PGA Tour Majors Best Ball: Your Guide To Underdog’s “The Albatross” 2026

Dylan Wilkerson Sports Betting Expert

12 minute read

_{Image Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images}

TLDR: Draft golfers that have qualified for all of the Majors. If you run out of options, draft golfers that have qualified for The Masters/PGA and are likely to qualify for the U.S. Open and The Open as the season goes. Favor golfers that you think will perform well at The Masters, due to the nature of advancing through the groups. (1/6, 1/5, 1/5, 200 seat final).

PGA Tour best ball is one of the most exciting events on Underdog. Even though the PGA Tour season has started, you can get in on the action with PGA Tour majors-only best ball such as "The Albatross" and "The Little Albatross". You may be looking for the best strategies for PGA Tour Major best ball this season, how the tournaments work, or the best way to maximize your money to get as many entries as possible.

This article will focus on The Albatross for 2026, which is a PGA Tour best ball tournament that is only available on Underdog. New users on Underdog can claim our Underdog promo code VIBONUS to Play $5, Get $75 in Fantasy Bonus Entries!. Click the module below to get started.

Updated on 1/23/26

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The Albatross Format

The price to enter this contest is $15 per entry. You will enter a draft with 6 other people and everyone will draft 12 golfers. You will be randomly assigned a draft spot once the draft fills. It works just like any other draft. You will have 30 seconds to make your picks, although there is another draft option that allows users to have 8 hours per pick. This is perfect for those that want to draft but do not want to be tied to their computer/phone.

Rosters consist of 12 golfers, where 6 golfers count towards your score on a weekly basis. It should be your goal to always ensure that you have at least 6 golfers playing every given week. This is a key part of the strategy, but we will get to that later.

The Major Schedule

The contest has 4 rounds, each consisting of a major event. The "rounds" go as follows:

• Round 1: The Masters (Augusta National)
• Round 2: The PGA Championship (Aronimink Golf Club)
• Round 3: The U.S. Open (Shinnecock Hills Golf Club)
• Round 4: The Open Championship (Royal Birkdale Golf Club)

The Albatross Scoring Format

The 2026 Albatross brings us a scoring style that favors good performance rather than volume. The scoring is different from 2025, however if you have drafted any PGA best ball (think of "The Scramble") then the scoring is the same as those 2026 events. You can see the scoring differences year-by-year below:

Advancing In The Albatross

As mentioned before, the tournament has 4 rounds. The first three rounds consist of 6 person groups, ending with a 200 person group fighting for the grand prize of $50,000 in The Open. In order to advance rounds, you will need to place first in your 6-person pod. This is the only way to advance into the next round, unless the tournament does not fill and they have wild card spots to advance.

Prizes for The Albatross

The grand prize for The Albatross is $50,000. If you just so happen to find yourself in the final 200 seat final, you will lock up $500 in prizes at minimum. By just advancing out of the 1st round, you will make $15 which returns your entry fee.

See the picture above for a complete breakdown of the prize pool for this contest.

Here is how many will advance out of each pool per round in the Albatross:

• 1 in a pool of 6 (Masters)
• 1 in a pool of 5 (PGA Championship)
• 1 in a pool of 5 (U.S. Open)
• Final pool of 200

The advancing schedule is important to note, because this greatly changes how we approach this contest. You have approximately a 17% chance of advancing through the Masters, but a 20% chance of advancing through the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open respectively. This means for this contest, we want to draft players that have qualified for every major and will play well in the Masters.

The Albatross Strategy - How To Draft Correctly

This format prioritizes drafting golfers that will be playing in every major, but you also need to draft golfers that will play well, specifically in The Masters.

There are a lot of qualification criteria for the majors, and all of the majors have different qualification methods. However, I have compiled a list of golfers that have already qualified for all of the Majors in 2026. These players should be getting priority in the drafts. Here is the full list of players that have already qualified for every major:

Some of these criteria for major qualification that operate on a rolling basis and won't be verified until the week before the given tournament. Here is an example:

Russell Henley has already locked up a spot in the Masters, U.S. Open, and The Open. He has yet to officially lock up a spot in the PGA Championship. However, one of the criteria to earn a spot in the PGA Championship field is to be on last season's Ryder Cup team (which he was) and be in the top-100 of the Official World Golf Rankings the week of May 4th, 2026. He is currently ranked 5th in the OWGR, so it is extremely unlikely he falls out of that spot by the time May rolls around.

Here is a list of players that are on pace to qualify for every major (outside of the players listed above):

Some golfers that are projected to be in all of the majors are going undrafted. I have been in multiple drafts where Sam Stevens, Reitan, Brennan, and Keefer are going undrafted and they are all projected to be in every major.

The Albatross: Proper Roster Construction

In this format, you want to get as many players as you can that have qualified for all of the major in addition to players that have played well at the Masters. The focus on the Masters is crucial, given that only 1/6 players advance out of the first pool where 1/5 advance throught the 2nd and 3rd pool. Here is an example of a team I drafted that I really like:

On this roster, I have 12 players that are currently qualified for every major this season. Scottie Scheffler and Justin Rose are guaranteed to be in every major no matter what.

Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose, Corey Conners, and Ryan Fox have played well in the Masters. This sets us up nicely to advance out of the first round and having plenty of players that will play in the later majors.

Golfers to Target Late in Drafts

This is a list of golfers who I think will play in a lot of the majors and are good golfers that will finish well in the majors:

Thank you for reading. This contest is very complicated, but if you are willing to do the research it is a contest where you can win big since most players just draft the best golfers. Make sure you understand the contest and best of luck drafting!

Dylan Wilkerson

Dylan Wilkerson has over 5 years of experience reporting and analyzing the sports betting industry for various sites. His portfolio includes work for SportsHandle and Action Network, in addition to VegasInsider. His favorite sports are the NFL, College Football, The PGA Tour, the LIV Tour, and Cricket. Dylan has a broad and deep understanding of various sports-related topics. More from Dylan Wilkerson