I’d say for me between $20-$100 would be ideal. Enough to keep you interested and put some pressure on and where you want to win, but not so much you’d feel sick for losing.
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I think of it like running for instance, a competition against yourself!
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I was too poor for too long to have any interest in gambling. The concept is stupid.
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Ha, the story is another another thread, but the cliff notes is a guy was at Augusta for the first time, and the members were playing for $5. The guy scoffed, and said “let’s play for some real money”, to which the member asked his net worth… guy said $5 million… member responded, fine, we will play for $5 and at the end of the round ill flip you for the $5 million.
It’s not about the money to some people… they just like having it be a “competition”. Personally, I don’t really care if I beat others, just trying to play well.
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For me, it’s less about the money (I’ll play for almost anything up to $200-$300) BUT the higher the handicaps of the guys I’m playing with, the less money I’ll wager.
My index is below 1.0 and I don’t shoot real low (two or three under par will be my best round of the year and I’ll only post that a couple times) so I refuse to play bigger money games against multiple mid-high handicappers who have high variance in their scores (and capable of going 5-6 under their hdcp) nor do I enjoy giving people a shot a hole in a large net-skins game with a few foursomes all playing. I’ll play anyone H2H and give the shots where they fall but not when it’s multiple people who have larger variances from their average score or hdcp.
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Yeah, I think it’s interesting… handicaps favor the better player in head to head matchups, since they will be more likely to play close to their handicap, but with a large enough field of high handicaps, lower handicaps are at a disadvantage simply due to variance.
It’s definitely worth knowing what advantages you have when playing for money… I love skins games as a 6 handicap, because I’m long enough to reach most par fives and the hardest par fours are usually the longest, so are good places for me to outperform my handicap.
Yah, I play with a group of about 16-20 guys 3-4 times a week and every couple of weeks the ball toss we do to determine who plays with who works out just right where all 4 or 5 in my group are 0-4 hdcp and we play a straight up (or very few strokes given) carry-over skins game plus something else with rotating/changing partners like a Vegas/Amigos game. If things go your way, you can win $100-$150 or lose $50-70 when they don’t.
6 point scotch game starting at $1/point is the standard. It’s not uncommon to get it up to 48 points per hole towards the last few holes before the rolls and umbrellas. It can get pricey but the low handicap has a pretty huge advantage since he tends to hit the most greens and make the most birdies. I’ve got a pretty regular partner in this game who is a 22 and we are deadly together in this one.
My dad used to play in a group that played for a dollar a yard. That could get nuts.
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I usually avoid the “motivation”. Once in a great while I’ll play $5 front/back/total.
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I’ve played for as little as 50 cent Nassau with auto presses with 25 cents junk to as much as $5000 with backers that wanted a piece of the action. To be quite frank, it’s more fun to play for fifty cents than it is to go high roller. At the end of the day my current group for the couple dollars that exchange hands, it’s about who has the needle for the week. When a single sometimes gets thrown in with us and we’re on the first tee and push one right and my partner goes, you sucked last week and you seem to still suck and I’m happy about that! They look at us like we’re nutz. Or you miss a putt, aww you missed why don’t you just hit again 3 more times with that aim. As we all yuck it up… people just aren’t used to the needle. 25 cents and a needle… PRICELESS!
We play that pretty much every week and also add “junk”. My buddy and I lost $3 last Saturday. It’s not about the money, but just for fun and hopefully extra motivation to make a putt or 2. It’s actually the only gambling I do. We have 2 large casinos in CT and I only like going there for the restaurants and shows lol.
Wow, some high roller in here. We just play quarter skins with 50 cent greenies. The most anybody could lose is $6.50, but it ususally comes out pretty even.
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Funny that this thread still has steam. I’m playing again with these guys on Thursday, but I told them no way I’m doing 50/50/100 again!
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After your first two rounds you posted, I would say you should bump it to $500/$500/$1k!
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It was a long story, but yes…$5000 bet on making a number at a very prestigious, private, difficult layout that I had never played in my life with no warm-up outta the car and total action on the bet was $5K. I won the bet and my take was $725 of it. There were over 15-17 people grabbing action both ways on whether I could make a number and I made the number by 6 shots.
All of life is advantaged play
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I’m curious @jon. As someone who’s played with a “bit” on the line (I never have), does it change your strategy? Are you more inclined to the 20% shot?
As a smart guy, I’m guessing not. But…
This past year of covid I only played “friendlies” with same group, nothing on the line, became experimental. “I bet I can play a high hook over that opening in the trees” sort of stupidity, 20% success rate.
Does the Riverboat mentality ever creep in?
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Id be willing to bet that most average golfers will try to chase birdies to “win back their losses”…
You could probably learn an interesting amount about how strategy changes scoring by comparing front and back nines for guys with money on the line.
I actually feel way more pressure in tournaments than for money of that amount. It doesn’t make me nervous, or change my strategy, but it mostly makes me uncomfortable because I’m just not interested in losing or winning a ton of money on the course 
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So I can get sandbagged??!!! 