Do You Play for Money?

[hawkeye]

2,2,2 - front 9, back 9, overall.

or 5 for the 18 betterball, lowest man off scratch, the rest have 3/4 the combined.

For bigger comps, I don't bother really,

[Franco!]

I bet all of the time.
How else does one pay for Christmas?
The only time I lose money is to my pro (who usually gives me 5 strokes a side.)
So yeah, it depends on who I play with how much I bet.
Sometimes it's 10 dollars a round, sometimes it gets up near 40 dollars a round.
So, my job is playing golf.
I love my gambling addicted friends.

[MiniMoe]

We just started a new game. It works out great because you don't lose that much. We play $1 skins, and three hole blind draw two man $1 robins. If there is an odd number of players, there is a wolf who play by himself. If he loses, he owes $2. The last three holes are every man for himself. So if I am the only birdie on 17 and am 1 up, then I almost have to birdie 18 to win because I have to at least tie the best score on 18 to win. What's good about it is you don't have to be the best player to win. If you birdie or par the right holes you can win.

The only draw back is it takes a little time to make the teams when you have 15 players.

[tiger4prez]

mostly all of the time i tee it up, i play for some sort of money. even if its just a couple bucks a hole, me and my friends are big gamblers so we always like to put something on the line.

and as weird as this may sound to some people, having money on the round makes me play much much better. i enjoy golf, more than anything in the world, and i love just being able to get out on the course. But I find myself much more focused and in to the game if something is on the line. Sometimes when I go out and play with some friends who I know will give me no sort of competition, i tend to play down to their level of play and take myself out of my game. So when I have something to shoot for, Im totally in to the round that much more.

I play in tuesday night skins games at a local course
plus ill play in local tournaments that have prizes of anywhere from $200-$2000 depending on field size/entry fees.

[PEZGolf]

I was just wondering how many of you play for money and, if so, what kind of stakes? To me, a little wager is a healthy thing. I'm in my 50's and retired so I play quite a bit. Here are my regular games and stakes:

I usually play for money, and like to make the big Skins Game that is held every Sunday at my home course. In individual bets, my stakes are not high--$1 a hole and double on birdies, with a $5 Nassau. One of my buddies and I like to have extra bets as well, such as "triplets"--every three holes is worth $5. Playing for money helps me to keep sharp and focus.

[Blades4me]

I like playing for money. My high money games are 20-40 bux a stick and usually 1 and 2 ball or gross / net with kp's thrown in. The rest of the time its 5-10 bux or 50 cents a hole and you have to par or birdie the following hole with carry overs.

[bennyfabulous]

Instead of playing for money my group play for lottery tickets, generally 1 for the win. If we are feeling good 1 for the front nine, 1 for the back 9 and 1 overall. It makes things more interesting.

[Waku]

We do like to bet a brand new good ball (Prov1 or similar), signed by the loser
It´s enough for the loser to get a bit mad...

[Fourputt]

IMO, a small wager just makes it more interesting, especially if you play most of your golf at the same course. We have a regular bunch that plays on Wednesday mornings, anywhere from 8-15 guys with up to 3 tee times. We play the groups against each other for $5 total, then within each group we play a 6-6-6 round robin for $2 each, $.50 skins with carries, and greenies on par 3's. On a bad day the worst I've ever lost is about $10, and it all goes in the pot for beer and munchies in the bar after the round, so nothing is really lost.

I just seem to focus better when there is something on the line, even when that something is nothing more than a beer after the round. At the same time, I'm not really a gambler, and I'd never play for bigger stakes than about $1 per hole match or skins. Too much money makes it too serious, and even the loser should still be able to joke about it afterwards.

[robrey85]

Talk about resurrecting the dead but I have a question about playing for money.

My buddy that I have been playing with a lot lately has just established an index. Now that he has an index we can get him a handicap for whatever course we play. When you are playing for money do you take into consideration your ESC when you tally up the total score? For example, since I'm 27.8 I can not shoot above a 9. During my round I carded a 13 and two 10's. When we tallied up our final numbers he was 115 to my 114 but he gets 3 strokes. So he won by 2 strokes but should I have used my ESC since we're playing for money or is that only for tournament play?

Thanks.

