The Calls

Everything else in Rivalry is a record of what already happened. This is the part that happens first.

A tee time goes up. Everyone in the group — playing or not — gets one question: who takes the money? One tap, and you're done.

Sealed until the first tee

Nobody sees anyone else's call until the round starts. That's the whole trick: no piling on, no changing your mind because three people went the other way, and a reveal at tee-off worth actually reading. Until then you can change yours as many times as you like.

It's enforced where it can't be argued with — the app doesn't hide other people's calls from you, the server refuses to send them. And once the round has started, nobody can call it. Calling the winner from the 15th fairway isn't calling it.

It settles itself

Nothing to score, nothing to tally. The round gets filed the way it always does, and the calls are graded against it: whoever took the money took it.

If two people tie at the top, nobody took it — so nobody called it, and that day counts for and against nobody. Being wrong requires somebody else to have been right. A day nobody played counts for nothing either.

There's no money on it, ever

And there won't be. Money on predictions is a different kind of product with a different kind of law around it, and it's the one line this app won't go near.

It doesn't need it. Nobody wants five dollars for calling it — they want it on the record that they called it, in front of the four people whose opinion they care about.

The one column anybody can win

Your calls record sits on your player card next to the money and the wins. It has nothing to do with how well you play, which is the point: the worst golfer in the group can be its sharpest reader, and now there's somewhere that says so.