How to Run a PGA Championship Golf Pool in 2026
Set up your PGA Championship pool in minutes. Choose your scoring format, invite your friends, and track picks on a live leaderboard.
The PGA Championship is one of the best tournaments of the year to run a golf pool. It draws the full strength of the world ranking, plays at a course that consistently produces drama, and lands in May when the season is just hitting its stride.
If you've been thinking about running a pool for this one, here's everything you need to get started.
Why the PGA Championship is perfect for a pool
A few things make the PGA Championship stand out compared to regular tour events:
- Large, deep field. A full major field means more player variety across tiers — entrants have real choices at every level, not just at the top.
- Major drama. The Wanamaker Trophy carries weight. Entrants are more engaged when something meaningful is on the line.
- Unpredictable leaderboard. Majors tend to mix the expected (favorites) with surprises (cut-line survivors, first-time major contenders). That volatility keeps pools alive into Sunday.
What you need before you create a pool
Three decisions to make before you open the pool to entrants:
1. Scoring format. The most common options are TOPAR based scoring and EARNINGS based scoring. TOPAR tracks each team's combined score relative to par, so it mirrors the broadcast leaderboard closely. EARNINGS rewards teams based on the prize money their golfers earn over the week.
2. Tier structure. Tiers group players by expected performance. Most pools use six to ten tiers for a major. More tiers and players per tier gives entrants more meaningful choices and produces more differentiated teams.
3. Entry deadline. Picks lock before the first round tees off Thursday morning. Give your group at least a few days to make picks — ideally a week.
Setting up your pool on GPP
Creating a pool takes about two minutes:
- Go to Create a Pool and select the PGA Championship from the tournament list. If the tournament isn't available yet, sign up for tournament notifications and wait until you get an alert email.
- Choose your scoring format and configure your tier settings.
- Tiers will be automatically populated based on official world golf rankings (OWGR) when the pool is created.
- Review your tiers and if you want to modify them, log in and edit your tiers through the
dashboard. Tiers lock after the first team entry so make sure your tiers are the way you want them before invites go out. - Share your pool picks link with your group through email, social media or messaging.
Once the pool is live, GPP handles everything automatically — live scoring updates pull directly from the tour, and the leaderboard refreshes throughout each round.
How picks and the leaderboard work
Each entrant picks one player from each tier. The live leaderboard shows every team's total score in real time, ranked by how their picks are performing on the course.
You can see the full pool leaderboard at any point during the tournament. No manual score entry, no spreadsheet, no waiting until someone has time to update the results.
Get started
The PGA Championship tees off May 14. Pools open May 5 — give your group time to get their picks in before the field is set.