Sure, you could spend Masters week coming up with some of the best values when it comes to the odds on the 87 golfers in the field at Augusta National in 2019.
But there’s more fun to be had than that.
Just like March Madness and bracket pools, betting on golfers is classic, simple and holds your interest on the tournament. This list, like our group of bracket alternatives, adds in some different strategy and complexity. One of them also may cost you a lot more than just the few bucks you were going to throw on Tiger Woods.
So here are some ideas for other Masters pools:
1. Calcutta
We mentioned this one in our bracket alternatives, and it’s the same concept: You get a group of people together and each golfer is up for bid at an auction. You spend real dollars on your picks and all of it gets thrown into a pool. Depending on the rules, a percentage of the pool is paid out for various accomplishments, with the majority of it going to the person who took the green jacket winner.
You could pay out for the Day 1, 2 and 3 leader, for the worst golfer who finishes above the cut line, for the low amateur, etc. But there’s no limit to the amount of money you can spend.
2. Fantasy leagues
This one is familiar for fantasy golf enthusiasts. You pick, say, six golfers, with four starting and two on your bench. You can cycle in your bench players after each round if you so choose. Scoring can be based on a variety of stats. You can also use a snake draft to get a bigger team of golfers together.
3. Tiers
This is sort of like the fantasy league option, but it’s trickier: The field is split into tiers based on their Official World Golf Ranking, with the top golfers slotted at the top, the next group of talents in the next level and so on for six tiers. You pick one golfer per tier and accrue the six players’ scores throughout the week. Lowest score obviously wins.
Here’s a version of that pool that I really like:
4. Pick ’em
While researching this, I stumbled upon this idea: You put the names of every player on slips of paper and it’s $5 to pull a random name, as many or as few as you want. That leads to strategy: If you end up with, say, Brooks Koepka, do you keep pulling names or stop there? The top five winners are paid out by percentages of the pool.
