What is the birdie pot?
The birdie pot is the perfect little side bet, easy to lay on top of whatever main format you are playing. Everyone puts something in the pot before the round, and whoever makes the most birdies takes the lot. It gives you an extra reason to go for it on the short holes, and a birdie tastes that bit sweeter.
How to play
- Everyone puts the same stake in the pot before the round.
- Every birdie, in other words one under par on a hole, counts.
- An eagle or better counts as one birdie, one per hole.
- Most birdies at the end of the round takes the pot. An equal number splits it.
- If nobody makes a birdie, the stakes are returned.
Variation: paid per birdie
Instead of a pot you can play birdies as direct payment. The other players each pay the birdie maker the stake, every time anyone makes a birdie. That version gives faster feedback and can swing further, because a player who birdies three holes collects from everyone else three times over.
Wager Golf keeps track of birdies hole by hole, handles both the pot and the per-birdie version and shows who owes whom when the round ends.
A worked example
Say there are four of you and each puts in 50. The pot is the stake times the number of players, so 50 × 4 = 200.
During the round Anna makes three birdies, Bea one, and the other two none. Anna has the most and takes the whole pot of 200. Because she put in 50 herself, her net win is 150. The other three lose their stake and are 50 down each.
- Anna: +150 (the 200 pot minus her own 50 stake)
- Bea: −50
- Player 3: −50
- Player 4: −50
It sums to zero — the pot is pot-neutral. Had two players made the same number of birdies they would have split the pot, 100 each, landing on +50 each while the other two remain 50 down. Wager Golf counts the birdies hole by hole, then works out the final balance and shows who owes whom.