COMMUNITY

A $5 Nassau with automatic presses if someone gets two down is pretty much standard on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It can get up to $50 or $60 bucks a round if someone or some twosome is playing poorly.

Skins is common, too.

Skins, rabbits, and squirrels with side bets and a automatic 2 down press.

What is "wolf". Never heard of it.

I played Nassau once and didn't know what I was doing, but they handed me some money at the end of the day. What are the rules to Nassau?

Animal Golf, usually 1.00 a card but sometimes more!!

http://www.animalgolf.com/

I've started playing in what they call a "blitz" here. 10 bucks to enter. You score points based on a modified Stableford format. 12 points for a Double Eagle, 8 points for an Eagle, 4 points for a Birdie, 2 points for a par, 1 point for a Bogey, 0 points for anything other than that. If you score a Par on every hole that's 36 points. They establish a baseline that you start off on based on your initial handicap. Mine was 23 points based on a 13 handicap (at the time). They keep all your points in a computer and average them up and tell you what you must pull in order to be PLUS before each round. That's the objective is to be PLUS your points. Where the money comes in is the person that is PLUS the most obviously get's first and so on and so on. Say I'm on 23 points and I pull 33 points I'm plus 10 points. Depending on what everyone else does I may win. BUT since I pulled 33 points this time I will most likely have to pull say 25 points next time. The more points you pull the more you have to pull next time. This takes care of the sandbaggers. You can only go up 4 points at most per time and can only drop 4/10th's of a point at most. How many people that are involved in it also determines how much you win. The more people involved obviously the more money and more places that pay out. They also pay for close-ups on par 3's and skins. Bonus $$$ for Eagles. Again the amounts vary depending on the amount of people involved. I have seen 20 people in it and I have seen 80 people in it. You never know what is going to happen. I have seen someone win it at PLUS 5, and like last week I pulled 38 points and 41 I think it was Sat. and Sun. for PLUS 8, and a PLUS 10 and was 5th and 4th place with me being on 30 and 31 points. 1 week I was on 28 points I think it was and pulled 41 for a PLUS 13. There weren't but 25 people or so in it so I got like 65 bucks for the win, 20 bucks for 2 eagles (hole in 1 and regular eagle), 15 bucks for the close-up on the hole in 1 hole. 34 bucks for 2 skins (both eagle holes). Wound up with like 135 bucks for only paying 10 in. BUT lost 40 or 50 of it having to buy drinks at the clubhouse afterwards. They take a certain percentage of the money and put it towards events throughout the year also. One year they all went to Orlando for a weekend and last year they all went to Robert Trent Jones trail in Alabama for 3 days of golf and hotels FREE!

Mike, the version we play is basically one person tees off then after the second player tees off he can either chose that player as his partner against the other two or he can pass and let the third player tee off and either chose that person as his player or pass again and let player #4 tee off and then he has to take #4 as his partner or go it alone or "wolf". You cannot go back and chose a player once you pass on them. If you go wolf then you are playing against the other three players. Money is usually per hole. I am sure I left something out but that is the short version.

This sounds interesting. I have a few questions.
How do you determine who gets to pick a partner first?

Is everyone playing their own ball? Lowest score wins?

If you are playing with 4 golfers and you go wolf, there are three players left.

Would two team up and the third also play wolf?

If you win, are you in control to pick again or does it go to another player?

Almost never play for money.

This is my understanding of the game so far. Let’s assume 4 players.

Before the game starts, you pick an order. 1 through 4.
The current picker tees off first (Or last?) and then gets to pick whether he will be on a team or Wolf.
The current picker has to wait until the third player hits before he can choose. He can choose from the second person to tee off to the fourth person to tee off. After he picks a person, that is the team for that hole. Everyone plays their own ball. Lowest score wins.
If the player decides to play as the wolf, the pot doubles and the wolf takes it all. If he teams up with one of the four, they split the pot.
On hole 16 whoever is down the most money tees off first (Or last?) and then gets to pick if he will team up or play wolf.
On hole 17 whoever is down the most money tees off first (Or last?) and then gets to pick if he will team up or play wolf.
On hole 18 whoever is down the most money tees off first (Or last?) and then gets to pick if he will team up or play wolf.

Ok. This is what I got so far assuming 4 players.

Before the game starts, you pick an order. 1 through 4.
Player 1 tees off first. Player 2 then tees off and Player 1 decides whether he wants to pick player 2 or pass. If he passes he can not pick player 2 anymore and player 3 hits. He can either pick player 3 or pass. If he passes, Player 4 hits and he can pick or pass. If he passes on them all, he plays the hole by himself.
If the player decides to play the hole by himself (as wolf), he takes the entire pot for himself. If he teams up with one of the four, they split the pot.
On holes 16-18, whoever is down the most money tees off first and then gets to pick or pass.

Did i forget or miss anything? Any other special rules?

Are you just trying to be funny or are there really rabbits and squirrels betting games?.

Yes there are rabbits and squirrels. If you have 3 or more players and you win a hole outright you get a leg on the rabbit. you keep that leg until someone beats you a hole. Squirrel is the same but it takes a birdie or better to get a leg. The one who has any legs after nine holes wins the rabbit/squirrel for that side. Unless someone gets 4 legs before the nine is conclude, then they won the rabbit and you start a new one for the rest of that side. (That's called eating the rabbit/squirrel.)

My game of choice is...Give Me All Yo Money.

Thats when I show up on a random golf course and play in a group of guys I have never met. I make sure they see my hickory shafted golf clubs and then make bets that I will...

a) outdrive them on the first hole
b) win the front 9
c) win the back 9

Any guy with half a game looks at my 100 year old clubs and runs with that bet...and 95% of the time I win all three bets.

John, a Nassau is a match play bet. An 18 hole round is broken into three, 9-hole matches, the front and back 9's, and the overall 18 holes. So you can win 1, 2 or 3 ways. Then you have "presses", which may be optional or automatic when a player or two-man team gets down by two holes. That essentially starts a new match.

For example, we're playing the front nine of a $5 Nassau and you and me go 2-up on Cogolfer and Dr. Luke (a very easy thing to do, incidentally). So if we're playing automatic presses, we just won $5 from each of them, and a new match has started. We could go the next 7 holes and win 1-up, and now we've won the front 9, plus the earlier bet, so we're up $10 each. On the back 9, we could go 2-up maybe three times and win four matches in just the back 9 for another $20 each. Then we would have won the overall 18 hole match for another $5 each, so we would have won $35 each for the match.

I think most commonly though, most guys just play front, back, and overall, because it can get expensive if you're doing automatic presses. The first time I ever played automatic presses I didn't even know what they were. I was playing as a guest at Pleasant Valley CC where the Tour played for years, and on the first tee my partner and his two buddies asked me if a $20 Nassau with auto presses was ok with me. I knew what a Nassau was, and figured the most I could lose was $60 bucks. I had about $80 in cash on me, so I knew I could cover it. At the end of the round we beat them pretty good and we're in the Grill Room settling up the bets, and I get handed $180. It would have been pretty embarassing if I had lost $180 instead.