Commissioner Guides

How to Run a New Year's Golf Pool

2 min read · by theStick

A New Year's Day (or New Year's weekend) golf outing is one of the easiest traditions to start, precisely because the bar is so low — nobody expects a great round on January 1st, which makes it the perfect excuse to get a group out, run something fun, and kick off a full season the right way.

Why New Year's works as a tradition-starter

There's no pressure. Everyone's a little slow, the weather's often rough depending on where you live, and nobody's really trying to shoot their best round of the year — which is exactly what makes it fun. It's low-stakes by nature, which is the ideal environment for starting an annual thing your group actually looks forward to repeating.

Format for a forgiving, hungover field

Pick formats that are genuinely forgiving of a rough day:

Scramble — everyone hits, best ball counts, nobody's individual bad hole tanks the group's score. Perfect for a field that's not at its sharpest.

Stableford — points instead of strokes means one disaster hole doesn't wreck the whole round; you just take zero points on that hole and move on, which keeps the format fun even when scores are ugly.

Both formats also happen to play faster, which matters if daylight or weather is working against you.

The "resolutions" gimmick

New Year's is the one weekend of the year where a "resolutions" side bet actually lands as a bit rather than a gimmick nobody cares about. A couple of options:

A resolution bet — everyone names one golf-related resolution (more range time, fewer three-putts, actually taking a lesson) and there's a small pot for whoever's still keeping it by, say, the next group outing.

A most-improved bet — compare today's score (or handicap) against the same weekend last year, and pay out whoever improved the most. It rewards the guy who actually worked on his game over the guy who just happened to play well today, which is a nice twist on a normal low-score pool.

Weather contingency planning

Depending on your climate, New Year's golf is either completely normal or a genuine test of willpower. Plan for both:

Have an indoor/simulator backup if you're somewhere cold — book it in advance so a snowed-out morning doesn't just cancel the whole tradition in year one.

Or lean into the "polar bear" angle — for groups in colder climates who want to actually brave it outdoors, that's its own tradition worth naming and bragging about (bundle up, keep the round short, maybe scramble format so pace stays quick).

Either way, decide the contingency before the day arrives, not the morning of.

Use it to kick off the season

The best use of a New Year's outing is as the opening event of a full-season league — sign people up for the year's recurring group right there on January 1st, and use this round as round one of a season-long points race rather than a standalone one-off. It gives the tradition a purpose beyond "we played golf on a cold day" — it's the moment the whole year's competition officially starts, standings and all, so everyone walks away already looking forward to the next round.

Run it on

Game rules mentioned in this guide

Scramble Stableford

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