League Commissioner FAQ

This page offers some insight and suggestions for league commissioners. Have questions? Contact us!

What's a league?

A league is a series of tournaments. Players make picks for each tournament in the league. When the tournament finishes, players are awarded points for their picks based on how well their golfers performed.

Neat. How do I get one?

You've got your choice of the following:

  1. Free league: Every player can create one free league. The free league allows up to eight tournaments and 15 of your friends. No friends? Quick - go find some. We'll be here when you get back.
  2. Premium league: For a nominal fee, you can create one of our premium leagues, which are more configurable.

Alright, got my league. What next?

Configure your tournaments

Click the "Tournaments" link (under your league name) to manage your league's tournaments. Want a tournament but can't find it in our list? Ask us, we can probably add it.

Things to keep in mind when choosing your tournaments:

  1. Make sure you pick tournaments whose TDs publish their results promptly. Otherwise your players will get antsy and keep asking you where their scores are. And that's just annoying.
  2. If you're using payout scoring, make sure the TD publishes the payouts (for ALL divisions you're picking). You can usually get a good idea if they do this by looking at the tournament results for past years.
  3. Try picking tournaments that display their pre-registration. Doing so will help players know who's gonna show up.
  4. Your first and last tournament can be no longer than nine months apart. Try to avoid creating 37-year-long marathon leagues. You'll be the only one playing by the end. :P

For each tournament, you'll want to configure what divisions are picked, how they're scored, and a handful of other cool things.

Invite your friends

Your super-secret league invitation code is on your "Options" page. Give it to your friends and have them enter it on the Find Leagues page to join your league. Or, you can make your league public and it will show up when people search for it by name.

Why can't I add Tournament X?

There are a few restrictions on the tournaments you can add:

  • A league's tournaments must all be within nine months each other.
  • You cannot add tournaments that are less than two days away.
  • You cannot add past tournaments.

If you can't find your tournament in our list, email us! We ought to be able to add it. Otherwise we'd just be a bunch of slackers over here. However, you'll probably want to stick to tournaments whose Tournament Director will get their scores in quickly, so you can get your fantasy results calculated in a timely manner. We do reserve the right to not add a tournament for any reason.

When should I use the "Pick X, Score Y" feature for a division?

You'll notice that, when picking divisions, you can pick golfers and score only some of them. Use this with caution. We recommend:

  • Don't use "Pick X, Score Y" with a Salary Cap.
  • Use "Pick X, Score Y" for divisions and tournaments that will be tougher to pick (e.g. if players don't know many of the golfers playing).

What happens if I change my configuration after picks are made?

If you make a significant configuration change, we will automatically remove all of the league picks for that tournament. Players will need to re-make their picks. The following actions will cause picks to automatically change or be removed:

  • Reducing the salary cap - all picks for the tournament will be removed
  • Adding a salary cap when one was not configured - all picks for the tournament will be removed
  • Reducing the number of picks in a division - all picks for that division will be removed
  • Removing the substitute option - substitute pick will be removed

The moral of the story: BE CAREFUL when making configuration changes after picks have been made.

Hey, jerkface! I can't configure my tournament anymore. Why?!

Hey mister, settle down! Tournaments go through a sort of "lifecycle." What's that? A lightcycle? Huh? Oh, like, from TRON? Yeah, no, not one of those. Would be awesome, though. We'll look into it. Anyway, it goes something like this:

  1. You pick a tournament and configure it. This ideally happens more than two weeks before the tournament starts.
  2. Two weeks before the tournament starts: league members can make picks. You can still change the tournament configuration. Be warned, though. By changing pick counts, you might cause some players' picks to be removed. They probably won't like that. Also, we'll write a notification on the league history so they know what you did.
  3. Two days before the tournament starts, you won't be able to change most tournament configurations. The only thing you'll be able to change is the scoring method.
  4. At midnight (12:00) central time the day the tournament starts, players' picks are locked.
  5. After tournament results are available, we'll re-calculate player scores.

When can I change my scoring method?

You're allowed to change your scoring method at any time, even after scores have already been calculated. If they have, we'll re-calculate them. However - don't do this unless you absolutely must. Not for our sake. We really don't care. But your league members will probably get angry (unless you have a good reason). And you wouldn't like them when they're angry.

How do I pick a Salary Cap for my tournament?

Picking a salary cap is a difficult thing. For serious. You'll probably have to do a little research. Here's one way you might approach it:

  1. Look at the current pre-registration list for your tournament and note the player ratings.
  2. Look at the same tournament for the past few years to see what the average player ratings are.
  3. Pick a base rating value that's, say, 10 rating points under the top rated player(s).
  4. Take that base rating value and multiply it by the number of picks you've got configured for that division.
  5. For that number, see who you would be able to pick. Too many good golfers on your roster (for your liking)? Decrease the base rating value and multiply again.
  6. Once you've got a cap that you like, use it!

If you've got different divisions being picked for your tournament, you'll have to do some analysis for each division separately.

Here are our base rating values for The Memorial, 2012.

  • MPO: 1021
  • FPO: 940
  • MPM: 990

(These hover around the 80th percentile of golfer ratings within the division.)

We're still running numbers through our gold-plated salary-cap configur-o-tron (we got it for a smokin' deal on eBay) to find good salary caps for tournaments. We'll let you know as soon as we figure them out. Ultimately, we're working to make this an easier process for you as a commissioner, too.

You're free to make your salary cap as easy or as difficult for your league members as you want. Lower salary caps will make picks more difficult, but will reward players who do their research and pick the lower-rated sleepers.

Remember, the salary cap is optional. If you don't want to bother with it, no biggie.

Why did my scores change?

We update our scores as soon as tournament scoring information is available. Sometimes the initial scores are unofficial. If the tournament results are updated, we'll update scores accordingly.