Do you give strokes in $$ games?

[kekoa]

Just curious, do you guys give your buddy's strokes? Over the weekend, I have a buddy 25 strokes. I could not beleive i was doing it, but i really wanted to play for money. He normally doesn't break 100. Needless to say, i lost $40 after pressing on the last hole. I shot 79 w/ two doubles and he careered with a 98.


:(

[Fat Slice]

That should bring his handicap down. Play him again next month!

[Shindig]

Just curious, do you guys give your buddy's strokes? Over the weekend, I have a buddy 25 strokes. I could not beleive i was doing it, but i really wanted to play for money. He normally doesn't break 100. Needless to say, i lost $40 after pressing on the last hole. I shot 79 w/ two doubles and he careered with a 98.

Make sure he posts it!

Also: my friends and I, if we are going to bet on a game, will usually just do a closest to the pin on par-3s. Closest to the pin wins $2 from the others involved for a birdie, $1 for a par, neither of which can be conceded. Only the one who was closest to the pin, from among those on the green, is eligible for the payout. We don't give or take strokes on these holes. So, we tend not to, but we aren't exactly playing a match play or anything either.

[goblue107501]

Never.

It rarely comes up since most of the time I play for money it is with people at about the same skill level. My feeling is that if someone wants to play one-on-one for money they are not getting anything. I hate the thought of shooting an 80 and getting 'beat' by someone who shoots a 93 because they got 14 strokes. If you want to play for money then get better. I know that is the point of the handicap system, but you're not getting my money unless you can beat me.

One thing I used to do with a couple of guys who wanted to play for money but were not as good was this. I would play from the back tees, and play the ball down everywhere. They would play from the regular tees and could play the ball up. My score would go up a little and theirs would go down a little so it evened things out, but they did not get free strokes.

On the flip side, if I am playing with someone I know to be much better than me, I simply won't play for money.

[case31]

25 shots is a LOT of strokes to give, I don't care who it is. Too much margin for error in my book. As you probably witnessed, pretty much all a 30+ handicapper has to do is avoid the 11 on a hole and can shoot a score that will take you to the cleaners. I play for cash with a friend of mine and give him 2 shots a side without worry. All I have to do is put a few good holes together he'll start to press and make some big numbers.

[mposter]

What is the point of the handicap system if you don't use it for bets :)

I have a weekly Sunday game with a friend and we always give strokes for Handicap. For most of the summer he has been around 12 and I between 13-14. Our game is always close and over the summer I am up $5 (we usually play 5-5-5).

The biggest argument came when I shot an 80 two weeks ago that lowered my Handicap 0.5 strokes. He wanted to play off of the HCI Trend and I refused as my Handicap didn't update for two more days.

[rubbery]

One of my buddies is a 1 and whenever I play with him, he gives me strokes. I have a few other friends who are about my same skill level though, and when I play for money, I like playing with them more because we can play straight up.

[wrx_junki]

I give strokes to my friend who doesn't break 100 very often. He's only beat me once with me giving him strokes. I give him about 4-8 strokes depending on how well I am playing.

[Fourputt]

I will give or take strokes as necessary when the situation warrants it. How many is usually somewhat negotiable, depending on handicap spread, but it would always be a consideration. In cases of apparent inequity, I have even renegotiated the allotment on the 10th tee in the interests of fairness.

As mentioned earlier, that's one of the reasons for maintaining an accurate handicap.

[zRam]

We do it two ways.

I have some friends that we bet with and we each enter our handicaps and play it like it was designed. I got 20 strokes. I won last time, so they were pissed. The way I see it if I shoot better than normal, and they shoot worse than normal I should win. That is the point of the handicap system. I play better under pressure, they don't.

I have some other friends that refuse to give me strokes. So I play them on who wins the hole. But, I win the ties. I think this is fair, I tend to play steady golf and then just blow up on a few holes which has me shooting in the 105 -110 range. by playing a hole at a time I can blow up on one hole and bogey or par the next and still stand a chance of winning. that way my entire round isn't ruined by one hole.

[NM Golf]

I give strokes in my Saturday money game but I sure as hell don't give them all their handicap strokes. We play match play and they would kick my butt for sure if they were given their entire allotment of pops. Normally we haggle over the game and the strokes on the first tee until most of us are happy then we play.

[RemyM]

Our usual game is Wolf and we always use full handicaps. Three of us fall in the 10-14 range but one guy is a 23. He ends up with shots on the two par 3's on the back which gives him a chance to really take us if the points and order set up just right, but that's the way it goes.

[telrod11]

I will one on one, but usually about 75% of the handicap difference, especially when it's a skins game.

When playing with 4 people, we usually will not give more than 25% of teh handicap; We have found if we give the full handicap, teh high handicapper always finds a way to win....