How to run Match Play head-to-head match ups on Homestretch Golf
March 2023 – With brackets at the forefront this time of year, we want to show you how to set up head-to-head match up betting opportunities for match play tourneys at your club! Homestretch Golf’s pari-mutuel system is perfect for prop bets, given the payout philosophy that losing predictions fund winning payouts. Each match serves as its own pool of money, and our proprietary odds are generated based on the dispersion of bets across the options within a match. A simple ‘pick the winner’ match up doesn’t work well with pari-mutuels as you need sufficient losing wagers to fund the winning payouts, so having only two options to bet on doesn’t work. However, we have creative Homestretch Golf admins now letting participants bet on the winner with an added wrinkle of margin of victory, which creates five or six different options and therefore, plenty of losing wagers to fund the winning payouts!
Homestretch Golf launches Financial Aid program for Class B PGA Professional Customers
Helping our customers:
Class B PGA Professionals on their PGA Journeys
to become Class A Members of the PGA of America.
Homestretch Golf is proud to offer financial aid to selected Class B PGA Professionals on their journey to Class A PGA Membership!
Class A PGA Professional and company founder David Knox wants to support future Class A Members with financial aid for educational expenses on their journey to membership. Homestretch Golf also supports many other golf industry charities and foundations to help grow the very game these PGA Professionals will serve. This financial aid is a useful resource for GM’s, Directors of Golf, and Head Professionals already mentoring their junior team members and helping them to achieve their career goals. As a tournament operations software vendor, Homestretch Golf believes in playing a small part in helping more PGA Professionals march towards their dream job and deliver great tournament experiences along the way.
“Helping PGA Associates with financial aid on their PGA Journey to Class A Membership is important to Homestretch Golf as we look to support the future of our industry.”
– David Knox, PGA
Homestretch Golf Founder / CEO
This financial aid is funded through Homestretch Golf’s charitable pledge and charitable funds collected from tournaments run on the Homestretch Golf platform.
Traditional versus Weighted Payout Calculations When Creating A Pari-Mutuel Tournament Offering
Why would a tournament admin consider running a weighted payout pari-mutuel rather than a pari-mutuel relying on traditional payout calculations? This blog article explains the difference between these types of pari-mutuel offerings, and shows you how unbelievably easy it is to create any of these tournaments on Homestretch Golf, where you participants will enjoy paperless pari-mutuels and live odds during the betting window!
The proprietary Homestretch Golf feature allows admins to run Show Only (TOP 3) tournaments but dictate the payout calculations by % depending on the finishing position within the Top 3 spots. Additionally, admins will be able to run Place Only (TOP 2) tournaments but dictate the payout calculations by % depending on the finishing position within the Top 2 spots. Common examples are 50%/30%/20% for ‘Show Only’ tournaments with weighted payouts; 60%/40% for ‘Place Only’ tournaments with weighted payouts…but tournament admins can determine those specific %’s when creating a tournament on Homestretch Golf! See the screenshots and explanations below to understand the difference between Traditional Payout Calculations versus Weighted Payout Calculations.
“Our participants really enjoyed the new weighted payouts option because of how it simplified the betting experience. Having one wager that covered win, place and show made it easier for participants to bet on teams, and if they wagered on a team that finished top three – it was a winner. I see us using only weighted payouts for all our events going forward!”
– Larry Donaldson from Stoughton Country Club in Stoughton, Wisconsin on Homestretch Golf’s new “Weighted Payouts” solution
The ultimate pre-round wagering solution for buddy trips
PGA Professional David Knox chats with Andy Tracy about his annual buddy trip to northern Michigan, and how introducing Homestretch Golf last year to manage betting saved Andy tons of admin time, allowed him to open wagering several days prior to traveling to the course, and enhanced the experience for his participants with live odds and saving wagers from their phone. Andy also tells some great stories from past trips that you won’t want to miss!
Homestretch Golf allows tournament admins to spend more time enjoying the trip and less time battling the inevitable influx of communications with your group members. They will thank you for making the experience better with live odds to win, place and show while wagers are being saved using Homestretch Golf!
No problem…it is free to create your Homestretch Admin Account to get started!
Click here to learn more about Homestretch Golf. Request a support call with Homestretch Golf’s founder and PGA Professional David Knox.
Understanding Pari-Mutuels So You Can Turn A Profit By Monitoring Fluctuating Odds
“The final hour of wagering in a pari-mutuel can often be the most critical time period to save (additional) wagers because Homestretch Golf’s platform is providing you live, real-time win odds data that can make you that much more informed than other participants solely based on when you monitor those odds.”
Why is it that golf tournaments at my club with fun pari-mutuels are so rare?
Besides the fact that for those who are unfamiliar there is a small learning curve to understanding how to wager in a pari-mutuel (which we help spell out in our user help section on our platform), the main reason they aren’t as common as, say, a skins game, is because they historically have required a lot of time, organization and effort…until now!
Old pain points for me:
Managing error-prone paper bet slips, often which are illegible or get lost.
The time requirement to enter all those slips into software that can handle the calculations.
The time and extra step to facilitate physical receipts, even if just carbon copies.
Post-round process of finding all the winning wager combinations.
Constantly telling eager post-round participants to wait longer to see how much they won and collect.
More Pre-Round Time For Betting Means More Action And Bigger Pots
Is your club losing out on bigger wagering pots because you don’t open up bets until a staff member or point person is physically in place to collect cash at the club or some other gathering location? If that is how things are run at your club, then unfortunately, chances are the answer is YES!
The beauty of Homestretch Golf’s paperless wagering platform is that there is no longer a requirement to verbally tell someone your wager or physically have someone record it with pen and paper on a bet slip or enter it directly into a computer. Homestretch Golf has given the power of recording and saving wagers to the betting participants! Read more
How Golf Pari-Mutuels Can Raise Money for Charity
How can pari-mutuels raise money for charity?
Simple Homestretch Golf Solution:
Reserve a portion of the wagers to be donated to the local cause! As an example, if I run a tournament on Homestretch Golf and in my tournament setting reserve 20% of the total wagers for charity, then that reduction is made prior to calculating the payout results. This is a completely under-utilized fundraising method for charity golf scrambles. Read more
5 Common Myths About Running Golf Pari-Mutuels
- It takes a lot of prep time and several people to facilitate golf pari-mutuels at my club
- Team numbers must be displayed when viewing the field of play, and when placing wagers
- Paper receipts are a required step in the wagering process
- The betting window can’t open until someone is physically in place to collect cash
- I have to wait around a long time post-round to see if and what I won
Homestretch Golf’s platform, built by PGA Professional David Knox, busts all of these common myths. In fact, it is easier to facilitate pre-round wagering (traditional pari-mutuels or any aspect of win/place/show wagering) using Homestretch Golf than it is to conduct a skins game. Read more
Homestretch Golf Help Section For Wagering Participants
Participating in a golf tournament or special event that offers pari-mutuel or any pre-round wagering component can be an absolute blast! Trying to predict which players/teams will have a good event and wagering on them really pumps up the fun factor for the event. For those who are not familiar with the terms or don’t have much experience with pari-mutuels, here are some helpful definitions and an explanation of how the live odds to win display on our platform: Read more