If you're Googling "free golf pool app for friends," you probably already ran a pool on a spreadsheet and spent last Sunday night fixing a broken VLOOKUP while your buddies were at dinner. The apps aren't all the same, and "free" on the landing page doesn't always mean free once you invite the whole office.
What you actually need
Strip away the feature lists. A commissioner needs five things: one invite link or short code, structured picks so lineups aren't identical, a hard pick lock, a live leaderboard, and a board that works on a phone. If an app does those five, you're in good shape.
Read the fine print on "free"
A lot of platforms are free until your pool hits five entries, then the organizer pays. Sometimes it's $10, sometimes $20. That's fine — just know before you blast the invite to thirty coworkers.
On The Money List, joining a friends pool costs players nothing. The person who creates the pool pays a one-time hosting fee (currently $5, though beta mode sometimes waives it). The app doesn't hold your prize money. Office pots stay on Venmo, outside the product.
When a spreadsheet still makes sense
For six friends and one major a year, a sheet is fine. Nobody's complaining. Apps earn their keep when the pool grows past ten people, runs multiple events, or when you get the "what place am I in?" text for the fourth time on Saturday. Our spreadsheet vs app piece goes into that tradeoff.
Private pool, national board
Some apps only do your friend group. Others only do big public contests. The Money List copies your submitted friends-pool lineup onto The Field for that event — one national lineup per player, free — where season Earnings and World Rank live. Your private standings stay private. The national board is there if your group wants it.
Before you commit
Ask: Can I set how many scores count? Can I configure the missed-cut penalty? When do picks lock? Do players need accounts? Who pays when the pool grows?
Watch out for apps where you still manually enter every pick, or where "free forever" hides a per-player cap in the FAQ. And be skeptical of anything that wants to hold your cash prize — that's a different business.
For tiered PGA pools with friends, The Money List does six tiers, best-four scoring, and a shareable code at moneylistgolf.us/join. Create the pool, send the link, go watch golf.
Ready to run your pool? Players join free on The Money List — commissioners create the pool and share a code.
Create a friends pool