Most Money You Have Ever Won or Lost In A Day of Golf?

[GoletaGolfer]

What is the most amount of money you have ever won or lost in a day on the golf course? Circumstances and details if you desire to share those. What was your annual income at the time?

 

Rules:

1. You had to have actually paid your debt if you lost, or been paid in full if you won.

2. No lying - we will know.  🙂

[Obiwan21]

Never been much of a gambler. I'll do a buck or two on the greens here and there but a couple years ago I did a golf outing, had a few road sodas and hit a 50/50 raffle then decided to challenge my golf mates to a chipping contest. Lost $40 in about 5 minutes.

[denismcg]

Several years ago I was invited to play at Earl Grey in Calgary.  The group I played with asked if I would like to join their money game.  I was a bit hesitant but thought it would be rude to say no.  At the end of the round we were having drinks in the clubhouse and the guys handed me $600.  I thought we were just playing for a dollar of two.  Lesson learned, ask how much before you commit to a money game.

[MtlJeff]

Couple thousand, in a vegas. It's actually a great story. I had joined the club that week, and they asked me to take part in it because they were a couple of players short. It was one of those big money events at their club. I became the lowest index in the club but no one knew who i was. 

 

So it's one of those events where guys can bet on the teams. No one bet on us because no one knew me as mentioned, my index could've been full of crap etc. I didn't even know guys were betting it was like my 2nd round at the club. For me it was just a fun tournament

 

So the day before the tournament , some dude puts like 250$ on us at something like 30-1. He was the only person who bet on us. The first day we shot 60 as a 3-person vegas with a combined handicap of ~30, which is insane. The next day we shot 62. Won by a lot

 

Winners share was a couple of G notes. The guy who bet on us won like 7000-8000$ i think. He bought me drinks all night. At the end of the year we both made sure to report this on our taxes

[HackDaddy360]

I’m a fan of having multiple money games going in a group.  
 

The thing about multiple games is unless you’re completely laying the sod over it that day you’ll cancel out some losses/wins across the games.  
 

my largest net win/loss is around $300 - which could have been much worse/better depending on how the games shook out - total dollars on the table were much greater than that.  

As for income, golf gambling funds are just that and have no bearing on the balance of my life financially - my Venmo is my golf gambling slush fund.  

[GHIN n Juice]

I won a couple hundred bucks off my group in a 6-6-6 match.  Weird part was I was playing croquet while the other three guys were golfing, lol.  I had a horrible day but I got paired with each guy during their best stretch.  Needless to say, I bought several rounds in the clubhouse that day.

[LeoLeo99]

About $1500 in a Calcutta net match play.  No one bet on me and I had 4 birdies for net eagles.  

[golfandfishing]

$900something in a section event when I was an assistant pro, that was more than 2 weeks salary at the time. I thought I was rich. 
 

As far as money games go, I never got too deep in any of them, $50 range won and lost. When I was young I saw a few big money games at our home course go south in a hurry and a few lifelong friends hate each other so I never got into it past about a $10 1 down automatic.  

[kmay__]

Never played for money, sometimes well do a closest to, for who buys the coffees on the way home if we've driven there together. So I've lost 1.85$ a few times for a medium dark roast 😆

[NoTalentLefty]

5.00 lost. I play friendly golf and I’m cheap.

[Murphy76]

 

About three fiddy

 

[me05501]

$72, when I thought we were playing for a buck a hole. 

 

That was the day I learned what "automatic one down presses" means. 

[ChipNRun]

About $50 both ways.

 

Losing $$. Circa 2000, I was invited by a co-worker to play Lawton CC in southwest Oklahoma. We were playing a paired Nassau plus an individual skins game with two guys he knew from the area.

 

It was a long day for me. My best showing was four pars, which at least one of the others always matched. Five skins were had - I got none - and my partner and I lost the Nassau. In total, I was out about $50.

 

Most galling part was a par 3 where I was the only one to hit the green. I had a 12-foot putt up a slight terrace. My ball hits a bump going up, and rolls back down off the terrace. Then, an out-of-towner sinks an 8i chip shot from deep rough for a birdie (terrible club choice I thought, but his line drive hit the flag stick dead center and it rolled down into the cup.) 

