Covers Golf Contest 2017 Rules

1.  Each week on Monday or Tuesday I will post a new thread with the expected field list.  All you need to do to be in the contest is post picks!

2.  Select TWO golfers from the field list.  You cannot duplicate picks at any point during the season.  Still to be determined is if the picks will be reset for the playoffs.

3.  The regular season runs from the Farmers Insurance Open until the Wyndham Championships in August.  32 weeks.  The playoffs will run concurrent with the FedEx Cup Playoffs starting with the NORTHERN TRUST and concluding with the Tour Championship.  The amount of playoff qualifiers will be based on the amount of full-season participants we get...generally 16.

4.  There will be 8 weeks during the season that will be DOUBLE POINTS weeks.  These are the 4 major tournaments (Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA Championship) as well as the WGC-Mexico Championships, WGC-Bridgestone, PLAYERS Championship, and replacing the WGC-Match Play this year will be the Arnold Palmer Invitational for obvious reasons. 

5. For the 4 major tournaments we also have a 3rd round BONUS.  Before the tournament starts and with your selected players, you will designate a 3rd player for a 3rd round bonus.  If your bonus player shoots the lowest score in the tournament during the 3rd round (ties count) you will receive a -10 bonus on your total.  The bonus player CAN be someone you have used during the year and does not count towards your overall used players.

6.  You will receive the score that your selected players get for the week.  If a selected player misses the cut, withdraws, is disqualified, or makes the cut and doesn't finish, you will receive a score relative to 5 strokes worse than the last place finisher who completes the entire tournament.  For instance, if you selected Jimmy Walker for the Sony Open (missed cut) you would receive a +5 for the week since the worst finishing player Ken Duke finished at EVEN.

7.  If you miss a week, you will receive a double MC penalty...you don't want to do this in a double points week, trust me.

8.  The time limit for getting your picks in is before a selected player tees off.  This helps if you get a little too wasted on Wednesday night and sleep in on Thursday and miss the early tee times.  Once all the players have teed off in the first round, the contest is closed for the week.

9.  As much as I encourage maximum participation, this contest is designed to be a FULL SEASON contest.  I don't want people just randomly jumping in week to week.  Therefore, if you miss 6 total weeks, you will be eliminated from the competition.  That's about 20% of the season...I don't feel like that's asking too much.  

10.  If you pick the winner of the tournament, you get a BONUS of -10.  For instance, if you picked Justin Thomas for the Sony Open, you would receive a -37 for the week  (-27 final score and the -10 bonus)  If you select the winner in a double points week (you want to do this, trust me) the -10 is applied AFTER the double points.  With the Justin Thomas example it would be -27 x 2 = -54...-54 with a -10 bonus gives you a -64.

11.  I understand that sometimes it is difficult to get to a computer and I understand that not all of us are as computer savvy as others...but I ask you from the bottom of my soul to please try and COPY AND PASTE your used players.  I do my best to track all used players...but we also rely heavily on the honor system here as well.  If you initially select someone you have already used during the year, no worries, you can change your picks at any time until all the players have teed off.

12.  I generally post the standings and scores on Sunday night or Monday morning depending on my beer consumption.  I am human, I will make mistakes.  Don't flip out, just ask me nicely to double check and I will do so.  Keep in mind I'm tracking 64 used golfers for 20-25 competitors over 32 weeks with tournaments that have 128 golfers...that's a lot of math.

13.  If you are somehow able to snatch the championship trophy out of my hands this year, you will receive a fantastic prize package.  But I'm not giving it up easily!!!

Whew!  Thought I had missed the start of the contest.