Why I Built My Own Golf Side-Bets App
Full disclosure before anything else: I built one of the apps in this post. It's called Savage Side Bets, it's in beta with my own foursome right now, and I'm obviously biased. So rather than pretend to write a neutral "best golf betting apps" roundup, I'll tell you what I tried, what those apps genuinely do better than mine, and the specific itch that made me build something anyway. If one of the others fits your group better, use it. I'd rather you play more money golf than use my app.
The problem: the 19th hole math
Every regular group I've played in has the same ritual. Somebody runs the games, which means somebody keeps a soggy scorecard with skins circled, KPs scribbled in the margin, and a snake that may or may not have changed hands on 14. Then the round ends and the arguing starts. Was that a carryover? Who had the snake last? Does the guy who won skins net out against the guy who lost the Wolf?
The math itself isn't hard. What's hard is doing it at the bar, after four hours in the sun, for seven games at once, with everyone talking. Then comes the settle-up: four people sending each other eleven Venmos when three would have done. Most groups respond by simplifying the games until they're boring, or by letting one guy eat the admin every week. Neither is great.
What's already out there, and what it does well
The category is more crowded than you'd think, and several of these apps are good. Here are the ones worth knowing about.
18Birdies is the all-in-one golf app with side games bolted on. You get GPS, scorecards and stats, plus Skins, Nassau, Vegas, Dots and some house games. Skins settings are very configurable, including carryover limits and "last hole takes all" (help docs). If your group already uses it for yardages, the betting comes along for free.
The Skins App is built for money games first. It covers 13 formats, including the heavier ones like Banker, Nine Point, Wolf and Hammer. It allocates handicap strokes automatically and has a tournament mode for running a big skins game across many foursomes. It also teaches games with in-app videos.
Settle Up Golf comes from another indie dev who got sick of Nassau arguments. It handles presses and carryovers, has one-tap Venmo settlement, and runs on iOS, Android and web. Its format list runs deep, with Calcutta and Ryder Cup–style team events too.
Honors pitches itself as settlement math you can trust: every payout explained hole by hole and balanced to the penny. It also gives every game a plain-English explanation, which helps when a newcomer joins.
Golf with Mates leans social. It has live leaderboards for up to 48 players, full USGA handicap math, a course database, offline scoring and lifetime stats including bet winnings.
Beezer Golf is the closest thing to a full-stack money-golf app. Its Premium tier unlocks 28 side and group games, along with a WHS-based handicap index, GPS and stats. Its standout feature is the Beezer Bank, which keeps every player's betting balance across all your rounds, not just today's. It also works out the most efficient payout and lets you split it between cash and bank deposits (overview). It's forgiving, too. You can fix scores, add players or games mid-round, or add a press to a hole you've already played, and everything recalculates.
That's a strong field. If your problem is "I need something to keep the Nassau straight," you're probably done reading.
Where they fell short for my group
None of these were bad. They just answered a slightly different question than the one my group kept asking.
The first gap was the commissioner. In our group one person sets up the games and everyone else just wants to play. Most apps assume everyone builds their own scorecard, or that one phone keeps score for the whole group. I wanted one person to set the games and the stakes, and everyone else to join in seconds and see the same live picture.
The second gap was our own games. We play Murph and Shanksworth alongside the usual Skins, KP and Snake. Wide format lists are great, but a game list is only useful if it has your group's games on it.
The third gap was the settle-up itself. Knowing who's up and who's down is half the job. The other half is turning a tangle of side bets into the fewest possible payments. Beezer gets closest here, and credit where it's due: it calculates efficient payouts and keeps a running ledger. But that ledger lives inside Beezer. I wanted the round to end with the actual Venmo payments ready to tap, so nobody carries a balance in an app they forget to open.
What Savage Side Bets does differently
Savage Side Bets is built around the commissioner. One person sets up the round with up to seven games: Murph, Skins, KP, Snake, Wolf, Stableford and Shanksworth. Everyone else joins with a six-character code. You can stack the games however your group likes. Scoring is hole by hole and offline-first, because cell coverage on the back nine is a myth.
The part I'm proudest of is the settlement. When the round ends, the app nets every game against every other game. Then it works out the minimum number of payments to square everyone up, and hands each player a Venmo deep link for exactly what they owe. Money never touches the app. It keeps the math and points you at Venmo, nothing more.
It also has two AI features. The Commissioner Copilot lets you set up a round in plain English, like "$5 skins, $2 KPs on the par 3s, snake for $10." The settlement explainer answers the inevitable "wait, why do I owe Mike $23?" without anyone digging through a scorecard.
The honest limits: it's iOS-only, it handles a single round (not a whole multi-day trip yet), and it's not a GPS or stats app. If you want yardages, keep 18Birdies on the other screen.
Which app should your group use?
Here's my honest take, including the cases where you shouldn't use mine.
| If your group... | Use |
|---|---|
| Wants GPS, stats and side games in one app | 18Birdies |
| Plays Banker, Hammer or Nine Point, or runs big multi-foursome skins | The Skins App |
| Needs Android or web, or runs Calcutta and Ryder Cup–style events | Settle Up Golf |
| Has new players who need every game explained | Honors |
| Wants handicap math, a course database and live leaderboards for a society day | Golf with Mates |
| Plays the same group every week and wants a running bet ledger across all rounds, plus GPS and handicaps | Beezer Golf |
| Has one commissioner, stacks several games a round, and wants to settle up in Venmo before leaving the car park | Savage Side Bets |
Try it, and tell me what's missing
Savage Side Bets started as a fix for my own Saturday group, and that's still who it's built for. If your group plays the same way, you can sign up at savagesidebets.com. Then tell me which games you'd want next. And if you already use one of the apps above and love it, tell me that too. I'd genuinely like to know what it gets right.