OfficePoolGolf is a Progressive Web App, which is a fancy way of saying the website installs onto your phone like a regular app without going through an app store. You will not find OPG in the App Store or the Play Store. You install it straight from the browser instead, which keeps the experience fast and the app icon one tap away on your home screen.

On iPhone, open OfficePoolGolf in Safari, tap the Share icon at the bottom of the screen, and choose Add to Home Screen. On Android, open the site in Chrome and either accept the install prompt that appears at the bottom of the page or open the browser menu and tap Install app. Either way, an icon lands on your home screen and the leaderboard opens full-screen the next time you tap it.

Installing matters because the installed app is the only place push notifications work reliably on iOS, the leaderboard loads in roughly a second, and you do not have to hunt through browser tabs during a tournament.

OPG sends a small number of high-signal notifications and nothing else. We will let you know when one of your rostered players makes a big move, when the cut line is set after the second round, when final results post, when your commissioner confirms your payment, and when a commissioner sends a message to the pool. We do not send marketing emails. We do not share your address with anyone. You can unsubscribe from any category at any time.

Push notifications and email are both opt-in and configurable per category. Push lands on your installed app and shows on your lock screen. Email lands in your inbox. Most users keep push on for big moves and email on for final results, but you can mix and match. Quiet hours are optional and run from 10pm to 7am in your local timezone, so a player making a Sunday-morning charge in your time zone will not wake you up the night before.

You can also pause every non-critical notification with a single toggle if you want a break, and turn everything back on the same way. Critical messages such as payment confirmations and pool access changes always come through.

There are three ways to land in a pool. First, paste an invite link from your commissioner into your browser. Invite links work for private pools and unlisted pools that do not show up in any public listing. Second, browse open public pools from your dashboard. Anyone can join a public pool with one tap as long as the entry window is still open. Third, create your own pool and invite your group with an invite link of your own.

Pools come in three visibility flavors. Public pools are searchable and appear in browsing lists. Unlisted pools are reachable only by direct link. Private pools require either a password or an invite from the commissioner. Pick whichever fits your group.

If you are starting a pool for the first time, OPG walks you through a setup wizard that picks reasonable defaults for roster size, value bands, payouts, and lock time. You can tune any of the defaults before opening the pool to entrants.

Every pool sets a roster size and a team value cap. Each player in the tournament field carries a point value based on their world ranking, with top-ranked players costing the most and unranked amateurs costing the least. You build your roster by selecting players whose combined value fits under the cap. The strategy is the part that makes this fun. Stack the top of the world or spread your value to cover more of the field.

Pools also pick a tier — Par, Birdie, Eagle, or Albatross — and the tier determines roster size, how many of your picks count toward your team score, and how many payout positions the pool supports. The pool page shows the exact rules before you submit.

Rosters are editable up until the pool locks. Standard pools lock before the first round on Thursday morning. Weekend Shootout pools score only Saturday and Sunday and lock before the third round on Saturday morning, which gives you Thursday and Friday play to revise your picks. Once a pool locks, your roster is frozen for the rest of the tournament.

If a rostered player misses the cut or withdraws, the missed rounds are filled with a penalty score the commissioner chose during setup — the highest score among rostered players that day, the tournament field average, or a fixed penalty stroke total. The FAQ covers the math in more detail.

OPG does not handle money. That is a deliberate design choice. We do not collect entry fees, hold funds in escrow, or distribute payouts. Every dollar moves directly between you and your commissioner, the same way office pools have always worked.

Most commissioners share a Venmo handle, a Zelle email or phone, a PayPal link, or a Cash App tag on the pool page so you can pay with one tap. Some pools handle it with cash at the office. Both paths work the same on OPG. You pay, you mark your entry as submitted, the commissioner confirms it on their side, and your status flips to confirmed. You get a notification when that happens so you do not have to wonder.

If your pool has no entry fee, this step is automatic and the checklist item completes itself. Free pools — sometimes called bragging-rights pools — run on the same engine as paid pools and still post a leaderboard, final standings, and an inbox card when the tournament closes.

Live scoring updates every five minutes during tournament play. Your pool page shows the current leaderboard with positions, score-to-par, and a star next to each entry’s counting players when the pool runs a counting-roster format. Achievement glyphs appear next to entries that hit milestones during the tournament, including eagles and bogey-free rounds.

The Tournament Field tab on the pool page lists every player in the event, not just the ones on your roster. Use it to scout the leaderboard at the player level, see which top picks are surging, and see who is in danger of missing the cut.

If one of your rostered players climbs or slides three or more positions in a single update on an Eagle or Albatross pool, OPG sends a big-move push notification so you do not have to refresh the leaderboard every five minutes. The cut line lands automatically at the end of the second round with a notification telling you how many of your players survived.

A pool completes when the tournament reaches the final round in an official status. When that happens, OPG runs final scoring across every entry, applies the tiebreaker cascade if any positions are still tied, and posts final standings. You get an email with the final leaderboard and a card in your in-app inbox.

Payouts are tracked by the commissioner, not by OPG. Once you receive your money, you confirm receipt on the pool page and the commissioner can see the payout is closed on their side. If a payout never comes through, you can flag it and the commissioner is notified.

Free pools complete the same way — final standings post, the leaderboard freezes, and the bragging rights belong to whoever finished on top. Either way, every pool you have ever entered lives on your dashboard so you can revisit a season’s worth of results whenever you want.