Underdog PGA Best Ball: Overview and Strategy
Underdog is back for a second year of its season-long PGA Best Ball contest with a pair of buy-ins headlined by "The Scramble" -- a $10 contest with a $50,000 prize for first place. The contest was so popular in 2024 that Underdog upped it nearly 5x to 56,376 entries this time around after the original contest filled quickly last year. They also have "The Little Scramble" with a $3 buy-in and $2,000 to first.
Scoring: Albatross 20 points, Eagles 10, Birdies 4, Pars 1.1, Bogeys -1.2, Double Bogeys -3, Triple Bogey or worse -7, Bogey free round 3, Consecutive birdies 1, Consecutive bogeys -1
Draft: Six teams, 10 rounds, serpentine/snake draft format
A quick analysis of the scoring shows that birdies and eagles are rewarded much more than dropped shots are penalized, so we're giving a boost to players that are capable of posting birdies in bunches over the consistent golfers that make a lot of pars and avoid bogeys. That's also in line with the best-ball format in general of targeting players with higher ceilings.
Another key thing to note is that unlike a lot of season-long golf contests that determine standings based on total money won, that is not the case here. That devalues all the LIV players to being undraftable, as we can't afford to take up a roster spot on someone that's only going to play four tournaments, regardless of how well they may perform in those events. Also, while DFS sites award bonus points based on tournament finishing position, that is not done here. Both these nuggets put more of an emphasis on golfers that are going to play often.
With all that in mind, let's take a deeper dive into the format.
Underdog PGA Best Ball Format
Round 1 (Jan. 2 - Feb. 16)
The Sentry (Signature Event), Sony Open, The American Express, Farmers Insurance Open, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Signature Event), WM Phoenix Open, The Genesis Invitational (Signature Event)
Round 2 (Feb. 20 - Apr. 6)
Mexico Open, Cognizant Classic, Arnold Palmer Invitational (Signature Event), THE PLAYERS Championship (Flagship Event), Valspar Championship, Texas Children's Houston Open, Valero Texas Open
Round 3 (Apr. 10 - June 1)
The Masters (major championship), RBC Heritage (Signature Event), The CJ Cup Byron Nelson, Truist Championship (Signature Event), PGA Championship (major championship), Charles Schwab Challenge, The Memorial Tournament (Signature Event)
Round 4 (June 5 - July 20)
RBC Canadian Open, U.S. Open (major championship), Travelers Championship (Signature Event), Rocket Mortgage, John Deere Classic, Genesis Scottish Open, The Open Championship (major championship)
The top team from each draft in Round 1 will advance to the second round, and in this first set of events from the West Coast Swing we have a pair of Signature Events. The Sentry, previously referred to as the Tournament of Champions, has a different selection criteria than all of the other Signature Events. Qualified players skipping this event such as Rory McIlroy and Tony Finau can be downgraded slightly.
Those advancing to the second round will randomly be placed in groups of six, with the top team advancing to the third round. This stretch includes the Florida Swing, and there's only one Signature Event during this seven tournament stretch. This is where teams that have loaded up on only the best talent will struggle as those players that are qualified for Signature Events will likely only play three times compared to those who aren't will play five or even six times.
If you make it to the third round, you'll once again be placed in a group of six with the top team advancing. With five of the seven tournaments being marquee events, this is where having a mixture of top players and lesser names will be key. Those qualified for Signature Events will play five times and others may only have the opportunity to play twice.
The remaining 261 teams will make it to the final round and earn a chance at the $50k grand prize. It is an interesting stretch of tournaments that includes a pair of Midwest birdie-fests that you'll want to have several golfers playing in. The final two tournaments are in Europe, so it certainly won't hurt to have golfers who play well overseas.
Underdog Best Ball Rankings
Our current rankings dedicated strictly to the format can be seen below and found here. They can easily be exported over to Underdog.
Recapping 2024
Taking a look back at last year's contests is a good starting point to see what we can learn and improve on for this season's tournament. I was fortunate to get three of my 10 teams from the $10 The Scramble contest into the 312-person final (out of 11,232 entries), with my best team finishing 18th. Here is my squad below:
As you can see, Aaron Rai was my highest scoring player and a key part of my success, as he went through a stretch during the summer with five consecutive top-20s, including three top-10s to rack up a lot of points. The third-year Tour pro was an easy to spot sleeper after finishing the 2022-23 season 24th in SG: Tee-to-Green. Another observation is that my highest scoring players weren't necessarily my earliest round picks due to how many tournaments were played by the lesser-known players of the group. Ben Griffin played a whopping 25 tournaments through The Open Championship, and the 28-year-old was another player who appeared to be a solid sleeper option heading into the year after finishing 42nd in SG: Total the season prior.
The winning team included -- in order of draft round -- Byeong Hun An, Jordan Spieth, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim, Nicolai Hojgaard, Brendon Todd, Sepp Straka, Adam Svensson, Griffin and Alex Noren. That's not exactly a who's who of superstar players, showing the importance of having golfers that are going to play often versus those that have a good chance of winning the biggest events.