 

Winning $$. Playing with my local seniors group a couple of years ago. We played four-man teams with a modified Stableford scoring system, an individual skins game, and an individual low-putt bonus.

 

My team won the four-team Stableford score, and I had two out of four skins on the day. I basically won back the ~ $50 I lost in 2000.

 

(Let's not talk about time-value-of-money...)

[dmecca2]

I've never lost

[Bonneville85308]

Maybe 10 years ago I was invited as a guest to a top 100 club, basically the member host was repaying my father a favor by inviting me. I was told to "bring a lot of cash."

 

It was me, the host, and two of his buddies. We played a match where it was myself and the host against his two buddies. We both played terribly (I was so nervous that my game basically devolved into field hockey) and lost the match every way possible. My half of the team loss was $200. I didn't even know I had that much on the line, I didn't hear the stakes in the pre-round discussion and just assumed we were playing for something more like $25, which was probably the most I had ever played for before then. Fortunately the loss wasn't any more because I only had about $220 in my wallet.

 

I never heard from the host again.

 

Without getting into details on my income at the time I can say it took me longer in hours to earn $200 after tax than it took to play that round of golf.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Bonneville85308

[Bloom]

20 minutes ago, dmecca2 said:

I've never lost

Ha Ha.  You sound like my buddies who gamble in Vegas.  Always come home ahead 🙂  Not sure how those Casinos got built.

[RmoorePE]

Men's club side bets and various tournaments have won everything from $5 to $250 in one round.

 

Drunkenly lost $100+ in about 10 minutes at a golf course where you can see the 18th green and approach shots from the bar, betting KP on random strangers coming in, with presses for putts once they all got on the green.

 

Routinely stake $270 for $5 Bingo, Bango, Bongo - never paid out more than $20 never won more than $10.

 

Team money games are typically $20 to $60 (2 man Stableford, etc).

 

Key to all of this if you are married is that your golf bag money pocket and Venmo are not accessible to your significant other. Now that Venmo is ubiquitous you don't need to carry around as much stake money if you get in a cash game where you are short (as long as everyone is okay with Venmo). All of my sports betting is there, so it works out.

 

One thing I have found is that betting cash in a team game is far cheaper than betting the dinner/bar tab.

[betarhoalphadelta]

7 hours ago, denismcg said:

Several years ago I was invited to play at Earl Grey in Calgary.  The group I played with asked if I would like to join their money game.  I was a bit hesitant but thought it would be rude to say no.  At the end of the round we were having drinks in the clubhouse and the guys handed me $600.  I thought we were just playing for a dollar of two.  Lesson learned, ask how much before you commit to a money game.

 

Nah... That wouldn't have worked. There's only two things that would have happened:

1. You'd have declined the game (the smart play).
2. You'd have shot a career-worst round because the dollar value would have made you play tight. 

Winning $600 would not have been a likely outcome if you'd known the stakes!

[Skydiver22]

Play a game called Bank with my buddies...

- Spin the tee on the first hole to determine the banker for the hole. after that the winner of the last hole is the banker on the next tee.

- Banker accepts deposits from the players in the game, A deposit can be from $5. to $50. on the hole.

- The players can press the banker after they hit their tee ball, but has to be before the next player hits.

- The banker can press back... but he must press the field. no individually.

- Presses on par threes, must be air presses and they are triple, not double.

- Birdies double the bet and eagles triple the bet.

 

I was the banker on the tee...

Players 2,3,4 all deposited 40.00 in my bank, then air pressed me on #16 at ASU Karsten course, they were all safe around the middle of the green. It was 240ish all the way to the right side of the green and the pin, about a 230 carry over water on the line with the pin.

So  I am looking at bets of 120. each on the tee, hit hybrid and it is tracking... I hesitated to make sure it clears the water and air pressed them all with the ball about ten feet in the air.  The ball hit the green and rolled right into the hole. Divot was about 18"s dead on line. The air press rolled it up to 360.00 each.   The Ace rolled it up to $1080 each. 

 

That's one hole of Bank...

[Ghostwedge]

Got roped into a they called it "Chicago" game once at a club. 4 guys $10 per hole. Best score got $25, 10, 5, etc. never finished last on a hole and won $270 if I remember right. Didn't get another invite either. lol

 Son wanted to play $10 a hole skins years ago, he won the first hole, I won the next 17. Took him 2 years to pay me. ☺

Sure I'm in the hole over the years with tournament entry fees compared to money won and hardware collected. Been fun.

