[ResuNezily]

On Saturdays I play in a gaggle of anywhere from 8-20 players, generally 12-16 players, with handicaps from scratch to about 20. Everyone antes $11, which gets divided into three games. $5 goes to the skins pot - skins are w/o handicap, so the lower handicappers are favored. $5 goes to blind draw two man teams - each player has to pull points and teams with most points win (when a player first plays in the game, his points are determined by subtracting his handicap from 36, then each week the player's points are adjusted 1 point for each 2 strokes he or she exceeds or falls short of his/her points, with a maximum adjustment of 2 and max. points to pull of 36 - points are 4 for eagle, 3 for birdie, 2 for par, 1 for bogey, 0 for worse). This game generally favors the higher handicappers, as their scores are more erratic and can exceed their points to pull by larger margins. $1 goes to close-ups on the 4 par 3 holes. I have played in theis game for 8 years, 241 times - I tracked it from the beginning - and I am $552 ahead, which may seem like a lot but is just a little better than $2 a week. My handicap ranged from 0 to 4 in this time. Since I am among the lower handicappers, my guess would be that the higher handicappers over time average losing $2 a week - a small price to pay for the camaraderie and good time and regular access to games with good golfers.

Within the foursome I play, we generally split up 2 on 2, with the players needing to pull the most and least points paired against the two in the middle, in a 50 cent Nassau with 25 cent close-ups on the par 3s. Hard to win or lose more than a few bucks! My group is all 2-6 handicappers. If some aren't there and we split with other groups, the games are frequently point games, with points for skins, birdies, closeups, "poleys" (any shot holed from farther away than flagstick length for par or better - must be first putt if on the green), "murphys" (when off the green in regulation, one can call a murphy - if he gets up and in for par or better, he gets a point from each of the other players; if he calls murphy and fails he cedes a point to each other player), and sandies (par or better when in any sand trap on a hole). Usually these points are a quarter each.

For years I also played my best friend heads up a 50 cent Nassau, but he moved away earlier this year. The new guy in our group is very close in handicap to me, and I am gonna suggest to him that we play heads up when we play from now on.

On a really bad Saturday I could be out $18, but on a really good one I think my max win was over $60.