Do you bet?

Do you bet on the course? The guys a play with are all in their 30s, have careers and are doing well. But when I suggest for playing for anything more that a $5 nassau they freak out and act like I'm a degenerate gambler looking for a fix. I'm not talking a grand a hole or anything but would like to up the anty just a bit to get the blood pumping. So how much do yall usually play for?

Do you bet on the course? The guys a play with are all in their 30s, have careers and are doing well. But when I suggest for playing for anything more that a $5 nassau they freak out and act like I'm a degenerate gambler looking for a fix. I'm not talking a grand a hole or anything but would like to up the anty just a bit to get the blood pumping. So how much do yall usually play for?

I think a lot of people are adverse to betting because it adds another level of stress to a stressful game. Maybe suggest easier one off bets such as "closest to the pin" or something to get them used to gambling and catch the bug. Also, if you're not all around the same skill level playing straight up it loses its fun for some too.

Do you bet on the course? The guys a play with are all in their 30s, have careers and are doing well. But when I suggest for playing for anything more that a $5 nassau they freak out and act like I'm a degenerate gambler looking for a fix. I'm not talking a grand a hole or anything but would like to up the anty just a bit to get the blood pumping. So how much do yall usually play for?

Not usually, but if I do it is only in no handicap games. Your score is your score if we are betting. I bet on that basis or not at all.

When playing with my brothers & nephew, $1.00 a hole, $1.00 for lowest putts, $1.00 for Green Balls.

We use The Grint to establish our handicaps.

Otherwise, my other golfing buddies do not gamble.

Some groups I play with will have a morning money game. Usually not anything more than beer money after the round, and whoever wins usually buys for the group, so no one is truly out anything. Having something to play for keeps everyone honest and puts a little pride on the line. Out and out gambling, however, is a darker place in golf history that none of us feel like venturing into.

i do now and then. usually not for much. i never ask others if they want to, whenever i do play for $, they are the ones to offer it up.

Usually I don't because I'm the lowest handicap in my group about 80% of the time. A few times I'll play for 5-10 for the round or a drink afterwards. That's enough for me. There are guys at my course that play for $20 a hole and then allow presses and all sorts of other einstein level math. They say it keeps them interested in the round. I say it slows the round up for everyone behind them because they need to line up 35 foot putts on the 2nd hole like it's a 7 footer for the Masters on the 18th on Sunday. When you're more obsessed with the money and side games than golf, I think it's time to step away from the game.

You betcha!

95% of the time I am playing with total strangers or by myself so there is no betting. There is a group of 3 other guys I play with maybe 4x a year, we throw up balls on the first tee to pick teams and play a $2 Nassau. It's fun.

I never played in the regular money games at my old club, but many did. In the biggest one, the most you could lose was $25.

I was once a guest of a member at a top 100 course and had to go along with his money game. Two other members in the group. I was nervous and played like total garbage, shot like a net 88, my partner and I lost every way possible to the other two and were out $160 per man. Thank God I had the cash on me that day. My partner would not accept reimbursement for my guest fee and he bought dinner at the club, so it wasn't a total loss for me.

Back before the course we belonged to closed we had a large group of guys. In foursomes we would typically play a round robin, switching partners every six holes for a dollar dollar dollar. When there were 5 of us we would play Wolf for a quarter a point. The group went different ways and there are now four of us that play regularly together but one of the four refuses to bet for even the smallest of amounts. As far as I am concerned we could bet for a penny, just to have something going on. It is not about winning a lot of money, just the having something on the line no matter how small.

Little additional games makes it more interesting and fun..

My Saturday group plays different games every week..

Nothing more than $5, but it's not the money.. it's competition..

$1/hole and $1/junk dots

Junk dots:

1 - Greenie

1 - Sandy

1 - Hogan

1 - Pole-ey

2 - Birdie

3 - Eagle

Nobody's gettin rich, nobody's gettin poor. Everybody's having fun.

No. Never. I do not take $1 bets or $5 bets or beer bets or anything of the sort. It does nothing for me and it does not make me play, or do anything in life better.

