Golf sweeps (the majors)

A sweep on a professional tournament — the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, The Open, or any other PGA Tour event. Members pick one golfer from each of four tiers; each golfer scores their finishing position; the lowest total wins a share of the pot. Positions update live while the tournament is on.

Switching it on

Settings → Public site → Golf sweeps. That adds Sweeps to the admin menu and a Sweep page to the public site. Each sweep stays hidden until you publish it, so you can set one up (or try one on a regular tour event) without anyone seeing it.

Setting up a sweep

1. Sweeps → New sweep. Pick the tournament from the list (majors are marked ★), set the entry fee and the winner's share (50% by default — the rest stays with the society).
2. The field loads from ESPN once it is announced, usually a few days before the start. If it isn't there yet, come back and press Reload field from ESPN.
3. Tiers are suggested from the world ranking: a short tier 1 of favourites, then bigger tiers down the field. Golfers without a world ranking (amateurs, past champions) go to the last tier. Move anyone you like with the tier dropdowns and Save tiers — before entries open, ideally.
4. Entries close at the first tee time automatically (shown in your own time zone). You can change it.
5. Tick Published and share the Sweep page.

Entries

• Online: members choose their name (or type it — guests are welcome) and one golfer per tier on the Sweep page. Picks stay hidden from everyone else until entries close.
• By the committee: add or edit entries on the sweep's admin page at any time, including after the deadline.
• Anyone can type any name on the public form, so check the list — delete anything that shouldn't be there.
• Paid: press Paid next to an entry once the money is in. That records a Sweep entry payment in the ledger (by member, or by name for a guest). Undo removes it. Only paid entries count towards the pot.

Scoring

• Each golfer scores their position: the winner 1, T9 counts as 9.
• A golfer who misses the cut, withdraws or is disqualified scores last place + 1 — one more than the number of golfers who finished. (54 make the cut → a missed cut scores 55.)
• An entry's total is its four golfers added together; lowest wins.
• Ties are broken by the entry's best golfer, then its next best, and so on. Entries still level share the place — and share the prize.

When it's over

When ESPN marks the tournament as final, the sweep saves the final positions so the result never changes afterwards. On the admin page, Record payout in ledger adds a Sweep prize payment for the winner (split evenly between tied winners). The society's share simply stays in the kitty.

If ESPN gets a result wrong or is down, use Fix a golfer's result by hand — a fixed result always wins over the live feed. Re-open results goes back to the live feed if the result was saved too early (only before the payout is recorded).

Where the data comes from

The field, tee times and positions come from ESPN's public golf feed, and the world ranking from the Official World Golf Ranking. Neither is an official service for other sites, so if one changes or goes quiet the sweep shows what it last saved and you can fix results by hand.