Golf Side Bets Explained: Nassau, Skins, Wolf, and Greenies

I.

What Counts as a Golf Side Bet?

Separate From the Main Event

Most golf money isn't won in a tournament — it's won and lost in the little bets a foursome makes walking off the first tee. A Nassau, a two-dollar skin, a fiver for closest to the pin on the par three: side bets are whatever action your group layers on top of the round itself, separate from any season-long quota game or dogfight running underneath it.

Plenty of groups play both at once. The quota game tracks who's playing well against his own recent history; side bets settle the score on that particular Saturday, hole by hole. Dogfight Book keeps the first one automatically; this page is about getting the second one right — starting with the bet that anchors almost every group's day.

II.

What Is a Nassau Bet in Golf?

The Bet Underneath Every Bet

A Nassau is three separate bets wearing one name: a bet on the front nine, a bet on the back nine, and a bet on the full eighteen — each one worth the same stake unless your group agrees otherwise. Win the front and lose the back and you've split two of the three; the eighteen-hole bet settles the full round. Say the stakes out loud before you tee off — "a five-dollar Nassau" means five on the front, five on the back, five overall, fifteen dollars total riding on the day.

Nassau is almost always played match play, not stroke play — you're counting holes won and lost against your opponent, not comparing full scorecards at the end. A double bogey on a hole you were never going to win costs you nothing extra; all that matters is whether you won, lost, or halved that hole. That's part of what makes it forgiving: one blow-up hole is a lost hole, not a lost bet.

The press is what keeps a Nassau interesting when someone gets out front early. If a player falls two down (or whatever margin your group sets) with holes still to play, either side can call — or, in most groups, automatically start — a new bet running from that point to the end of the nine. It's a fresh Nassau nested inside the old one, and a good finish can erase a bad start. Groups that press automatically set the rule before anyone tees off: "2-down auto," meaning a new press fires the moment a player goes two holes behind, no discussion required.

A Saturday Nassau

THE NASSAU LEDGER

Dutch (5) vs. Sonny (12) · $5 Nassau, automatic press at 2 down

Bet	Result	Winner	Stake
Front nine	Dutch, 2 up	Dutch	$5
Back nine	Sonny, 1 up	Sonny	$5
The press (15th tee)	Sonny, 2 up over 4 holes	Sonny	$5
Overall 18	Dutch, 1 up	Dutch	$5

Four bets changed hands and the two of them broke exactly even — $10 apiece. Sonny's press on the back nine didn't win him the day, but it kept a two-hole beating from turning into a twenty-dollar one.

III.

How Does a Skins Game Work?

Every Hole, Its Own Pot

Skins turns each hole into its own bet. Everybody in the group throws an equal amount into a pot for that hole — say two dollars each in a foursome, eight dollars on the hole — and the low score wins it outright. Tie two or more players for low score and the hole is "halved": nobody wins, and the money carries over, added to the next hole's pot. A hole can carry more than once. Three straight halved holes in an eight-dollar game means thirty-two dollars is riding on the fourth, and somebody's about to have a very good par.

Played "gross," the actual score wins the skin — no adjustments. Played "net," each player's handicap strokes come off the relevant holes first, so a bogey with a stroke coming can still win the skin outright. Some groups only let pars-or-better win a skin, so nobody collects for a double bogey just because everyone else did worse; agree on your variant before the money's on the table — this is the rule that causes more turn arguments than any other.

IV.

How Do Handicap Strokes Work in Match Play?

So a 12 Can Beat a 5

A Nassau or a match play side bet only cares about the difference between two players' handicaps — not either player's full number. Take a 12 handicap playing a 5: the gap is seven strokes, and those seven strokes get handed out on the seven hardest holes on the course, as ranked by the stroke index printed right on the scorecard.

1.

Find the gap

Subtract the lower course handicap from the higher one. A 12 versus a 5 leaves seven strokes to give.
2.

Find the stroke index

Every scorecard ranks its eighteen holes by difficulty, one (hardest) through eighteen (easiest) — usually printed in its own row under par.
3.

Circle the holes

Circle whichever holes are ranked one through the number of strokes in the gap. Seven strokes means holes ranked index 1 through index 7 — rarely the first seven holes you actually play.
4.

Give the stroke

On each circled hole, the higher-handicap player's score for match purposes gets knocked down by one. A net bogey on a stroke hole plays as a net par — often enough to win the hole outright.

It's a different system than a dogfight's rolling quota — a quota measures a player against his own recent scoring average, no card full of circled holes required. But the two get along fine in the same round: strokes settle the Nassau, the quota settles the season.

V.

What Other Side Bets Do Golf Groups Play?

The Junk Drawer

Nassau and skins are the backbone, but most groups add a few more golf betting games on top — none of it taking more than a sentence to explain.

Wolf

One player — the "Wolf," rotating hole by hole in tee-off order — watches his three partners' tee shots before choosing one as a partner, or going it alone as the "Lone Wolf" for double or triple stakes. Win alone and you clear the whole pot; lose, and you're covering three opponents by yourself.

Greenies (closest to the pin)

A fixed bet — a dollar, five dollars, whatever the group sets — on every par-three hole, won by whoever's tee shot finishes closest to the pin. Most groups also require the winner to make par or better on the hole to actually collect; a gorgeous tee shot followed by three putts doesn't count.

Sandies and other junk

A sandy is a par or better after playing out of a greenside bunker — a small bet, usually a dollar or two, for good scrambling. It's the tamest entry in a long list of "junk" bets groups invent for themselves: an arnie (making par without the ball ever touching the fairway), a barkie (making par after hitting a tree), a snake (the last player to three-putt owes the pot). None of it's official. All of it adds up by the eighteenth green.

VI.

When Should You Settle Golf Bets?

Before You Leave the Lot

Same day, every time — that's the only house rule that matters. Golf debts get fuzzy fast; by next Saturday, nobody agrees who pressed whom on the fourteenth hole two weeks back. Settle at the 19th hole, while the card's still in somebody's pocket and the round's still fresh enough that nobody's arguing about it.

Assign one person to keep the side-bet math for the group, the same way somebody always keeps the quota book — a single scorekeeper cuts down on the ten different versions of "I thought I had you" that show up otherwise. Add up the Nassau, the skins, the greenies, and the junk into one net number per player before anybody reaches for a wallet; nobody needs four separate transactions when one will do. Cash still works fine, but a lot of groups have moved the whole exchange onto Venmo, Cash App, or PayPal, so the only thing left to do at the bar is confirm the number and tap send.

For more on how buy-ins, pots, and payouts typically get split in a group game, see our golf betting FAQ.