general the banter on our group email thread throughout the weekend but especially on Sunday’s is hilarious.
Thanks again for this site, I love it!
Thanks for this, Chris! Great feedback on your format and what might work well for other pools. Glad your group has enjoyed the pools.
Let us know any feedback
-Sean
The best masters pool every year happens in my Family with my husband and five kids. Every year we do a pool and there is a trophy. We have a big party on the day we choose our players and the previous year winner gets to pick the meal. We print all the pics of the players and make a big poster. Then we do a snake pool. Even the little guy can play – he just points to a picture he likes. We have a different challenge every day – for example day 2 is number of people on your team to make the cut. Final day winner gets a green jacket and the trophy.
Great tradition! Thanks for sharing Jackie
Hello,
Is there a format where you can do like 15 “box” pools of 4 players
Thanks
Joe
Hi Joe – You could setup 15 different tiers with a total of 4 golfers in a tier. Pick 1 from each. Is that what you were thinking or something else? – Sean
Im looking for something where you cant pick the top 12 golfers in the world standings… they excluded from the list… everyone picks 9 golfers from the remaining list and the player with the highest aggregate prize money from his picks wins… Throwing out the top 10 makes it much more interesting so not everyone has the same picks…what are your thoughts?
Our pool allows each participant to choose any 10 players from the field. Only the 5 best scores of the players selected count as their team. Each team competes against the other participants teams of 5. If you don’t have 5 players that make the cut you lose. We have very few ties and no one loses because of the luck of the draw. The key to winning is to have someone on you team that’s not one of the favorites that does very well. Example: Danny Willett, only 3 players picked him out of 75 entries.
Great format James – Thanks for sharing and adding to this list. If you were hoping to manage this online, our automatic scoring will allow you to manage this format, with the exception of the 5 golfer must make the cut rule. We assign those golfers an 80 or Highest Carded round for the rounds they don’t finish, which effectively eliminates them from contributing to the overall team score. – Sean
I divide the field into four tiers. Each person can select two golfers in the top tier and one golfer in the remaining three tiers for a total of five golfers selected.
Each person is scored on their four best golfers, so they are able to drop their golfer that has the worst performance.
If a remaining golfer misses the cut, their 1st and 2nd round scores simply transfer over for rounds 3 and 4.
So if they shot a 72 and 80 for round 1 and 2, they would also have a 72 and 80 for rounds 3 and 4.
The tiebreaker is based off of guessing the total number under par of the winning golfer. Whoever is closest, wins the tiebreaker.
Joel thanks for the comment! Great format! -Sean
Are the best 5 scores used after each round? Meaning that most likely your 5 man team would change each round. Or do you establish 5 man low scores after the cut on Friday and your team remains the same for all rounds?
With only 6 entries in the pool, Spieth, Thomas and McElroy cancelled out since all 6 enteries had those three in the original 10 picks and the “same team” rules apply. Also if your last player in is tied with two others at -2 for example how do you pick that tie breaker to make the “team” on cut day. Because of that I am thinking the 5 best scores eack round are calculated.
You could do it either way. We have scoring for both daily options. The best 5 will fluctuate throughout the tournament if you aren’t using our “Daily Bests” scoring. Hope that helps
In regards to Option #2, do you know of an alternative for posting scores of 80 for players who don’t make the cut? We have been doing this format for years now and are trying to think of something other than posting an 80 when one of your golfers do not make the cut. We generally have about 10 tiers, two of which contain all the amateurs and another for former, senior winners.
Thanks
Hi Brad- we have an option to assign the highest carded round too. This is for round 3 and 4, or more if your golfer withdraws after round 1 for example.
I’d like to setup a Master’s pool using the Snake Draft format. The link “Manage this Format” online appears to link to the Tiers approach. Is there a way to manage a Snake Draft online or only with an excel spreadsheet.
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mike – You could use our free option, also included beneath the Tiers approach on our Golf Create Page. You’ll have to manage your draft offline, but you can enter the results on our edit screen so that you’ll be able to track your live leaderboard.
Hope that helps.
Sean
My buddies would like a dark horse pick. How would I incorporate that in?
Hi Kristi,
You can make up your own tiers if you still have time. You could award extra points if someone’s Dark Horse pick is in the top 10 or something …
So the standings will update live on your website throughout the day?
Yes, standings will update about every half hour throughout the day.
Hello,
Thanks for setting up this awesome Masters Pool. Just wondering why some of the players aren’t available for selection. (Matt Jones)
Matt Jones should now be available. Thanks for letting us know.
We play this masters golf office pool. It can’t get simpler than this. http://www.last2left.com/whatsinplay/the-masters-golf-tournament–2014
Thanks for sharing! That is a simple format, and a great option if you don’t want to get too complicated.
http://www.PoolHoster.com has a sweet Golf Pool format. My office uses them for all the major golf tournaments. Basically you get to pick 6 golfers from a field of 50. Then after each round your golfers with the four lowest scores are combined and that is your round score. The site shows which member had the lowest score each round and the overall winner. Also it takes cuts into account. Of more than two of your golfers are cut then you get cut. Really sweet golf pool format. Everyone loves it.
Sounds like a terrific format. Thanks for sharing, Matt! We just released a similar option on easyofficepools explained here: http://www.easyofficepools.com/personalized-pga-fantasy-golf-pools/ This option isn’t exactly what you do but the principles are the same in that you draft a team of golfers and choose the number of scores you want to count towards your final score.
I agree with the author, option #2 has strategy and simple on its side. Choose 6/use 5 would be my vote for my easy office pool. I would amend a couple of things to this format.
First, whoever selects Tiger Woods would have to take golfers from tiers 3,5,6,6,6 or 4,4,5,5,6,6 or something to this effect.
Second, whoever selects Rory/Phil would also have an amended draft/tier plan. I.e. Mcilroy,2,4,6,6,6 or Mickelson,3,4,4,5,6, or something on that order.
This would improve the integrity of your easy office pool while creating a better balance playing field from a statistical standpoint. That being said I would take Woods and five tier 6ers, my personal feeling is that he will win walking away, BUT
Who knows, last years winner would have been a tier 3 guy, Bubba Watson (40-1) and 2011 winner would have been a tier 6er, Charles Schwartzel (100-1)…..
And Tiger hasn’t donned the coveted Green Jacket since 2005
The above format I outlined is based on having an easy office pool where your player needs to win the tournament which runs the chance (a pretty decent chance) of not having a winner. This is also a change to the authors #2 option which is draft six players and use your cumulative total of top five scores.
Either way you use to choose a winner (Master’s Champion or team total) I believe #2 is the best draft format.
Thanks for you additions, Ryan! There are really countless ways you could organize your pool; hopefully these 4 simple ideas get some creative juices flowing and spawn some more new format ideas that we’ve never thought of before!