Inside the Tuesday Money Matches with Phil Mickelson

[GolfLug]

In our group, press is always a separate bet - half of main bet.

[9iron]

Play $10-$10-$10 with $5 presses. Or $10-$10-$15 if you want the overall to be worth more than a side.

I do in fact do something like this. I'll give them one press, but I limit it to the front side only and only at exactly 2 holes down. They can take it that one time and then only. If they forgo the press, then they don't get to exercize it later and they never get to press on the back side. My logic is that if you are unhappy trailing by four or five holes, then play better. And if you don't like the bet, then don't take it.

[Fourputt]

I tend to avoid situations where the gambling is complex.

Too often, the more complex it gets, the more likely someone who plays well for a few holes can even up or even surge ahead despite losing over-all.

For example, even the simple idea of a press, or an automatic press for being two-down.

You're two-up playing the 9th and 18th holes, so a press is automatic. The opponent wins the 9th and 18th. You win the Nassau 1 up, 1 up, and 2 up. Yet you only win $50 of a $50 Nassau because you effectively "lost" two one-hole "matches."

Lame.

I've done it and it feels just as weird to "win" those presses, too.

P.S. It's even worse when the presses aren't automatic at two-up. You could be 7-up through seven and the guy presses then… and you lose the 8th and tie the 9th and the front half is a wash? Please.

I agree.  I want all of the wagers to be up front, not changing mid round just because of the way the round is progressing.  I think this is why I like skins and round robin match type games, where you know from the start how much you stand to win or lose.  That or a straight "X" per hole, no presses.  If you get 2 down or whatever, then live with it, and so will I.  Next time we play it will likely be reversed, so you get back even.

[Barking Weasel]

that's funny you guys see it that way. I always look at it like "I am beating you and you want to play for MORE money? HA now I'm going to bury you!"

I've been on both ends of it. It does make the last few holes more interesting if the guys that are down have a chance to come back...or get a foot on their throats!!

[deason]

What Watney should have said first was..."I'll pay you next week"

It was britain after all and we are not great spenders!

[RFKFREAK]

My girlfriend has a friend whose husband used to play golf but took off last season. When I first moved up here a couple years ago I joined his group of friends and became their fourth. The first few times they tried to get me to gamble on the front, back, and overall score. Back then I sucked worse at golf more than I do now and since there wasn't an equalizer like people having handicaps (no one carried a HC), it would have been me paying for a part of someone else's green fees. So, I politely declined and they asked a few more times after that and I would continue to decline. Peer pressure might have worked when I was high school but no way is it going to work now.

[Lihu]

http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/2015/02/the-best-phil-mickelson-gambli.html

Quote:

Mickelson, the larger-than-life patriarch of today's money games, is a gambler's gambler. He's won huge sums on the Super Bowl and the World Series in the past, and he was actually reprimanded by the PGA Tour in 2001 after winning $500 from Mike Weir in the players lounge at the NEC Invitational when he predicted that Jim Furyk would hole a bunker shot. (Mickelson declined to speak to us for this story.)

All the more reason I like Phil.