Entry Mechanics

Each tournament runs a fresh pool. Entry costs $10 per entry and you may submit up to 3 separate entries per person — each entry is its own independent set of picks, its own tie-breaker, and competes individually in the standings.

To enter, visit golf.tilldbq.com and sign in with Google or provide a guest email address. Either method works; Google sign-in is recommended because it lets you review or edit picks right up until the deadline without needing to remember a link.

The deadline is Thursday morning, first tee time. Once the opening tee shot lands, the pool locks automatically — no late entries, no exceptions. If you’re on the fence, submit now and edit later; you can revise picks any time before the lock.

Picking Format — 6 Groups, 6 Picks

Before the tournament, the field is divided into 6 groups based on world rankings and form: Groups A, B, C, D, E, and Wildcard. Group A contains the top-ranked favorites; the Wildcard group is the longest-odds tier.

For each entry you select one golfer from every group, giving you exactly 6 picks per entry. You cannot pick the same golfer twice within a single entry, but two different entries you submit may share picks.

The group structure keeps things competitive regardless of pick order — even if you’re last to submit, the same pool of golfers is available to everyone in every group. There’s no snake draft, no elimination, no auction.

Tie-Breaker — Predict the Winner’s Score

During entry submission you’ll be asked: “What will the tournament winner’s final score be (to par)?” Enter a number like -12 or +2. This prediction does not affect your regular standing — it only breaks ties if two or more entries finish with the same average position (see Section 6).

Pick honestly. The closest prediction to the actual winning score wins the tiebreak. If you’re not sure, check recent editions of the same course or look at the scoring forecast — but there’s no penalty for being wrong, so just make your best guess.

Live Scoring — How Your Position Is Calculated

Your entry’s score is the average finishing position of your 6 golfers, updated live throughout the tournament from the PGA Tour leaderboard. Lower average wins.

Example: your 6 golfers finish 4th, 12th, 18th, 22nd, 40th, and 55th. Average = (4 + 12 + 18 + 22 + 40 + 55) / 6 = 25.2. An entry averaging 20.0 beats you; one averaging 27.0 loses to you.

Positions are sourced from the official PGA Tour data feed. The app normalizes player names automatically — accented characters (Åberg → aberg, Højgaard → hojgaard) are stripped server-side and client-side so a feed quirk never causes your golfer to “disappear” from your entry. If you ever see a name mismatch, contact the admin immediately.

Cut & Withdrawal Treatment

The PGA Tour cuts the field after Round 2. Any golfer on your entry who misses the cut receives a scoring penalty automatically.

The penalty: the golfer is assigned a position equal to the highest active position in the tournament plus one. If 65 golfers make the cut and the last active position is 65, a missed-cut golfer is scored at position 66 for the remainder of the event. This applies equally to:

• Players who miss the 36-hole cut
• Players who withdraw (WD) at any point — before or after the cut
• Players disqualified (DQ) or who otherwise do not complete the tournament

Admin-injected WDs (ruling-pending players): Occasionally a golfer’s status is disputed mid-tournament — a scoring appeal, a ruling under review, or a late withdrawal. The admin can manually inject a player into the scoring table with status='wd' to hold them at the cut penalty while the ruling is resolved. The pool does not wait indefinitely for an appeal — if the tournament ends and a ruling is still open, the last known official position (or the WD penalty if no position is certified) stands as final.

Standings & Tie-Breaking

Entries are ranked by average position, lowest to highest. Ties are resolved in order:

1. Tie-breaker prediction — the entry whose predicted winner score is closest to the actual winning score moves up. Ties in absolute distance are broken in favor of the lower (more optimistic) prediction.
2. Exact tie — if two or more entries have identical average positions AND identical tie-breaker distances, the pot for their finishing positions is split evenly among them. Example: two entries tie for 1st — they split the 1st-place and 2nd-place payout pools combined, each receiving half.

Ties at 3rd place work the same way: tied entries split the combined 3rd-place money. No entry ever receives less than its proportional share of the tied pot.

