Official
Rulebook

Franchise League Golf is a contract-based keeper league where each franchise manages a roster of players with varying contract statuses. Players sit under one of three main contract statuses:

• Regular multi-year contract
• Free agent (FA)
• Restricted free agent (RFA)

Salary cap. Each franchise operates under a $100M salary cap, which applies only during the pre-season auction. There is no salary cap during the regular season.

Active rosters. Each franchise may carry up to 11 players on their active roster at all times during the season.

Starting lineups. Each franchise starts six golfers.

• The point totals of five non-starting golfers do not count toward the franchise total.
• Edits to the starting lineup of golfers may be made up until five minutes before the first golfer tees off (typically Thursday mornings). Exact time varies by tournament.

Reserve roster. One player per franchise may be on the reserve roster at any time.

• There is no injury requirement to place a player on reserve.
• A player placed on reserve must stay there a minimum of four weeks unless released. Once released, any player is eligible to be picked up by any franchise.
• After June 1, the four-week minimum is waived.
• During the playoffs, players may be activated from reserve, but no additional active spots are allowed. A player placed on reserve during the playoffs must remain there through the playoffs.
• Golfers may not be picked up directly onto reserve — they must first come from the active roster (though they may immediately move from active to reserve).
• Players traded from a reserve roster must go to the new franchise's reserve roster.

All new contracts are three years, with the salary set during the pre-season auction. Heading into the third year of a contract, a franchise can:

• Drop the player.
• Retain the player at the same salary for one final year. That player becomes a free agent at the end of the year and cannot be protected the following season.
• Extend the player for additional years at a fixed price increase per year. Once the extension ends, the player becomes a free agent (a player may not receive a second extension).

By the league's keeper deadline, franchises must declare all contract extensions. All golfers can be extended for $2M/year, up to 10 years.

Example. A golfer won at auction for $24M starts a 3-year contract at $24M. He can be dropped anytime (a new franchise assumes the contract). In Year 3 he enters the extension zone: drop him, keep him at $24M for a final year, or extend at $2M per added year — a 5-year extension makes his salary $34M, and he can be kept at $34M for those five seasons.

Each league sets its own auction timeline — start time, nomination windows and blind-bidding periods. Reaching the keeper deadline initiates the auction in the app. The pre-season consists of RFA rounds, regular FA rounds.

Keepers. Before the auction, franchises designate between 4 and 7 golfers to keep under their current contracts (including RFAs), submitted via the app before the league's deadline. Each franchise must be under the cap at this time, accounting for a minimum of $2M per remaining roster spot.

Restricted free agents. Any kept player who was not under contract the previous year (picked up mid-season) is an RFA.

• RFAs are bid on in alphabetical order by last name.
• Any franchise can acquire a player off another roster by bidding above that player's salary; the original franchise may match the winning bid.
• Bidding is blind; the highest submitted bid wins and becomes the player's salary — the start of a new 3-year contract.
• The original franchise may choose to match the winning bid and retain the player; no declaration is treated as no match.
• A franchise cannot outbid its cap — it must always keep at least $2M for every remaining roster spot.
• If no one bids on an RFA, the player stays with the original franchise on a new regular contract at the minimum RFA salary.

Regular auction. Franchises run a multi-round auction until every roster reaches 11 golfers, taking turns nominating FAs (in random order). Blind bids are placed within the allotted time; the highest bid wins and starts a new 3-year contract. Once a roster is full, that franchise can no longer nominate. Ties go to the first bid submitted, and no franchise may outbid its cap.

Each franchise earns the points its starting golfers score in every tournament: points for every hole played, plus finish points once the tournament is final.

Per-hole scoring. Each hole a golfer plays scores one result:

Finish points. Awarded once per tournament, by final leaderboard position:

Cuts. There are no points for making or missing the cut. A golfer earns per-hole points for every hole he plays.

Ties. Golfers tied for a position each earn that position's finish points, and the next position(s) are skipped. For example, if three golfers tie for third, each earns 26 points, no one earns fourth- or fifth-place points, and the next golfer earns sixth-place points. Only the tournament winner earns first place, including after a playoff, but a playoff hole result does not count toward the golfer's earned fantasy points.

No bonuses. There are no bonus points for birdie streaks, bogey-free rounds or rounds under 70. There is no separate hole-in-one bonus, since an ace already scores as an eagle or double eagle.

Waiver wire. Held every week at a set time using a FAAB system. Each franchise gets a $100M waiver budget for the season.

• Golfers dropped during waivers are eligible to be picked up right away.
• Afterward, all free agents are available with no impact on the waiver budget.
• Waivers run through the playoffs, but a player picked up from waivers before the first playoff matchup is not eligible to be kept the following year.
• A winning waiver bid has no impact on contract status or salary. A kept free agent becomes an RFA the next season; a contracted player who is picked up retains the same contract.

Free agents. Once waivers are complete, franchises add/drop players first-come, first-served in the app. A player can only be signed to the active 11-man roster — never directly to reserve.

Trades. A trade is final once agreed by both franchises and announced to the league via the app. The trade deadline is June 1. Under the "no player rentals" rule, a traded player cannot be traded back to his former franchise for at least two weeks. Trading resumes after the fantasy playoffs conclude.

Schedule. Each franchise plays a 26-tournament schedule following the primary PGA Tour lineup from January to August, with matchups determined randomly at the start of the season. In most leagues, this will result in everyone playing everyone else at least twice during the regular season.

Starting lineup. Choose six golfers to start and score points for each tournament.

Withdrawal Protection. If a golfer withdraws from a tournament for any reason before the end of the second round (pre-cut), a bench golfer's score may replace his final two rounds. Thus, for that starting slot, the initial starter's score from rounds 1 and 2 would be added to the bench golfer's score from rounds 3 and 4 to give a final score for that starting slot. Withdrawal Protection requires two conditions to be met: 1) the starter is on pace to make the cut (+/- 2 strokes of the cut line) and 2) the bench golfer makes the cut. If no bench golfers on your roster make the cut, no Withdrawal Protection occurs.

Field. Four franchises make the playoffs — the top three by overall record plus one wild card.

Wild card. The fourth spot goes to the franchise with the highest power ranking (⅓ record, ⅓ points, ⅓ matchup, each ranked 1–12 and averaged). Tiebreakers: head-to-head, then overall record, then most points.

Seeding. The #1 seed picks the order of its three round-robin games. The decision is due by 11:59pm Tuesday prior to the first playoff event (the 3M Open in 2027), otherwise it defaults to #1 vs #4, then #1 vs #3, then #1 vs #2.

Round robin. Each playoff franchise faces each other playoff franchise once during the final three weeks of the PGA tour (events 27-29). Champion and runner-up are decided by: record of the three games, then total points, then head-to-head. A 3-0 team is champion; otherwise the 2-1 team with the most points wins (ties broken head-to-head).

Record tiebreakers. For ties in record — whether for a playoff spot or seeding — the order is head-to-head, then total points for the season, then the franchise with the longer playoff drought, then a coin flip. When three or more franchises are tied, head-to-head among all tied teams is used first, then season points, then playoff drought. If any franchise is eliminated by a tiebreaker, the process restarts with those remaining.