[AmazingWhacker]

I think you can play by whatever rules you both agree to at the start of the match.  I play $1 a hole with one of my regular buddies  -  we both play double par ESC (meaning that you can't make more than double the par of the hole) and he is a single digit and I am like a 15 at best but we play straight up match play.

I have only ever beat him once but man that was a great day.  But more to your question - I don't think there is any official rules for playing for money.  At least we don't use them and we manage to have a lot of fun.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by robrey85

Talk about resurrecting the dead but I have a question about playing for money.

My buddy that I have been playing with a lot lately has just established an index. Now that he has an index we can get him a handicap for whatever course we play. When you are playing for money do you take into consideration your ESC when you tally up the total score? For example, since I'm 27.8 I can not shoot above a 9. During my round I carded a 13 and two 10's. When we tallied up our final numbers he was 115 to my 114 but he gets 3 strokes. So he won by 2 strokes but should I have used my ESC since we're playing for money or is that only for tournament play?

Thanks.

I think that some people get a little confused about ESC... just because you are a 27.8 doesn't mean you can't shoot anything over a 9, it means you can't post anything over a 9. I know that seems like it's splitting hairs, but ESC is only used for handicapping purposes. Basically what ESC does is keep blow-up holes from having too big of an impact on your index as your handicap is a measurement of your current potential as a golfer. However, this doesn't mean that you use it when you are playing head to head or whatever... if you made a 13 on a hole and your opponent made a 10, he beat you on that hole.

As an example, I played the other day and shot a 85 and that was with an 8 on #10... at my index, I can't post worse than a 7 on a hole so my score was adjusted to a 84. However, it's not fair for me to say that I shot 84 because I didn't, I shot 85... I just post 84 because of ESC.

[robrey85]

Originally Posted by tristanhilton85

I think that some people get a little confused about ESC... just because you are a 27.8 doesn't mean you can't shoot anything over a 9, it means you can't post anything over a 9. I know that seems like it's splitting hairs, but ESC is only used for handicapping purposes. Basically what ESC does is keep blow-up holes from having too big of an impact on your index as your handicap is a measurement of your current potential as a golfer. However, this doesn't mean that you use it when you are playing head to head or whatever... if you made a 13 on a hole and your opponent made a 10, he beat you on that hole.

As an example, I played the other day and shot a 85 and that was with an 8 on #10... at my index, I can't post worse than a 7 on a hole so my score was adjusted to a 84. However, it's not fair for me to say that I shot 84 because I didn't, I shot 85... I just post 84 because of ESC.

Thank you for clarifying that. That explanation makes perfect sense to me and that is how I'll play it.

[inthehole]

Granted, I'm not a good player, but the few times I have played for money, it takes the fun out of it - I just like to play the golf course, not other people...

[phan52]

We have a golf fund that everybody pays into at the beginning of the year and we use the money to fund prize pools for tournaments during the season (and our handicap management fees).

I almost always play for money. It keeps me on my toes and definitely helps me when I play in bigger tournaments.

When we play casual games the norm at our place is 7 ways, broken up as 2-2-3 (2 parts for the front side, 2 parts for the back side, and 3 parts for the overall). The amount of money for each part is negotiable. We used tp play 4 ways (1-1-2), but we decided that, since we play automatic presses, that a press should not be worth as much as a side. It can get pricey if you get into the wrong group.

Putt 'em all.

[showtime583]

Have a standard game with my regular golfing buddy.....$10 Nassau, $2 skins (carry-over), $1 putts and $5 gross bet....all match play. Birdies double, double bogey or 3 putt requires a shot of jack daniels, hole-in-one and the other guy has to play the rest of that 9 shirtless (hasn't happened yet!!!)

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by inthehole

Granted, I'm not a good player, but the few times I have played for money, it takes the fun out of it - I just like to play the golf course, not other people...

You shouldn't play for higher stakes than you can afford, and only play with friends.  I've played skins for $.10 per.... that's $1.80 if you lose every one.  It still adds some spice to the game.

[David in FL]

You shouldn't play for higher stakes than you can afford, and only play with friends.  I've played skins for $.10 per.... that's $1.80 if you lose every one.  It still adds some spice to the game.

I've always said, I'd rather win $5 from one of my golf buddies than have you hand me a $100 bill!