Payouts

The pool pays out three cash places plus a Charity & Fees allocation. All math uses floor rounding — no one is ever overpaid. Any unallocated remainder (typically $0–$1 from rounding) stays in the pot and carries to a future administrative use.

Payout percentages

Exact dollar amounts at common pot sizes

Rounding detail: Each line uses Math.floor(pot × pct). The $630 pot illustrates the edge case: floor(630 × 0.10) = $63 for combined Charity & Fees, then ceil(63 × 0.5) = $32 for Charity and $63 − $32 = $31 for Fees. The $1 unallocated remainder at $630 is never distributed — it simply stays in the pot ledger.

Charity & Fees

The combined 10% Charity & Fees allocation is split 50/50: 5% to Charity, 5% to Fees. Within that split, Charity receives the rounding-up dollar when the half-share doesn’t divide cleanly — the host (Fees) absorbs the rounding-down side.

The charity recipient is selected by the pool host each season and announced before the first tournament. If you have a cause you’d like nominated, text or email the admin before the season starts.

Fees cover operational costs: the domain, hosting, email delivery, and any minor third-party service fees. These are not profit — the pool is run at cost.

Disputes & Edge Cases

PGA Tour score amendment after tournament close: Occasionally the Tour amends an official score days after the event ends — a scorecard correction, a disqualification appeal outcome, etc. The pool freezes final standings at the time the tournament is marked closed by the admin. Post-close score amendments from the Tour feed are ignored. If an amendment materially changes who won the pool, the admin will make a judgment call and notify all entries.

Ruling-pending golfer injected mid-tournament: See Section 5. The golfer is held at the cut penalty until the ruling is resolved. If the ruling restores their active position (e.g., appeal upheld), the admin can remove the WD injection and re-run position alignment. Entries that picked that golfer are not disadvantaged during the pending window — they’ll see the worst-case penalty, which improves automatically if the ruling reverses.

Name not found on leaderboard: If a golfer you picked doesn’t appear in the live feed by Round 2, check with the admin. Most cases are name-normalization issues (the app handles accented characters and common feed variants automatically). If a golfer genuinely withdrew before the tournament started — before any score was recorded — the admin may allow a replacement pick at their discretion. This is the only circumstance where a post-deadline pick change is considered.

Both average and tie-breaker are exactly identical: The pot for those positions is split evenly (see Section 6). This is rare but has happened. There is no further tiebreak beyond the prediction.

Communications

You’ll receive emails at key moments during the tournament:

Recaps go to the email address on your entry. If you submitted via Google sign-in, it’s your Google account email. If you used guest email, it’s whatever you typed.

To opt out of recap emails: every recap email includes an unsubscribe link in the footer. Clicking it removes your address from future recaps for that tournament. You can re-subscribe by emailing the admin. Opting out of recaps does not cancel your entry or affect your standings.

Payment

Entry fees are collected via Venmo or Cash App — whichever is easier for you. Payment details are provided when you submit your entry. You do not need to pay at the moment of submission, but entries are held until payment is confirmed.

The admin runs a payment-sync check every hour that matches incoming transactions to submitted entries. Once your payment is matched, your entry status updates automatically. If you’ve paid but your entry still shows unpaid after a few hours, reach out directly.

Refunds are not issued after the pool locks (first tee Thursday). If you submit and then want to cancel before the lock, contact the admin and we’ll figure it out.

Trophy & History

The pool keeps a running history. After each tournament closes, the final standings are archived in the Previous Winners section of the site, preserving the leaderboard, payouts, and winning entry. These records don’t go away — you can pull up the The 154th Open 2026 standings a year from now.

Top finishes (1st, 2nd, 3rd) are noted in the archive. There’s no persistent points system across tournaments — each event is its own competition — but bragging rights are forever.

If you notice a discrepancy in the historical archive, let the admin know. Archived data is read-only once a tournament is marked closed.