The 2023 Masters golf tournament tees off Thursday, so you still have time to rally the troops for an office pool.
Office pools are one of the best ways to enhance your enjoyment of the Masters (and a way to talk about anything other than monthly reports with your coworkers), and we’ve got you covered with step-by-step instructions to get your pool up and running in short order.
Sadly, pools represent the best way to put a little action on the tournament since legal Georgia sports betting is still at least one year away.
Recruit participants
You don’t have a pool if you don’t have players, so fire off an email and gauge the interest of potential participants. The tournament begins on Thursday morning, so [boss voice] get to work.
Make sure you clearly describe the format and scoring system and establish a due date for any entry fees and the expected date for a winner’s payout. Depending on the size of your pool, you may decide to award winnings to second- or third-place finishers, as well.
Choose your format
There’s a strong chance that your participating coworkers aren’t the most plugged in when it comes to the Masters (or golf in general), so try to choose a format that isn’t too confusing or complicated. Save the intricate pools for your golfing or bar buddies.
Snake draft format
The simplest pool to keep everyone engaged would be a snake draft, as odds are many of your players have experience in fantasy football leagues. A snake draft can be run in person or online and involves a random order draw where once a golfer is selected, no other player can add them to their team. The number of golfers selected would depend on the size of your pool, but six-to-eight golfers per player is common for pool sizes of eight.
The full Masters field can be found here, should you elect to host a live draft. A wide variety of online platforms also provide the infrastructure for an online pool.
Tiered pool format
If your pool is comprised of more seasoned participants, you could elect for a tiered pool. In a tiered Masters pool, golfers are ranked based on the Official Golf World Rankings, and pool players select their “team” based on the tier in which a specific golfer is placed.
For example, Jon Rahm, currently ranked third in the world by the OWGR, would fall into Tier A, while former Masters winner Patrick Reed sits at 70th so he would be available in a different tier. When you run a tiered pool, pool entrants can select the same golfers, so expect a lot of overlap from Tier A.
Select your scoring
As with any fantasy-style pool or league, scoring has many options. Some golf pools score based on the day’s finishes, while others tabulate full money earnings to crown a victor. Again, considering the audience at the office, the simplest way to create and run a Masters pool will be to score each round to par, adding golf score per round and awarding points for the lowest round.
To add an extra twist, you can award points under par for players in lower tiers. For example: Should Louis Oosthuizen (ranked No. 120 per OWGR) post the best score on Thursday, take an extra three strokes off his final score.
Keep it simple or add some scoring curveballs: half the fun of running a Masters office pool is getting creative and building your pool to best fit the folks participating.
Payout
Your entry fees should have been decided upfront to prevent any payout chaos once the tournament concludes. However, quickly disbursing winnings is one of the most important parts of running a successful Masters pool. Stick to the date you set when you launched the Masters pool, and hand out winnings based on that established date.
The Masters is professional golf’s premiere major for a reason. It brings in icons and upstarts, legacy winners and amateur invitees. Simply watching it and taking in the atmosphere is joy enough, but an office pool will add some extra intrigue to your 2023 Masters experience. You still have time, so fire off those emails and get your pool running.
Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel / AP
