It's that time of year again. Time to prove that playing golf for big-stakes money is no easy task. That's a given when you look at last year's World Series of Golf exhibition rounds when I lasted just four holes before losing my (imaginary) $10,000 buy-in.

This year, I vowed things would be different.

When the exhibition date arrived in late March, I found myself in a group with Drew Casen, Phil Bough and defending champ Mark Ewing (who pocketed a cool $250,000 for winning last year's title).

New strategy: Can I please change groups?

The object of the World Series of Golf is simple: Be the last man standing with all of the money. Getting there? That's another task. Each player starts out with $10,000 in this mixture of high-stakes poker and higher-stakes golf. The task at hand is to win holes. On the tee, players draw for position. Player one, on the button, hits first and then bets first. Player two goes second, etc. On the second hole, player two goes first and the order continues to switch on each hole. Each player antes $100 and tee shots are hit. Then the fun begins. Player one then gets his turn to bet. As in poker, he can bet or check. If he's in great shape in the middle of the fairway, he may want to make a large bet in order to eliminate some of the competition. After each player has bet, called or folded, the next shots are hit and the betting continues (always in the same order) until a player wins the hole or players tie the hole and the pot is split.

That's all well and good when you've got three of your buddies playing. Mix in four different guys (including the defending champ) and you've got a different game...