Fantasy primer: Get to know new Fantasy Game ahead of Opening Drive

To a large subset of the audience of the sport that we enjoy altogether, it’s a fair question to ask if it’s looking forward more to the PGA TOUR season getting underway or the return of fantasy golf. The right answer is yes. As in both.

The Sentry opens 2025 on Jan. 2-5, and with it comes the launch of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by PGA TOUR Superstore. Yes, there are prizes, and winners will go shopping. More on how those dots connect below.

For the gamers who have played any of the format’s recent iterations, the latest version is equipped with enhancements that will elevate the competition and enhance the experience. What’s elegant is how all of it benefits rookie gamers who often have accepted a learning curve.

Let’s dive in.

Fantasy season

With the return of the calendar-year schedule, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by PGA TOUR Superstore now is split into just three segments. It’s apples-to-apples compared to the last three segments of previous versions, but we all start at zero at Kapalua instead of with our carryover points from the fall, which used to serve as the first segment. The entire fantasy schedule can be viewed on the How to Play page.

Here’s a breakdown of every segment with extended focus on the tournaments that reward the most end-of-tournament bonus points:

• Segment 1 = 10 tournaments. Notable: Four Signature Events, zero majors.
• Segment 2 = 11 tournaments. Notable: Three Signature Events, two majors and THE PLAYERS Championship.
• Segment 3 = 12 tournaments. Notable: One Signature Event, two majors and all three FedExCup Playoffs events.

Team building

Public and private leagues remain a staple of the game.

Roster construction is the same. All rosters will consist of up to four starters and two benchwarmers. Only starters contribute to your team total and you can modify your lineup during tournaments using your bench. FedExCup bonus points also will continue to apply only to your starters in the final round.

Familiarly, all gamers are allowed up to three starts per golfer per segment, so roster management remains a primary strategy, but there is a way to double the impact whenever you want…

O Captain! My Captain!

Have you ever thought about rostering multiple Scottie Schefflers at any one time? Of course you haven’t. That’s absurd. Perhaps only the Højgaard twins could swing that kind of thing in reality, but Scheffler is unique. There’s only one of him. Except in the 2025 rollout of PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by PGA TOUR Superstore, there doesn’t have to be.

Say ahoy to the captain.

For every tournament contributing, you will designate one golfer as your team captain. He will remain in that position for the entirety of the tournament and 100 percent of his fantasy points scored in it will be doubled when he’s a starter.

How to determine your team captain will involve some strategy in that you’re going to want (and likely need) him to make the cut and contribute fantasy points in every round. It’s like having a seventh member of your team and it costs you only one start against your allotment of three for that golfer.

And because the only restriction for how many times any golfer can be a team captain is the same as the limit of starts per golfer per segment – three – Scheffler effectively could contribute six times in three tournaments and as many as 18 times in nine across three segments if he’s your captain every time you roster him.

Lock him up

Speaking of the 2024 FedExCup champion, 2024 gold medalist, three-time PGA TOUR Player of the Year and world’s top-ranked talent, Scheffler is keen on teeing it up five times in the first seven tournaments. When you add the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard that concludes Segment 1, he projects to be available as many as six times before he resets to three starts for all gamers in Segment 2.

Assuming that all gamers will burn through all three starts on Scheffler – a must if for no other reason than defensive purposes – he becomes the game within the game. At which tournaments you roster him depends on numerous factors, not the least of which is that only two of the four Signature Events in Segment 1 do not have a cut, so we’re all guaranteed to avoid zeroes on the weekend (ignoring the chance of a withdrawal or disqualification). However, there’s considerable merit to abstain during the no-cut tournaments in favor of saving his punch in those with a cut that he’s a very good bet to survive.

An additional layer to determining where you’ll get the best bang for your luck is when fantasy scoring is promised to be higher no matter if a tournament has a cut. For example, both The American Express, at which the cut is made after three rounds, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational are projected starts for Scheffler, but fantasy scoring will be much higher in the Coachella Valley than it will be in Orlando. Considering leveraging it. Scheffler probably would need to win at Bay Hill to pay off the start.

These steps will apply to all golfers but if Scheffler rips off another season like he did in 2024, you’ll feel the impact most with the 13-time PGA TOUR winner.

Extra! Extra!

Proving that veteran gamers have been heard, an array of specific enhancements are introduced.

• While the team captain is a bonus you may not have seen coming, the auto-swap answers arguably the most common request.

Quite simply, golfers who miss the cut, withdraw during a tournament or are disqualified will be automatically replaced by a golfer on your bench. You prioritize both benchwarmers for the function if it’s needed. This means that you wouldn’t have to bird-dog live scoring if a second round bleeds into a Saturday morning and/or life gets in the way of giving you the time to respond promptly. We have all been there.

What’s clutch about "auto-swap" is that, while it defaults to on, it can be disabled. This can be useful in a tournament with low fantasy scoring and when you’re rationing starts for a golfer. There’s guaranteed to be a moment during the season when you’ll wage burning a start that may yield, say, 30 points, in favor of absorbing a zero so as to retain the start for a tournament later in the segment. Having control of auto-swap gives you the option to act or not to act, and that’s the best.

• Another sleek addition is an active projection of your final team score. It will automatically calculate how you’d finish at any one time. If you’ve ever participated in an online confidence pool that includes “what-if scoring,” it’s like that. If you haven’t, you’re going to love it. It’s addictive and there will be a lot to learn while monitoring it during play.
• Yet another functional perk is that your total team points at the conclusion of a tournament will be calculated at the conclusion of the tournament. They will include the end-of-tournament bonus points. The only exception is that non-members still will require time for end-of-tournament bonus points to be adjusted manually.
• Genius Sports is the game’s operator. It will be posting scoring projections for all golfers prior to the tournament. It’s a tool that will be helpful especially for newer gamers who are not as familiar with the latest class of PGA TOUR membership.
• And that’s not all. There’s likely to be other modifications added to augment your experience. They wouldn’t affect scoring or the format. All of the game play is set for the season.

Just rewards

The evolution of fantasy golf on the website has included a litany of lucrative prizes for the best in show, but this year’s series of performance incentives steps forward as distinctly valuable.

For instance, the season-long champion will win a PGA TOUR Superstore gift card valued at $4,500 and a full bag fitting. The runner-up pockets a $2,500 gift card, while third place wins a gift card with $1,000 predeposited. Both of those podium finishers also are treated to a full bag fitting.

Winners and runners-up of every segment also win prizes. You can review the full list here.

The Fantasy Insider

So that you don’t have to navigate the game on your own, I’ll be out front and alongside the entire time with dedicated weekly previews on Tuesdays. They will include notes specific to the field, relevant news about the course and other nuggets that will be useful as you make decisions. Most of all, however, I will examine strategies in the short- and long-term, and it will respect all levels of experience.

One of the objectives for my fantasy previews always has been to help you arrive at a place in which you don’t need my assistance, but you always know that it’s there. Never hesitate to connect publicly or privately with me on X. My handle is @RobBoltonGolf.

If you want to compete against me in the same league, join the league named exactly as follows: “PGA TOUR Experts.” That is the only league in which I participate and my team name matches my X handle. I’ll see you on the leaderboard!