A $5 Nassau is not a $5 bet.
It’s three of them — front nine, back nine, and the overall eighteen — so you tee off with $15 on the line before anybody has pressed anything. Every source agrees on that much.
Then somebody goes two down, and the agreement stops. Is the press automatic or does it have to be accepted? Does the overall get pressed too? Can you press a press? Groups have played Nassau for a century without writing any of it down.
| Front nine | $5 |
| Back nine | $5 |
| Overall eighteen | $5 |
| On the line | $15 |
Does a press just happen, or does someone have to accept it?
This is the genuine split, and it’s worth knowing which one your group plays before the round rather than on the ninth green. The difference isn’t cosmetic: under a called press the leader can sometimes say no, and under an automatic one they never can.
We only do the automatic version, and that’s a product decision more than a rules one. A called press needs somewhere to offer it, a state for “offered but not yet accepted”, and somebody to remember mid-round that they offered. On a phone in a cart that’s three new ways to get a bet wrong, for something the leading side accepts nearly every time anyway.
So if your group genuinely refuses presses, we don’t handle that. Turn presses off and settle them between yourselves.
Both are real conventions. The traditional press is called by the trailing side and can be refused; the automatic 2-down press is a widespread house rule that needs no asking.
Wikipedia: the trailing side 'may request a press… The opposition has the option to accept or reject.' Press Tracker: 'when a team goes 2 down, a press starts automatically. No asking, no negotiating.' Golf News Net has both — 'in many clubs and groups, there is an automatic Press when a player gets 2 Down.' Chicago Golf Guy treats called as the base and names the automatic version as a variation.
What our engine does: Automatic at 2 down, behind a single toggle. Declining a press isn't modelled — see below.
What exactly does a press cover?
The practical consequence people get wrong: a front-nine press is dead at the turn. It never had anything to do with the back nine. Walk to the tenth two down on a front-nine press you never recovered and that money is already gone; the back nine is a fresh bet.
The other half is that a press never replaces the bet it pressed. Both run to the end. From the moment you press, every hole is being played in at least two matches at once.
Only the holes left in the bet it pressed. It starts all square on the next hole, and the original bet plays on to its own finish alongside it.
Unanimous. Chicago Golf Guy is the most explicit: mid-round presses 'only count for that nine, once you make the turn you are back to the original back nine bet, and the original total bet.'
What our engine does: Exactly that — the press settles on the holes after it opened, and never crosses the turn.
Does the overall eighteen get pressed, or just the two nines?
This is the least intuitive of the three and the one most likely to start an argument, because a press on the overall can open on a hole where nothing much seemed to happen — you were one down on the eighteen, you lose a hole, now you’re two down and a press exists.
If your group would rather press the two nines and leave the eighteen alone, you don’t need a special setting: put $0 on the overall. No bet means no press on it either.
The overall gets pressed too — it's a bet like the others, and going two down in it opens a press over the remaining holes.
Wikipedia: a press 'runs for only the remaining holes to be played on either the front nine, back nine holes or overall.' Chicago Golf Guy: a trailing player 'could however press both the back nine and the total bet at the turn.'
What our engine does: All three, when they have money on them — and a segment with a zero stake is skipped, press included.
Can you press a press?
This is how a friendly $5 Nassau becomes a serious afternoon. Each press is only $5, but by the sixteenth there can be four separate bets running on the same golf, and one hole settles several of them at once.
Nothing about it is unfair — the side that keeps pressing is the side that keeps losing, and they chose to. But it’s worth understanding the shape before you agree to automatic presses with someone who plays a lot of them.
Yes. Go two down on the press and, under the same automatic convention, another one opens on the holes that are left.
Wikipedia: 'Press bets can themselves be pressed if the player falls two points behind on the press bet.' Press Tracker describes late rounds where 'three or four matches [are] live on the same two or three holes.'
What our engine does: Chained automatically. The margin resets to zero when a press opens — which is just another way of saying the press starts all square — so the next time it reaches two, the press it opens is a press on the press.
We halved all three bets. So nothing happened, right?
This is the one that catches everybody, so here it is with real numbers. Two-on-two, $5 Nassau, automatic presses on. Side A wins the first two holes. Side B wins the third and fourth. Every other hole is halved.
Add it up and nothing is won: the front is level, the back is level, the overall is level. All three base bets push.
| Front nine | halved | $0 |
| Back nine | halved | $0 |
| Overall | halved | $0 |
| Press on the front | Side B | $5 |
| Press on the overall | Side B | $5 |
| Settled | per man | ±$10 |
Going two up is what opened both presses. Side A led, pressed themselves into two extra bets by leading, lost both, and walked off level on every bet they actually agreed to on the first tee.
No. Presses can move real money in a round where nobody wins the front, the back or the overall.
Not a rules question — arithmetic. Measured on our own engine, September 2026.
What our engine does: Measured: ±$10 a man on a $5 Nassau where all three base bets finish level.
Why we can tell you what we pay
Nassau is written twice in this app — once for a Saturday round, once for a trip — and until the day this page was written, the two did not agree.
The trip version paid half. It handed a segment’s stake to the winning side and split it between the partners, where the weekly one makes each loser pay the stake. A two-on-two $5 Nassau sweeping all three bets moved $15 a man at home and $7.50 on a trip. And presses didn’t exist on trips at all — the file said “presses are not modelled yet”, so switching them on produced no money and no error.
Both were found by writing this page, because a page has to state a number and a number can be checked. Both are fixed, and the fix is held in place by a suite whose only job is to make the two engines agree:
Run it yourself:
node scripts/verify-nassau.mjs→ 2,000 randomised rounds, 0 failed (as of September 2026)
Singles and four-ball, eighteens and nines, presses on and off — every round settled to the same cent on both engines. We publish it because a money game runs on trust, and the only version of “our math is right” worth anything is one that also tells you what was wrong and when.
Or stop counting presses in your head.
Free, no account, no install. Three bets, automatic presses if you want them, and every chained press tracked to the cent while you play.
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