Masters Pool Guide (2027): Formats, Picks and Rules

The Masters is the one week a year everyone wants in a golf pool - the office, the family, the group chat that's quiet for eleven months. Augusta National, the second week of April, a field of about ninety, and a course that rewards the same qualities every year. This guide covers the formats that work best for a one-week pool this size, the Augusta-specific things that should shape your picks, and the deadline and tiebreak rules that stop it turning into a mess on Sunday night.

Why the Masters pool is different

• A small, known field. Around 90 invitees rather than a 156-man full field, which means in a big pool a lot of people will pick the same five golfers. Your tiebreaker matters more here than at any other event.
• A 36-hole cut to the top 50 and ties. Roughly half the field goes home Friday. Your missed-cut rule decides whether a Friday exit is a wound or a funeral.
• Course history is real. Augusta is played on the same course every year, and the same players contend on it. Past Masters form is a better predictor here than anywhere else on the schedule.

Formats that fit a one-week Masters pool

Pick five, all count (any group, five minutes to set up). Everyone picks five, lowest total to par wins. Publish the missed-cut rule and the tiebreaker and you're done. Best for family and office pools where half the players won't recognize more than ten names.

Tiered picks (for bigger, more knowledgeable groups). The field is split into tiers by ranking and everyone takes one from each - one favorite, one from the second tier, and so on down. Lineups stop being identical and the pool stops being decided by the tiebreaker. Our format guide: golf pool formats explained.

Handicap picks (for groups that want the long shots to matter). Every golfer's rounds are adjusted by ranking band - the favorites give strokes, the back of the field gets them - so a bold pick can win the pool outright. Moving Day runs its own free Masters pool in this format; anyone with an account can play.

Who to pick at Augusta

• Trust Augusta form. A golfer with three top-15s here is a better pick than a hotter golfer making his second start. The course rewards knowledge: where to miss, which slopes feed the hole.
• Length still helps. The par 5s decide the week, and the long hitters reach them in two. The winners' list over the last fifteen years is mostly long hitters who putt well.
• Watch the debutants. First-timers rarely contend. If your pool needs five golfers who make the cut, a debutant is a risk the numbers don't support.
• Check the field on Monday. Injuries and late withdrawals happen; your app should let you swap a golfer who withdraws before the first tee time.

The two rules to publish before picks open

Missed cut. With half the field leaving Friday, a plus-10-per-round penalty turns the pool into “pick five cut-makers,” and the bold picks disappear. A field-relative rule (the median score of the players who made the cut, plus two) hurts without ending your week. Whatever you choose, write it in the pool description.

Tiebreaker. In a 100-person pool with a 90-man field, a tie for first happens more often than not. The rule that always works: count back from the final round - compare each team's best individual round, then the next best, and so on - and if that's somehow still tied, the earlier entry wins. Never split the pot by default. Full reasoning in tiebreakers that actually break ties.

Deadline and running it

Picks lock at the first tee time Thursday morning - not Wednesday, not “by kickoff of the par-3 contest.” Lineups stay editable until then so nobody is punished for picking early. From there the pool runs itself: live scoring through all four rounds, a leaderboard on everyone's phone, a round recap on Friday night telling the field who's in the hunt. The commissioner's job is the group chat.