Fantasy Rules

Fantasy is a full-season, head-to-head fantasy golf league with weekly starter lineups, in-season trades, FAAB-style waivers, and commissioner / member vetoes. Each league has 4–12 members. Members draft 12 golfers, then manage which 5 start each week. Every week your five starters face one opponent’s five; your W-L-T record decides the standings, the top teams make the playoffs, and the season ends at The Open.

Pricing: $25 per member (one-time, per season). Anyone can play in a Fantasy private league once they pay the $25 seat.

• 12 golfers per roster — drafted in a 12-round snake draft.
• 5 starters per week — the other 7 sit on the bench.
• Bench golfers earn no scoring credit the weeks they don’t start.
• You set your lineup each week from the Roster tab — tap a starter, then tap a bench golfer to swap.

• Lineups lock at 7:00 AM ET Thursday of each tournament week (matches PGA Tour first-round start).
• Week 1: your starting lineup is auto-populated with your first 5 draft picks (R1–R5). Adjust freely until lock.
• If you don’t set a lineup before lock in subsequent weeks, an auto-fill carries forward last week’s starters.
• A starter who isn’t in this week’s field appears with a red Not in Field badge — swap them out before lock or you’ll start a no-show.
• You can swap freely until lock. Once locked, no changes for the week.
• Commissioners can override any member’s lineup (including post-lock) for genuine fixes — logged for transparency.

Only your 5 starters score. Every hole a starter plays earns (or loses) GNL Points; bonuses stack on top; finishing position pays at the end. Points count live from Thursday’s first tee and lock when the tournament is scored Monday morning.

The fine print

• Ties share the position’s points. Two golfers tied for 2nd both get 20; the next golfer is 4th and gets 16. A playoff decides 1st: the winner is 1st, the loser is 2nd.
• Missed cut, WD, DQ: the golfer keeps every point from the holes he completed and gets no finishing points.
• Not in the field: a starter who isn’t playing that week scores 0. Set your lineup before Thursday’s lock — we’ll remind you Wednesday night.
• Beat the Field compares a golfer’s round to the average score of everyone who completed that round. Equal to the average is not a beat. During live play the average moves until the round is complete.
• Sunday bonus applies to round 4. In a weather-shortened 54-hole event there is no Sunday bonus.
• Opposite-field weeks (two PGA Tour events in one week): only the main event counts.
• No floor: a golfer’s week can go negative. It happens about once in 2,000 golfer-weeks.
• Live scoring: during play a golfer’s points include the finishing points for wherever he sits on the leaderboard right now, so the number moves with the board. Projected is a forecast of his final total — the live points plus the holes still to play at a blended pace (half his own points per hole this week, half the field’s). Everything locks when the tournament is scored Monday.

What a typical week looks like (2026 season, real data): a golfer who makes the cut averages about 82 GNL Points (middle half roughly 65–100); a missed cut about 26; tournament winners about 140. A five-golfer team usually lands between 250 and 450, and the typical matchup is decided by about 50 points — exact ties happen in roughly one matchup in 300.

• One opponent a week. The schedule is a round robin generated when the league activates and visible from day one. Higher five-golfer total wins; equal totals are a tie (a T in your record). Odd team counts get a rotating bye week.
• Standings run on winning percentage, then head-to-head among the tied teams, then points for, then points against.
• Playoffs: with 8+ teams the top 6 qualify — wildcard week (3 v 6, 4 v 5; seeds 1 and 2 rest), then semifinals (1 v the lowest remaining seed, 2 v the other), then the final plus a third-place game. With 4–7 teams the top 4 play semis (1 v 4, 2 v 3) and a final. The commissioner can fix the bracket size at creation.
• Playoff ties go to the higher seed.
• The season ends at The Open. The last three scheduled weeks are the playoffs (for 2027, tentatively the Travelers, the Scottish Open and The Open — confirmed once the official schedule is out). The regular-season champion gets the banner; the playoff champion gets the trophy.
• Trade deadline falls before the playoffs begin.

• Propose a trade to any other member — golfers, FAAB, or both.
• Recipient can accept, reject, or counter. Counters reject the original and open a fresh proposal in the opposite direction.
• Accepted trades enter a 24-hour review window before they execute. During review, any non-participant member can cast an allow or veto vote.
• If 50% or more of eligible voters veto, the trade is killed. Otherwise it auto-executes when the window closes.
• Rosters never change mid-event: if the review window ends while a tournament is live, the trade is held and settles after the tournament finalizes. Golfers keep scoring for whoever started them that week, and the trade stays vetoable until it settles.
• The commissioner can force-veto an in-review trade at any time.
• A golfer who’s already part of a pending trade cannot be included in another proposal until the first one finalizes. (UI shows In Trade badge.)
• Trade deadline: the day before The Open Championship tees off — for 2027 that’s July 14 at 11:59 PM ET. Past the deadline, no new proposals or acceptances.

• FAAB stands for Free Agent Acquisition Budget — the in-league dollars you spend to claim free agents off waivers.
• Every member starts with a FAAB budget at the start of the season. The commissioner picks the starting amount when creating the league (default $100, range $25–$500). Once the season is live, the starting balance is locked — same convention NFL fantasy follows so mid-season balance edits don’t scramble pending waivers.
• Free-agent claims are blind-bid. Submit a bid + the golfer you’ll drop.
• Waivers process every Wednesday at 6:00 AM ET. Highest bid wins; ties resolved by waiver order (worst current rank gets priority).
• Between the Wednesday waiver process and the Thursday 7 AM ET lock, free agency is instant add/drop — no bid, first claim wins.
• FAAB also transfers in trades (within each side’s remaining balance).

Fantasy leagues pay GNerds three ways:

• Yield bands per starter’s tournament finish: +50 (cut) / +100 (T25) / +200 (T10) / +400 (T5) / +600 (win). Cumulative — a winning starter earns all five bands.
• Weekly Winner: highest GNL Points total in the league for the week earns 50 × N GNerds (N = league member count) — separate from your matchup result.
• Season-End Bonus — awarded when the last scheduled tournament finalizes:
  • 1st — 300 × N
  • 2nd — 150 × N (when N ≥ 4)
  • 3rd — 75 × N (when N ≥ 6)