Golf games
Parful runs this, with a caveatBirdie Pool
Also called Birdie pot, Birdies pool, Birdie sweep.
A Birdie Pool is a whole-field side pot where every entrant pays a buy-in and the pot is shared out by birdies made: each gross birdie is one share, the player with the most birdies takes the biggest slice, and a club can count an eagle as two birdies.
- Players
- 2 or more, usually the whole field on an outing
- Scoring basis
- Gross birdies only; a net birdie does not count
- Eagles
- Count as 1 by default, or as 2 when the club enables it
- Pot
- Buy-in multiplied by the paid entrants
- Payout
- Split in proportion to birdies made
- Ties
- Equal birdies share the position and the same slice
How a Birdie Pool works
Before the round every player who wants in pays the buy-in and the money goes into one pot for the whole field. Everyone plays their own ball and keeps their own card. At the end every birdie on every card is counted: each birdie is one share of the pot, so a player with three birdies takes three shares and a player with none takes nothing.
The count is gross. A birdie is a hole scored at least one under par with no handicap strokes applied. The low handicappers make most of the birdies; everyone else is buying a ticket on the one hole where the tee shot finishes close.
The one rule clubs vary is eagles: worth one share like a birdie, or worth two. Parful offers that as a toggle when the pool is created. An albatross counts the same as an eagle, never more.
The pot and the split
The pot is the buy-in multiplied by the entrants who have actually paid. Parful keeps a payment state for every entrant: unpaid, paid, waived or refunded. Until the first payment is recorded the pot shown is an estimate, buy-in times everyone entered; after that it counts paid entries only, even if that means it reads zero.
At settlement the pot is split in proportion to birdies:
- Share = pot × your birdies ÷ total birdies made by everyone in the pool.
- Each share is rounded down to a whole cent; the leftover cents go to the player at the top.
- A tie on birdies means the same slice each, and the same position in the standings.
Try it
Can we play Birdie Pool in our format?
Derived from the same compatibility rules the scorecard uses, so it cannot drift from the product.
Own ball, individual
Available
Four-ball, best ball, counted scores
Available
Shamble, bramble, cha cha cha
Available
Scramble, foursomes, greensomes, chapman
Needs a score per player; this format keeps one per side
Who is in the pool
A pool can cover the whole field, an opt-in list or one playing group. Whoever is in the pool is ranked; whoever is not is ignored, even with four birdies. The count is read straight from the official scorecard, so the pool works on any format where each player records their own gross score. On a scramble there is no individual ball to count, so the game is not offered there.
How Parful runs it
A club manager adds the Birdie Pool from the outing's games panel, gives it a label, sets the buy-in in dollars, chooses whether eagles count double and picks the audience: the whole outing, an opt-in list or a single group. Members cannot start a Birdie Pool from the group scorecard yet; it is an organizer tool because it carries the club's cash.
From then on the standings are live: every score written on any card recomputes the count, and a corrected score reruns the whole pool. The entrants panel tracks who has paid, waived or been refunded. When the organizer settles the pool Parful writes the payout lines, each one pending until the organizer records it as paid by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle or another method. Parful never moves money itself.
A settled pool remembers the standings it was settled on and flags any later score change rather than quietly rewriting payout lines that may already have been paid.
Worked example
A worked example: twelve entrants at $5, eagles count double
Twelve players enter the Saturday pool at $5 each. Eleven pay and the organizer waives Fay's entry, so the pot is 11 × $5 = $55. Eagles count as two birdies. Six players made nothing under par.
| Player | Entry | Birdies | Eagles | Shares | Pot × shares ÷ 8 | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ana | Paid | 3 | 0 | 3 | $55 × 3 ÷ 8 = $20.625 | $20.64 (includes 2 rounding cents) |
| Ben | Paid | 1 | 1 | 1 + 2 = 3 | $55 × 3 ÷ 8 = $20.625 | $20.62 |
| Cal | Paid | 1 | 0 | 1 | $55 × 1 ÷ 8 = $6.875 | $6.87 |
| Dee | Paid | 1 | 0 | 1 | $55 × 1 ÷ 8 = $6.875 | $6.87 |
| Fay | Waived | 0 | 0 | 0 | No line | $0 |
| Seven others | Paid | 0 | 0 | 0 | No line | $0 |
- Ben's eagle on the par-5 ninth is worth two shares only because the club switched the toggle on. With it off Ben has 2 shares, the total is 7 and Ana's slice grows to $23.59.
- Fay is entered but waived, so Fay counts toward the field but not toward the pot. Refunded entries drop out of the pot the same way.
Common variants
- Eagles count double
- An eagle is worth two birdies. Parful offers this as a setting when the pool is created; an albatross is also worth two.
- Fixed price per birdie
- Instead of splitting a pot, every non-birdie player pays every birdie player a set amount per birdie. Parful does not score it that way; the pool is always a fixed pot split by shares.
- Net birdie pool
- Birdies counted after handicap strokes so a high handicapper's net 3 on a par 4 counts. Parful counts gross birdies only.
- Birdie pool carried over
- A pot with no birdies rolls into next week. Parful settles each outing on its own; a rollover is a club decision recorded outside the pool.