The Honey Pot in Golf
The expression will sometimes be used as a slang term for a tournament prize fund. Say everyone pays a $100 entry fee to get into the tournament. That money is used to pay the expenses for the event and whatever might be left over can then be used to buy the awards or prizes, or to make payouts to the highest finishers.
More often, the honey pot is something different from — something in addition to — the entry fee/prize purse, and is typically optional.
Let's say you're going to enter a tournament at your local course, and you read that there is a $100 entry fee and $25 honey pot. That means that if you pay the extra $25 into the honey pot, your money is added to that paid into the honey pot by everyone else, and that total dollar amount makes up a bonus pool. The bonus pool money can be won only by golfers who paid into the honey pot.
When the honey pot is a bonus pool, that money might be used to pay out the bonus prizes that some tournaments award, such as the closest to the pin prize, long drive prize, or straightest drive prize.
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