Choosing a Scoring Format for Your Golf Pool
The three most common golf pool scoring formats — stroke play, earnings, and to-par — and how to pick the right one for your group.
The scoring format shapes how exciting your pool is from round to round. Here is how the three main formats compare.
Stroke play (low score wins)
Entrants accumulate their players' strokes over the tournament. The team with the fewest total strokes wins.
Best for: Groups that watch golf closely and understand course difficulty.
Downside: A single player who misses the cut wrecks a team. Drama can drop off after the weekend cut.
Earnings (prize money)
Teams score based on how much prize money their players earn. Missing the cut earns $0.
Best for: Large purse events where the payout curve is steep — majors and signature events.
Downside: Prize distribution varies widely by field size. Compare results across years before using earnings for historical pools.
To-par (relative to par)
Entrants use their players' scores relative to par rather than raw strokes. A player who shoots 68 on a par-72 scores −4.
Best for: Any pool. To-par is the most popular format because it normalizes for course difficulty and weather, and is easy for casual fans to understand.
How to decide: If your group watches golf regularly and cares about leaderboard position during the round, to-par is the right default. If your group only checks the final standings, earnings can work well for marquee events.