51 Club - A Poll

[Putt for D'oh]

Slightly bemused at the folks too good to count pole hits.

*Hits the pole* "Pfft, fluky occurrence not worthy of my time."

*Barely glances off chains* "Well done sir! Truly an action worthy of my admiration. Here's a dollar as a small token of my affection"

I personally wasn't thinking too good for pole hits, but they just seem so much more common and often enough sooo far from an ace. I have a grand total of 1 witnesses ace, 1 unwitnessed and 1 mulligan. Hit basket, band, chains, number plate several times and on all of those felt more unlucky to have missed the ace than feeling like it was a lucky shot. I've hit the pole a lot more than those others combined and almost never have I felt the pole hit was "almost and ace" but more like a great park job for birdie... I'm not of the school of thought as some on this board that an ace is a bad drive that luckily got stopped by the chains but, pole hits happen on such different trajectories it seems that ace possibility wasn't even there.

Though I guess the whole point is throwing dollars around for fun with people you play with so no harm, but if it were up to me to make the rules I am on the side of poles are for strippers and they get all those singles in their own way.

 

[GordEzo]

5-1-5

So it would seem even less likely that anyone plays 5-1-5 then.
$5 for an ace
$1 for metal
$5 for a black ace, when you ace a basket that you are not actually playing at the time but
YOU pay everyone on the card! Really sucks when you are mob golfing, I've been paid $5
in a group of 8! No one was leaving early that day!
Black aces quite easy on tight fairways or when we play modified guerilla courses.

 

[notroman]

If no one calls it, and your buddy hits an hole in one you stiff em?

I thought this was a unwritten rule. The money's not really the point, it's the tradition.

I'll give him a high five. Maybe a hug, if I'm feeling emotional. You're right, money is not the point

 

[pauldst]

I hate the gambling aspect. It takes away from the game. I enjoy disc golf because it is disc golf.

An ace is its own reward.

 

[Airfishey]

My buddy hit a sweet ace on hole 4 at Phantom Falls last weekend and the other 5 of us all ponied up 5 bucks for the ace. It's one of those things that we informally play. If others feel like the ace deserved 5 bucks and they have the cash on them, then we'll usually pony up. If we "forget" or don't have the cash on us, then no biggie. On the other hand, we rarely pay out $1 for metal hits, but sometimes we will.

 

[ThrowBot]

Basket or above, pole is no good in MN and most other places

Pole for sure gets you dollars.

(At least that's what I've observed at ODRB's mom's place of employment.)

 

[@iDiscGolf]

Pole for sure gets you dollars.

(At least that's what I've observed at ODRB's mom's place of employment.)

Thee pole or a pole?

 

[Nubes]

First ive heard of it but I just got back into disc golf after 15+ years away. My friends and some of the guys I've worked with might be a little different than some other groups? Maybe not but we used to gamble on literally everything. lol I used to play a lot of ball golf too and got to where I was a mid to low 80's player and have broken high 70's a few times in my life. I think my lowest round was a 77-78? We've had a few really competitive and somewhat expensive rounds of golf and I've been on both sides of that paycheck. I worked with a guy where we'd flip quarters and who ever guessed the most correctly out of like 10 flips, then the loser had to buy the other guys lunch for the week. Pat lost to me on that 3 straight weeks once and decided he didn't want to play anymore. lol One of my buddies had a satellite and one of the channels had live horse racing and we'd gamble against each other without knowing anything about the horses. We've gambled on trying to guess the type of commercial that would come on next, that one can be fun. I'd be all about the 51 club. That's barely scratching the surface on some of the stupid things we've gambled on. Odd man almost got me kicked out of middle school. 3 people flip a dollar or a five or whatever denomination you to play with and who ever the odd man is wins the cash. No odd man, do it again. Problem was, I liked to win. So you put a minor crease in your bill and you have to have a partner in on it with you, but his crease will be opposite of your crease and either him or you will always be odd man. Then we'd split our winnings at the end of the day. You gotta let the sucker win one here and there but for a kid in middle school, I didn't need my mama to buy me the new Jordans! Was it right? Hell no, but its something I've done and I'm not exactly proud of it. I grew up on the other side of the tracks and have come a long way since my dysfunctional upbringing. I grew up with a bunch of heathens and we literally would bet on anything. I'm nothing like this now though. I don't gamble to lose so if I am gambling its playing the odds. Poker table, roulette wheel or black jack. About as close to 50/50 you can get at a casino. But anyways. I used to think money grew on trees but I now know that is a lie so I don't gamble much anymore and haven't been to a casino is years. Id get in on this though. Something fun to add to the game.

 

[livextreme9]

I have heard of it and I participate in the $5 for an ace (if I witness it), but not the $1 for hitting metal.

 

[BrotherDave]

As I understand it, the logic behind not paying for pole hits is that if it was too low to have ever had a chance to go in anyway. At least in hitting chains, the disc had the right height.

Of course, that doesn't seem to extend to those willing to pay for cage hits which are also shots that were too low to ever go in. Maybe it's a relic of the era when wedgies counted?

It's interesting b/c hitting the pole is almost a guaranteed park job whereas hitting chains/basket/top could deflect away lots of places. So it's like we're rewarding the flukier shot. The other thing I find interesting is that before baskets the pole was practically the target, especially if you couldn't see the impact. So if you heard metal hit you assumed it was an ace. We're really spoiled these days to think of the pole as not worth a $1, it's no wonder we keep complaining about baskets no matter how much better they get.

 

[DavidSauls]

I suspect it's because it's not really a performance reward, but a game. We're not gambling on performance, or trying to make rewards commensurate with the quality of the shot. If we were, we'd just pay CTP on every hole. That's also the reason the payoff is a token amount---$1, inconsequential, just something more than a high-five.

Aces aren't perfect shots, but they're pretty good. And they're cool. So this little game acknowledges aces, and near-aces, and whether the pole below the basket is a near-enough-ace is just local custom.

The whole 51 (521) thing isn't really gambling, in any serious sense. I don't think players get the gambler's thrill of knowing they're putting up money they might lose, with high hopes of winning a couple of dollars (and, very rarely, a bit more with an ace). It's like a kids' game where, if a certain thing happens, you get a punch to the arm. Handing over a dollar is a light punch in the arm---it doesn't really matter, it's just a token.

For those who care to play it.

 

[SonicGuy]

I always decline to play 51 if asked, but always pay out if I have the money. I don't want to be obligated to pay in case I am short on cash. I can't stand people thinking I owe them money.

Pole doesn't count because it is sometimes hard to determine a pole hit. Low pole is often obstructed and how many times have you looked at each other and said "did that hit the pole?". Hitting basket/chains is a much more obvious thing.

 

[sjberry2017]

I've heard of it, but never participated in it. It wasn't too prevalent in the Upstate of SC with the tournament crowd (no idea in Memphis yet), but a few of the dudes who just hang out and throw that I played with a few times had. A couple rounds a dude would hit metal and I never paid the dollar because I hadn't been paid, and the one time someone offered me money I didn't take it because I don't want to have to worry about having ones and fives on me to pay anyone on my card. I dunno, if people enjoy it it's cool but it's not really my thing.