The Game of Sweat

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There are many games that golfers use to "keep a round of golf interesting."  Many are silly and are overly complicated, and many are quite simply just not interesting. All of them have one thing in common and that is they involve the wager of money (that's right "gambling") to a greater or lesser degree.
The game of Sweat was created by Bob Parsons and Steve Gabbay, both of which are avid golfers who enjoy wagering against each other.  The game evolved over three years and resulted from Bob and Steve trying to change the various games they were playing so that:

• The game excluded dumb luck as much as possible. Winning the bet on each hole would be based on both strategy and skill.
• The game involved betting and increasing the bet up to and including when a ball was in the hole.
• Any player could increase the bet (which in Sweat parlance is called a "roll") whenever they felt it made sense (until a ball is in the hole).
• There was a consequence for the player "rolling his/her competitors."  This is done by giving the player who is "rolled" the option of either taking the bet and if they do in fact accept the bet in addition to the bet being doubled they receive an additional 1/2 of a stroke. This nuance changes everything. We'll explain this later.
• There is a governor that will help keep players who are winning from running away with all the money.
• With one big exception (the governor mentioned above) a player can decline any bet.  In this event, the player declining surrenders the hole and loses whatever the bet was before the other player "rolled" them or doubled the bet.
• The game was flexible enough to accommodate any number of players.

At first the game of Sweat seems a  bit complicated.  But once one plays it a few times it becomes second nature and makes quite a bit of sense. It's suggested to learn the game that it be played a few times at very small stakes. Once golfers learn the game the result is almost always the same: They want to play no other game.