Projecting Schedules
As I've touched on previously, a key part to this contest is having players that are going to play a lot of tournaments over simply identifying who the best golfers are. If you go to a golfer's player page, you can scroll down and see what events we expect players to participate in. The top 50 players in the 2024 FedExCup Standings are qualified for all eight Signature Events and we'd expect most of them to play all eight with some of the elite players potentially skipping one. Nos. 51-60 in the standings are qualified for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational Signature Events, with other players also eligible to qualify via the Aon Next 10 and Aon Swing 5. This link on the PGA Tour's website does a great job showing you who is qualified for the Signature Events and each major championship. One of the keys is finding players that are qualified for the Signature Events and will also play a decent amount of the non-Signature Events.
Let's look at some candidates.
Despite finishing the regular season 34th in the FedExCup Standings, Thompson still chose to play five of the eight fall events, indicating that he's not afraid to play often. He also won the John Deere Classic, so he'll likely tee it up in the Quad Cities in 2025, whereas most of the top players will head to Europe early instead. The 25-year-old doesn't have any weaknesses in his game as he ranked top-40 in every strokes-gained category this past season.
Kim is going to be a common target of mine in that second/third round turn range of drafts. Even though he's not as talented as golfers like Viktor Hovland or Hideki Matsuyama who are going in the same range, I'm more inclined to take Kim, as he's only qualified for the first two West Coast Signature Events and may have to play some lesser events to get into the others. The younger players generally seem to like to play a lot and Kim played eight non-Signature Events through The Open Championship in 2024.
MacIntyre was a rookie on Tour after acquiring his card through the DP World Tour, and he finished T17 in the FedExCup Standings after winning twice. As a result, we can expect him to defend his titles at the RBC Canadian Open and Genesis Scottish Open. Both of those events come in Round 4, so if you're able to make it that far, you're likely getting a golfer that's going to tee it up in 5-of-7 events. He tends to be a boom-or-bust type player -- six top-10s, 10 missed cuts over 25 starts -- which certainly fits the best ball format well.
Players to Avoid
Here are some players that I have ranked lower than ADP and plan on having little or zero exposure to.
Of the 28 eligible tournaments in this contest, we project Scottie Scheffler to play in 16, but that number dips all the way down to 12 for McIlroy. I'm as big of a fan of Rory as the next guy, but that alone makes it really difficult to draft him. He could potentially make up for it by likely playing five of the seven Round 4 events, but are you going to be able to make it that far with him? McIlroy's only top-10 before May last year came at the Valero Texas Open, an event he said he won't play in 2025.
Theegala only played two events this fall -- the Procore Championship -- in which he was the defending champion and the limited field ZOZO Championship, signaling that he's not likely to play a lot of the non-Signature Events -- he only played six through The Open Championship last season. His current ADP of 8.0 is pretty lofty for a player I view more in the 25-30 range skill-wise. I'd rather pivot to Patrick Cantlay, who I view as the much better golfer, or Eric Cole, who will play a lot more.
Rai's schedule will look much differently than it did this past season, as he goes from essentially playing every event he could get into to now being qualified for all of the Signature Events. The problem with drafting him is that you can find better golfers that are going to play a very similar schedule, such as Corey Conners or An. Rai's ADP around the third/fourth round turn is a lot less desirable compared to last year when he was often going in the last few rounds.
Underdog PGA Late Round Targets
The golf world became quite familiar with Rasmus' twin, Nicolai, who had a faster rising that got him selected to the winning 2023 European Ryder Cup team. The two have gone in somewhat opposite directions since then, as Rasmus had a win and eight top-10s across 20 DP World Tour starts in 2024 while Nicolai regressed. He easily led the DP World Tour rankings that gave out 10 PGA Tour cards, and while we don't know his exact schedule, his brother made 17 starts by The Open Championship last year, so I'd expect something similar. Rasmus should be one of the longer hitters on Tour and is capable of making a lot of birdies.
Kitayama is one of my favorite late round targets due to his excellent ball striking and projected schedule. Some people may stay away from him considering he didn't play a lot of tournaments in 2024, but he had the luxury of being selective as he was qualified for all of the Signature Events which he is not in 2025. That will make him one of the better players in most of the non-Signature Events that he plays in, and he has momentum after finishing the fall with back-to-back top-10s. Kitayama has never been a great putter but did rank seventh in SG: Tee-to-Green this past season.
Meissner is coming off a solid rookie campaign in which he made 16-of-25 cuts with 10 top-25s. The 25-year-old had a T5 against a solid field at the Charles Schwab Challenge, and since he's not currently qualified for any of the Signature Events, we can expect him to play a busy schedule. Meissner is a good all-around player, led by a strong iron game that ranked 26th in SG: Approach and seventh in approaches over 200 yards. I expect him to continue to improve and get off to a quicker start in his second season on Tour.
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