Player Guides

Side Action and Pick'Em Explained: Two Ways to Play Along Without Playing

3 min read · by theStick

Most golf apps stop at the scorecard. theStick has two features built for the people who aren't in the group — or who are, and want more action than the round itself — and they're easy to mix up. Here's the one-sentence difference, then how each one actually works.

The difference in one sentence

Side Action is betting on what happens — a player's birdies, a single hole, a head-to-head matchup — one wager at a time, against one other person. Pick'Em is a contest — a group of followers each pick who'll finish best, and the best combined picks split a pot.

Side Action: live, priced, and settled for you

Side Action lives on the 19th Hole tab of any round you're watching or playing. You propose a bet, someone takes the other side, and when the score comes in the app settles it against the real card — nobody has to remember, argue, or type in a result.

You can bet on things like:

Birdies, pars, and gross scores: over/under lines on each player.

Hole props: what happens on the next hole.

Head-to-head matchups: this player against that one.

Parlays: several picks combined into one bet.

Who wins it all: in a tournament, a winner market on the whole event.

Every line is priced from real scoring data, not a guess. Lines start from what players at that handicap have actually shot, and once the round is underway each price is recomputed hole by hole from the holes that are left. What's already on the card counts as fact. Prices are true fair odds with zero vig: theStick is never the house, so one side's risk is exactly the other side's win.

A few guardrails keep it fair. You can only bet on players in that round's field. Once a market's outcome is already knowable it can't be accepted, so nobody can snipe a bet after the score is in. And once a round is complete no new bets can be opened, though bets already accepted still settle.

Pick'Em: a contest for the whole league night

Pick'Em is a league feature. The organizer turns it on and sets a buy-in, and everyone following along can enter.

You pick your top players. Tap to choose, tap again to remove, then submit. Picks lock as soon as scoring starts, so nobody can wait for the first few holes.

Points come from the results. Players are ranked by the Low Net game. First place is worth as many points as there are players; last place is worth one.

Highest combined points wins. The top three split the pot: 50% to first, 30% to second, 20% to third. Ties are broken by the total birdies made by your picked players.

It runs all season. Points accumulate each week, and final payouts are settled at the end of the season. The standings sit on the League tab, next to the league's own results.

If one of your picks withdraws, you'll be prompted to pick a replacement and submit again.

Which one should you use?

Use Side Action when you want a bet right now: a friend's birdie line, a head-to-head with the guy in the next group, a hole prop on the par 3. It works on any round with a share link, in a league or not.

Use Pick'Em when you want a low-effort way to have a stake in the whole league: one entry, one set of picks, a shared pot, and standings you can check all season.

The money: friendly, tracked, never held

Neither feature moves money through theStick. Side Action bets are between the two people who took them, and Pick'Em buy-ins are collected and paid out by the organizer. theStick keeps score, works out who owes who, and shows it all in the Bank, but it never processes a wager, takes a cut, or holds anyone's money. Settle up the way you always have, person to person, and mark it paid.

You'll need a free watcher account to take part in either, and it takes seconds to create.

Try it on

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