The standard Saturday bet
If you’ve played golf with the same group for more than a few rounds, someone has suggested a Nassau. It’s the most common golf bet in the world, and for good reason: it’s simple enough to set up on the first tee, flexible enough to keep things interesting all day, and structured in a way that means nobody is ever fully out of it.
At its simplest, a Nassau is three bets in one. You’re betting on the front nine, the back nine, and the overall 18. Each bet is worth the same amount, say £5. So the maximum you can lose on a standard Nassau is £15 (if you lose all three), and the maximum you can win is £15.
That’s the version everyone understands. It’s what gets agreed on the first tee. And it’s where roughly 60% of golfers’ knowledge of Nassau ends.
How the front nine and back nine bets work
The front nine and back nine are independent match play bets. You’re not counting total strokes. You’re counting holes won and lost (adjusted for handicap strokes if you’re playing with handicaps, which you should be).
Win more holes than your opponent on the front nine, you win that bet. Win more on the back nine, you win that bet. The overall 18 is a separate match play bet across the full round.
This is where it gets interesting: you can lose the front and back but win the overall. If you lose the front 2-down but win the back 3-up, you’re 1-up overall. You’ve lost two of the three bets but won one, and the net result is a £5 loss instead of £15. The structure means that one strong stretch of holes can change everything.
Presses: where it gets complicated (and fun)
A press is a new bet that starts from the current hole. The most common rule: when you’re 2-down in any of the three matches (front, back, or overall), you can “press,” which opens a new side bet worth the same amount, running from that hole to the end of the relevant nine (or 18, for the overall press).
So if you’re 2-down after the 4th hole on the front nine, you press. Now there’s the original front nine bet still running, plus a new £5 bet from holes 5-9. If your opponent then goes 2-up in the press, they can get re-pressed, opening another £5 bet from that hole forward.
This is where paper scorecards start to fall apart. On a busy Nassau with presses, you can have 6-8 active bets running simultaneously by the back nine. Keeping track of who’s up and down in each bet, which holes are counting for which press, and what the net payout is at the end. That’s a bookkeeping challenge that most groups handle by arguing on the 18th green.
Handicap strokes in Nassau
Nassau is a match play format, so handicap strokes are given per hole rather than subtracted from the total at the end. The difference between two players’ handicaps determines how many strokes are given and on which holes.
For example: if you’re a 12-handicap and your opponent is a 20-handicap, they receive 8 strokes, distributed across the 8 hardest-rated holes on the course (the holes with stroke index 1 through 8). On those holes, a bogey from the 20-handicap ties a par from the 12-handicap.
Getting the handicap strokes right is crucial for a fair Nassau. Get them wrong and one player has a structural advantage before the first tee shot.
Variations and house rules
Every golf group has their own Nassau tweaks. Some of the most common:
Automatic presses: Instead of choosing to press when 2-down, presses happen automatically. This speeds things up and prevents gamesmanship around whether to press.
No press in the last two holes: A common fairness rule that prevents someone from pressing on the 8th hole of a nine and having essentially a one-hole bet that’s a coin flip.
Team Nassau: Four players in two teams, playing best ball. Same front/back/overall structure, same press rules, but now you’re coordinating strategy with a partner.
Trash or junk: Side bets within the Nassau for specific events: greenies (closest to the pin on par 3s), sandies (up-and-down from a bunker), barkies (hitting a tree and still making par). These add flavour without changing the core Nassau structure.
Why tracking matters more than you think
The appeal of Nassau is its layered complexity: multiple bets, presses opening and closing, handicap strokes on specific holes. That complexity is also what makes it a nightmare to track on paper, especially when you’re also trying to play your own round.
By the back nine of a busy Nassau, most groups have lost track of at least one press. Someone’s sure they’re 1-down in the second front-nine press but their opponent thinks it’s all square. The scorecard has arrows and abbreviations that made sense on the 5th hole but are incomprehensible on the 16th.
Rightee’s scoring system handles the bookkeeping automatically. Set up the Nassau at the start of the round, input scores hole by hole, and the app tracks every active bet, every press, every handicap stroke. At the end, the payout is calculated without the usual 10-minute debate on the putting green.
It’s not that tracking a Nassau manually is impossible. It’s that doing it manually while also trying to play your best golf is a distraction you don’t need. Let the phone handle the maths so you can focus on the shots.
Setting up your first Nassau
If you’ve never played a Nassau before, here’s how to set it up on the first tee:
Agree on the stakes per bet (£2, £5, £10, whatever works for the group). Agree on the press rule (automatic 2-down presses is the simplest). Exchange handicaps and work out the stroke difference. The lower handicap gives strokes to the higher handicap on the hardest-rated holes. Then play. Keep score on each hole, track who’s up and who’s down, and let the presses open and close as the round unfolds.
The first time you play a Nassau with presses, it will feel chaotic. By the third time, it’ll feel like the only way to play a Saturday round.
External Sources
• Wikipedia Nassau bet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau_(golf)