Documentation
The Moving Day Format
The format Moving Day's own free pools run on. Anyone can pick anyone - no tiers, no draft - because every golfer's score is adjusted by where he sits in the field. Stack five favorites and you give strokes back; find a dark horse and he gets strokes in hand. It's a handicap, the same idea your Saturday game uses, applied to the pros.
The bands
When a tournament's field is set, it's split into five equal bands by world ranking. Every real round a golfer plays is adjusted by his band. Amateurs get −5 per round.
| Band | Who | Adjustment | In practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Band 1 | Top fifth of the field by ranking | +2 per round | Favorites give strokes back |
| Band 2 | Second fifth | +1 per round | Strong, small tax |
| Band 3 | Middle fifth | Even | Played straight up |
| Band 4 | Fourth fifth | −1 per round | Value picks |
| Band 5 | Bottom fifth | −2 per round | Dark horses get help |
Example: a Band 1 golfer who shoots −16 over four rounds counts as −8 for your team. A Band 5 golfer who shoots −8 also counts as −8. That's the point - the question isn't “who's best,” it's “who beats expectations.”
Why these numbers
We tested the bands against every stroke-play PGA TOUR event of the 2026 season. With +2/+1/0/−1/−2, the five bands finished within four strokes of each other on average, and the best golfer in every band produced the same upside (about −9 adjusted). Winning picks came from all five bands: 16% from Band 1, 36% from Band 2, 16% from Band 3, 21% from Band 4 and 10% from Band 5. Bigger bonuses for the bottom bands (−3 or −4) looked generous but actually broke it - Band 4 alone took more than half the winning picks and Band 3 disappeared. The current numbers are the flattest set we found.
Missed cuts: field median + 2
Bands only stay fair if a missed cut costs about what the field is shooting. A fixed penalty like +15 per round makes the weak bands unplayable (Band 5 misses the cut 85% of the time); scoring a missed cut as even par lets a golfer who went home Friday beat one who grinded out +2, +1 on the weekend. So in this format a missed round is scored as the field's median score for that round, plus two, with no band adjustment on penalty rounds. If Saturday's median was −1, a cut golfer gets +1 for Saturday. A missed cut always tracks worse than the typical golfer still playing - but never by a cliff. Withdrawals and disqualifications use the same idea, harder: the field median plus four per missing round. A golfer who withdraws before the tournament starts can be swapped out - see the pool's team page.
Teams, ties and seasons
- Five golfers, all count. Five rather than four roughly halves the chance two teams pick identical lineups in a big pool.
- Ties never share a place. Equal totals are broken by count-back on your own golfers - best golfer first, then next best - and two identical lineups by earliest entry. In a 500-team pool about one week in six has a tie for first, so this matters.
- Season points are top-heavy. Moving Day season pools score placements on a curve where winning a week is worth noticeably more than a mid-table finish (1st 100, top 10% about 73, the median about 13).
The format is reserved for Moving Day's own free pools and sponsor pools - see Free Moving Day pools. Private pools choose from the presets in Formats & Rule Presets.