Typed a lengthy response and my fat fingers made it disappear,so short answer....YES

I started playing with a friend of a friend that just took up the game 3 years ago and is currently down to a 21. We play a $5/point Stableford. We've been playing like this over the last 12 months or so and he pretty much ends up paying for my round most of my time. Free golf and friendly competition. What's not to like? He keeps on coming back and taking his licks. As they say, the beatings will continue until morale (and his game)improves.

In one of my regular groups, we play for a few bucks. Its a weird hybrid of match play within each group, match play between the foursomes, trash, and low net and gross. We play with handicaps, and are religious about posting. The most you could ever lose is $20 in a day, and a HUGE win might be $40, and its usually much less than that in both directions. In my other regular group, we don't bet at all. I'm happy either way. Oh, and when I play golf with my wife, I give her 4 a side and we play for all the money in the world.

The group I play with always bets, but it is small potatoes. I didn't get involved at first. For one reason there wasn't any way in hell I was winning a red cent lol. But as I got a little better, I don't mind getting involved. We just do small stuff and it's never the same to keep it interesting. We are all high cappers btw, but most common bets are:

-Closest to the hole on Par 3's ($2-5 a player)

-Birdies ($5 per)

-$10 best overall

OP- My guess is that 80-90+% of the rounds of golf played world-wide are for the equivalent of a $5 nassau or less. Sure, there are some bigger games out there but not always easy to find...one of the reasons I play in leagues (although the local ones aren't big stakes either and have other issues).

If they are guys you want to stay friends with, I wouldn't push them beyond their comfort level. Best of luck in your search.

In my group, if we have 4 of us available to play, we will play Las Vegas for $1 a point, $0.50 a point if we play with presses/re-presses. (Used to play $1 with presses/re-presses but that resulted in too much tension instead of friendly competition)

If my group is not playing a 2v2 game, one of my buddies and I usually will play for a $1 on each par 5 and par 3 for longest drive and closest to the pin.

Yes. Typically $5 - $200 a round changes hands. - but averages about $20 you ca be down and $60+ you ca be up.

Played I a few 5 figure matches. That was wild.

League plays pins/skins, quota and matches. We usually add another game like low putts, low par 5's/3's etc. With handicaps its like trying to do calculus and never fits on one card! BB

I will with people I have played with before, and in formal or semi-formal things like Leagues and local skins games. Generally not with strangers outside of organized settings.

I play alone or play for something golf is for me at least a competition and I enjoy playing for some cold hard American cash.

Generally, no. The few times I did in my earlier years turned me off to it. The guys I played with didn't expect to me, the new guy, to beat them. It happened a couple of more times with the same result and they stayed sort of sour about it. Turned me off to betting.

I won't turn it down if I've been invited to a new group of people I know and the stakes are small, but there it's just to be social. It's never come up a condition with any regular group I've played with.

With strangers, 100% never.

I did used to play 9 holes before work with a few guys and we played for coffees back at the office. I've mentioned this before, but paying for somebody's $4 coffee has a different feel than handing him 3 or 4 dollars. Financially, it's trivial, of course, but I don't like money games, in general.

I enjoy a token wager. Playing for a beer, $5 Nassau, or maybe putting up to $20 into a skins pot is fine by me. But nothing substantial.

Sure, but its not an integral part of the game for me. We play Nassau with some junk and other things thrown in. Rarely does anyone lose more than the cost of lunch and a few beers.

Yes. The two leagues I play in have a $20 buy in. About 28-32 guys. They pay low front, back, and total, usually 3 places. Skins and close to pins on 3's also included. Then I have side bets with a few guys, usually a $5 Nassau. We also usually have some kind of team bet in our foursome. As I type this, I'm thinking I might have a problem, LOL.

I've played a round as a single and lost $50.

My wife if she suggests interesting stakes which usually means losing is winning as well.

$? It's been years since guys I played with wanted to do it regularly, although did get invited out for an afternoon with a couple of bankers and another guy and I guess we did play skins for $5 total skins for back/front/total. We ended up winning $5, but it was late when we got done and agreed to buy our opponents the equivalent in drinks next time we saw them and no money has actually changed hands and probably never will, lol.

Happy to participate in a little something if that's what a group wants to do, but just doesn't really come up at all with the folks I generally play with.

Preference is pretty much not to for me, but again, if it's not much involved, no big deal. I've seen what too much involved can do whether golf, basketball, you name it, and don't want any part of how some people deal with that.