The Players & Majors Pick 3 Contests: Full Strategy Guide (2025)

We break down key strategies for the Splash Players & Majors contest format, starting with this week's Players Championship.

Splash Sports has several contests kicking off this week, featuring a unique format that includes The Players Championship and all four majors.

The concept is simple: Pick three golfers for each of the five big tournaments, but you can only use each golfer once. Your score is based on their total prize money earned.

While this is technically a Golf One And Done contest, it also fits within our Majors & Masters product, where you can set up a pool—specifically, a single-tier format to pick three golfers. This setup provides access to data, popularity estimates, and pick grades for each golfer.

To help navigate this unique format, we’re providing a strategy companion piece with key insights on how to approach your picks.

Strategies for “Players & Majors Pick Three” Contests

The “Players & Majors Pick Three” contests at Splash Sports introduce different strategic decisions than traditional Golf One And Done pools. Let’s break down some key tips to help you optimize your strategy.

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Understanding the Scoring Rules

These specific contests use prize money won. This differs from other tier contests that use strokes or a point system in that picking the tournament winner (and top two to five finishers) becomes paramount if you hope to compete.

Also, while having a golfer miss the cut can be emotionally frustrating, it is not all that different from having a golfer make the cut but finish 50th. Upside and top finishes are what matter here.

Spacing Out Your Top Golfers

You will ultimately make 15 golfer picks in the contest across the five tournaments. The top contenders will typically be more popular if they are still available.

Rather than picking three of the favorites right away, you should probably plan to space out the top options and add two other golfers ranked in the top 25 to 30 behind them.

We would put them in the following tiers:

• Top 5 PGA golfers: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg,
• LIV golfers (for the majors): Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrell Hatton, Brooks Koepka, Cam Smith, Joaquin Niemann
•  Other Top PGA contenders: Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Russell Henley, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry

Beyond those guys, golfers will move into the top tiers for a specific Major based on recent form, course history, and performance.

So we would start by spacing those top 5 PGA golfers across the five events to have one of the favorites available for each. Then we can fill in with perhaps a LIV golfer (who might have higher popularity, but it would be a good move if the entry were placed well in the standings), 1-2 of the other contenders, and mix in a lower-owned guy who is still in the Top 20 or so in win odds for the specific event.

Playing for Value vs. Playing the Popular Picks

Top golfers like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy will likely be popular picks. To put it in perspective:

If a golfer is selected in 100% of entries across the contest, that averages 20% usage per event (since there are five tournaments). While popularity may fluctuate depending on the event, most top golfers will fall in the 10% to 30% range for any tournament.

Top LIV golfers like Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau cannot be picked for The Players Championship, meaning their average pick rate could be as high as 25% if used across all entries.

When building your strategy, you don’t want to finish the contest without using the best golfers, so plan where to use them, but stay flexible. Don’t be afraid to pick a highly popular golfer (20% + usage) if they have a strong chance of winning. If they do, you’ll regret not having them.

A value-based approach makes sense for golfers outside the top tier. Avoid overused picks when they become too chalky, and look for contrarian options with strong upside to differentiate your lineup.

Full Contest vs. Individual Tournament Prizes

Many of these contests offer full contest prizes, with the highest combined score across all tournaments and individual tournament prizes.

You will have to decide which one you are targeting with your strategy, as it can impact how contrarian you go.

For example, in the Run & Done – Players & Majors (Pick 3 O&D) contest at Splash, there are:

• 50 prize spots out of 445 with $12,015 to 1st and $400.50 to 31st to 50th.
• 3 prize spots for each tournament with $2,803.50 to 1st, $801 to 2nd, and $400.50 to 3rd.

That structure should heavily favor playing for the season prizes at the outset. More than 10% of the entries cash; the top finishers receive much more.

If you get deeper into the contest and your entry is well behind a prize spot, you may want to go big for the tournament prize.

Overall and individual tournament strategy differ in how unique your entry needs to be. If you pick a 30%-owned top contender and pair them with two other semi-popular options, your entry will likely be duplicated. This makes winning the tournament’s top prize harder but increases the likelihood of a solid finish if the popular picks perform well. Balancing risk and uniqueness is key—going too chalky can limit upside, while too many contrarian picks can increase variance.

Meanwhile, if you are going for the tournament prize, identifying three golfers with under 10% pick popularity each makes it far less likely that you will be duplicated. Finding a couple of golfers at extremely low ownership can be the way to shoot to the top if the pick hits (but also increases your chances of falling down the standings when they don’t and the popular picks prevail).