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.
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!
After your first two rounds you posted, I would say you should bump it to $500/$500/$1k!
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
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?
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 
So I can get sandbagged??!!! 
Golf money aint real. It just gets passed around 
I’m with you. I like playing for someone else’s money, not my own😉
finally looked this up… Eddie Caminetti solves crime / geopolitics via golf??
My dad and his group (2-3 foursomes depending on day of week) would play two man team matches for $.10 a point, two points per hole - low ball and low team total. If you got skunked, you’re out $3.60. They had multiple matches going on, your cartmate would be your partner and your opponent.
After the dust settled, if you lost more than $5.00 you had a bad day. It took almost as long to settle the bets as to play the round. It was never, ever about the $$$ - it was always about bragging rights.
Bingo, bango, bongo. Dime a point. Anything more is not golf.
Mike Caro’s, “Draw up a list of activities you’ve done, and divide it into ‘Good Gambles and Bad Gambles’”, exercise, helped change my life.
It helped me realize that while luck was never in my control, the activities I chose to engage in, and (most importantly) the preparation I put into those activities, was. Even if I lost, if I made the right decisions in doing so, but ended up losing anyway; eventually those ‘Sklansky Bucks’ could turn into real ones.
Golf is fun without the gambling element. So I don’t.
My father had warmed me of betting with this game way before I picked it up. He had witness some betting games at his clubs.
I had never bet anything which I don’t feel comfortable and would be upset if I were on the losing end.
Our normal game is $1 skin and add one for the Birdie. Or, $5 Nassau. Rarely, if anyone lose more than $30 ( we play self against the other 3, potentially one could lose way more than $30 a round )
No one needs to win the bet to offset their green fees and no one likes to lose beyond their comfort zoon. Winners usually buys a drink and/or lunch at the 19th. Everyone chip in for the balance If the winning pot was not big enough for paying the check, .
We don’t want to lose a golf buddy over betting.
Another thing is, we adjust for the handicap spread after each round. Winning side usually will give back 1/2 a stroke for the next meeting, this usually balanced things out okay throughout the years.
Never make golf wagers on the 19th hole after you have a few too many choice beverages. I honestly really don’t drink. I will at most drink a new IPA then indulge in my favorite AP Virgin. I’ve accepted a few wagers and found that I do very well when people are brave. This doesn’t involve me, but at I course I used to manage, getting back to how good are the pros. We had a member that played for a few years on the tour. He got his amateur status back and dominated many of the club events, but he would have fun when he played and usually by the 14th hole he wasn’t always at his best (usually on his 8th beer). Anyways one day he did not putt so well and lost a team event in a blind draw with a high single digit hdcp who never played with him. The pro missed some putts. So now they are fairly torched at the bar and the single digit hdcp kept hammering… well if you could putt like me you’d be back on the damn tour. Finally the pro has enough and says…ok tell you what $1000. I play my game from the tips and all you got to do is putt…Mr putter! U will be on every green in regulation 25-30 ft from the hole, but the pro places the ball. Pro shot 68…what do you think the best putter in the world shot only having to putt… .lol Don’t drink and Drive. And definitely don’t drink and make stupid wagers!
BTW…Par was 72, course is 7100 yds long from standard tips. The course does have a 
tips that are 7400yd…no one plays those!
I went beyond my line in our last big Fall Shootout tournament. I’m normally gambling for a few bucks each week, but Shootout tournaments are where I may bring $100-$300 for betting. Lately I’ve spent nothing as the stakes have gone up so much 4 of us pooling $250 each can’t always buy a team.
My buddy and I qualified for the same Fall Shootout a few years ago and won, but we only bought half our team back which cost us about $75 each…yeah no one else thought we’d win either and teams went for much less then.
In the 2021 Fall Shootout we made the “shootout” again where the top 10 teams play true alternate shot and worst score team is out each hole (chip off for ties). If you can buy your own team outright and finish 3rd or better you’ll make some money. If someone else buys you then you have the option to buy in for half. You can gamble nothing and win some decent Pro shop credit. For whatever reason (some peer pressure) I gambled a lot more than usual so we could buy ourselves and we won the shootout.
I still don’t consider myself a gambler, but I won’t say that wasn’t a rush.