Guide to Fantasy Golf

Fantasy golf is normally scored by the amount of money your selected golfers wins during a tournament and accumulates during the year. Prizes can be awarded during the week, during a major, during a specified segment, or for the entire year.

There are a few different league types when playing fantasy golf.

Fixed Team - In the fixed team format you pick a set number of golfers which are used to determine the winners each week and for the year. You can not change your golfers, some leagues may allow you to change your golfer if they are out for the remainder of the year.

Weekly Team Selection - In the weekly team selection format, you pick new golfers each week based on some criteria. This is always interesting as there are a number of selections that usually occur of players that are not in the tournament. The weekly tournament usually has two variations.

Salary Cap Variation - You are allowed to pick players and must stay under a certain salary cap. Each player is assigned a dollar value and you must determine the best use of your salary cap money. The fantasy golf game at CBSSports.com uses this format.

Player Selection Limits Variation - You are allowed to pick any player, but you can only use the player a certain number of times during the tournament. PGATour.com, for example, only allows a player to be selected 10 times a season. If you select a player and he isn't in the tournament, you blew your selection. This type of selection provides strategy on when to use certain players or to save top players for major tournaments.

I've been playing fantasy golf for a couple of years now. I've found its more fun playing 1 or 2 sites than trying to play them all. I've also watched fantasy golf players make some big mistakes.

Do's
1. Do play, its fun and there are many places for free online.
2. Play every week, it keeps you involved with the whole season.
3. Follow the blog, it's a lot of fun watching people complain about a golfer.
4. Post on a blog, good natured ribbing is fine.
5. Know the rules
6. Find a blog that lists the golfers who have withdrawn from the tournament. If you don't have one, there's one below that I use.
7. Look at the golfers in the tournament and pick those golfers.

Don't
1. Complain when your golfer does bad, no one care, in fact we actually laugh at you when you do complain.
2. Pick Tiger Woods every week, first off, he only plays about a third of the season, so you've wasted your pick for most of the tournaments.
3. Post a note saying who is not in the tournament. Its an advantage for all of us if people pick golfers not in the tournament. I want to win, so does everyone else.

I've been playing fantasy golf for more than 10-15 years, and have learned some things along the way.

1. You will never be able to pick each tournament winner consistently, so don't get discouraged when you don't, unless Tiger Woods is in the tournament.

2. Read the rules, it will give you more clues on how to strategize during the season. Stracka's rules are very unique which is why I am playing this league.

3. If you can only pick a set of golfers over a season, make sure you pick golfers that play a lot of tournaments along with golfers that make a lot of money. Tiger Woods and Phil Michelson only play 15-20 tournaments a year, where others play over 30. Weekly prizes mean you want someone in the tournament weekly and not just playing the big money tournaments.

4. If a golfer's on a role, they will probably stay on a role for a couple of weeks.

5. The winner of last week's tournament rarely wins this week's tournament, unless its Tiger Woods.

6. The winner of last year's tournament rarely wins this year's tournament, unless its Tiger Woods.

7. Know when a golfer plays on their home course, they usually do very well.