 

[DallasDan]

$5 skins. Won a couple hundred bucks that day.

 

Probably about $75 was my biggest loss. 

[elwhippy]

Won. About £140. Lost. £15. I play for pleasure. Money can make things ugly. 

[ebk]

I do not play for $. Ever.  At least ever since very early 1980's (woods were real wood, balls were balata, shafts were steel).  Got invited to play at a club (I was about a 12, and a very shaky one at that, since I'd only been playing for maybe five years) and the guys said something while we were on the range - I thought we were playing for a round of drinks or something (I was wondering how I'd pay if/when  I lost, since I wasn't a member at the club).  Never thought about it being for money.

 

It was a 6-6-6 deal.  End of the round, three guys hand me about $50 each - my partner on each of the six holes and I won each match.  In 1980's that was a lot of money to me.  I had no idea we were playing for cash money.

 

I haven't wagered $ since.

[mikedejong33]

There is a private club here that I worked at for a while when I was young going through school. There was a group of old guys that played every morning. The staff called them “the animals.” Turns out they were some big lawyers in town and they played a buck a yard... so around $6,500 on the line each everyday. I guess it worked out to be pretty even by the end of the year, but that was a big game. We stayed out of their way when they were playing.

[mizuno player]

Skins game probably $500

 

In a game of Wolf I won $700

 

Side bets and Calcutta in a member guest we won about $2000. 

 

I'd rather play on a good money game than a tournament. 

 

 

 

 

 

[sittingbull]

Played in a fathers day skins game few years back 50.00 skin pot per guy (30 guys total) so 1500 in the pot.

I birded a some what easy par 4 & won a skin and chipped in for a eagle on a par 5.. won $1000.00 there were 3 skins that day.. 

[MPAndreassi]

11 hours ago, MtlJeff said:

Couple thousand, in a vegas. It's actually a great story. I had joined the club that week, and they asked me to take part in it because they were a couple of players short. It was one of those big money events at their club. I became the lowest index in the club but no one knew who i was. 

 

So it's one of those events where guys can bet on the teams. No one bet on us because no one knew me as mentioned, my index could've been full of crap etc. I didn't even know guys were betting it was like my 2nd round at the club. For me it was just a fun tournament

 

So the day before the tournament , some dude puts like 250$ on us at something like 30-1. He was the only person who bet on us. The first day we shot 60 as a 3-person vegas with a combined handicap of ~30, which is insane. The next day we shot 62. Won by a lot

 

Winners share was a couple of G notes. The guy who bet on us won like 7000-8000$ i think. He bought me drinks all night. At the end of the year we both made sure to report this on our taxes

 

 

These events are the real money makers. We had one of these at my old club also, a two day member-member event. Ours was a double dip. They broke all the golfers into four team groups and played round robin 9 hole matches in the group, then the winners of each group made it to sudden a death playoff. The low score and ties moved on until there was only one team left. We won the group, and overall with some stupid odds and came out with cash like pigs. 

[klebs01]

$5800 on a hole in one during a member member. Glad I opted into the extra hio pot. 

[Loki]

12 hours ago, MtlJeff said:

Couple thousand, in a vegas. It's actually a great story. I had joined the club that week, and they asked me to take part in it because they were a couple of players short. It was one of those big money events at their club. I became the lowest index in the club but no one knew who i was. 

 

So it's one of those events where guys can bet on the teams. No one bet on us because no one knew me as mentioned, my index could've been full of crap etc. I didn't even know guys were betting it was like my 2nd round at the club. For me it was just a fun tournament

 

So the day before the tournament , some dude puts like 250$ on us at something like 30-1. He was the only person who bet on us. The first day we shot 60 as a 3-person vegas with a combined handicap of ~30, which is insane. The next day we shot 62. Won by a lot

 

Winners share was a couple of G notes. The guy who bet on us won like 7000-8000$ i think. He bought me drinks all night. At the end of the year we both made sure to report this on our taxes

That's called a Horse Race.

[dugue4]

9 hours ago, Murphy76 said:

 

About three fiddy