Chances are you’re already familiar with our weekly Fantasy Golf Predictions segment which has grown tremendously as fantasy golf becomes ever more popular. But after a few seasons of unprecedented success, we decided to look around for a place to start putting our money where our mouth is.
Believe it or not, there aren’t nearly as many fantasy golf leagues out there offering cash prizes as you might think. For this reason, we were extremely happy to come across DraftStreet. Being perhaps the most popular daily fantasy sports website out there today, there is a pretty good chance you’ve already heard of them for their hugely successful fantasy football and baseball leagues. But, did you know that they also offer dozens of weekly PGA contests? Until recently, we didn’t either.
A few weeks ago we ran a test by putting some of our premium member fantasy picks through DraftStreet, and, after playing a few quick tournaments, we almost immediately starting winning some cash. The weekly leagues are fun and easy to set up but you’ll have to be strategic with your picks, as salary caps add a challenging dynamic to this fast hitting fantasy contests. For more on how this works, we’ll take you step-by-step through our complete DraftStreet review.
How To Play in a DraftStreet League
Start by visiting DraftStreet’s website (obviously), and once you get there you’ll be prompted to setup a free account, which can be done in about a minute or two. The great part is that you can use the same account to play in any of the DraftSteet leagues – current sports include pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and golf, along with college basketball and football rounding out the mix. If you’re playing fantasy golf make sure to use the promo code “fantasygolf” for a few extra bonuses that we were able to squeeze out of them.
Making Your Initial Deposit
The league entry fees range from FREE to as high as $500. Freerolls are “free-to-enter” leagues that allow users to test out the game before playing for some real cash. Winners in these leagues will earn “Street Creds” which are DraftStreet’s version of “Frequent Player Points”. These points are good for earning gear in the DraftStreet store.
The most inexpensive leagues have entry fees of only two bucks but can often offer prizes as high as $3K (due to the large number of participants – often in the thousands).
You may be asking yourself, is the system legal? In a word, yes, but for more detail here’s how DraftStreet explains it:
The UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) of 2006 specifically defines fantasy sports as a “Game of Skill”. As a result, any wagering on DraftStreet leagues is not considered gambling and is fully legal.
It is however important to note here that some States do not allow their residents to compete in DraftStreet leagues for money. If you reside in a state that prohibits play, you can still play in the Freerolls for chances to win merchandise.
How to Play in a DraftStreet League
There are multiple ways to play fantasy golf on DraftStreet. Simply choose which style league you’re most comfortable with or, if you’re feeling brave, you can play in all of them! Fantasy golf leagues open for drafting on Monday afternoon and lock down by Wednesday night (this will move to Thursday nights for tournaments starting on Fridays e.g. Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend). Check DraftStreet’s website for start and end dates for any of their other sports if you’re playing more than just golf.
Salary Cap Leagues
A salary-cap league is the most common style played on the site and it’s fairly easy to understand, but does require quite a bit of strategy to be successful. For the PGA leagues, all players in the field for that week’s tournament are given a specific price value. When selecting your roster you will be prompted to select six players, but you must stay within the $100,000 salary cap for your team to be valid. The cap prevents you from picking all of the top players because those golfers’ value will range from $20,000-28,000 each. In this way, DraftStreet forces you to be strategic in picking up some sleepers that are less expensive. This is where our Premium Fantasy Picks will help you think outside the box and gain a competitive edge over the rest of the league (cue shameless plug). For the purpose of this review, we played in a handful of salary cap and pick’em leagues, happily winning a fair amount of cash in our very first attempt.
Snake Draft League
A snake draft league contains a live draft that begins once the league becomes full. When the draft begins, you have 45 seconds to make a pick and if you fail to do so, an auto-pick will be selected. You can also pre-select players and place them in your queue in the event that you plan on auto-drafting, but don’t rely to heavily on this as most of your desired players will probably be scooped up quickly.
Pick’em Leagues
Like salary cap leagues, pick’em leagues let you immediately start build your team after joining. In your draft room you will be presented with eight tiers of players and each tier will consist of two to ten players that DraftStreet considers to have a similar fantasy value for that tournament. You will be asked to choose one player from each tier to make up your team of eight players.
Following Your Team
Once the tournament begins, your roster will be locked and no further editing is permitted, but now comes the fun part! At this point you can view each league that you are participating in and follow the progress of your players. The competitiveness of DraftStreet often makes for an action packed “nail-biter” and you can even view other player’s rosters to see what you’re up against. Real-time updates automatically refresh your standings so you’ll know your position as the tournament progresses. Truth be told, we were able to have quite a bit of fun entering a handful of leagues all for under around $1o total for the week. We certainly can’t argue with the fact that letting a little money ride on your fantasy team tends to add a greater level of excitement to any PGA event.
In our attempt to find a fantasy golf league that allows players to opt-in on a weekly basis we were lucky enough to come across DraftStreet, and we’re glad we did. There are no hidden expenses or fees, and playing the game is fairly simple. In testing their system we were able to catch on quickly and our whole staff loved how the site is designed. Our recommendation is to head over to DraftStreet.com and try playing some Freerolls to get your feet wet. Once you get the hang of it throw $2 into a league of your choice and see if you can turn it into a few hundred bucks.
Once you’ve tried it be sure to let us know what you think of the site in your comments below, and please share the success stories. Everyone loves a winner. Enjoy, and good luck!