Golf

Players and equipment

Two to eight players — four is the sweet spot — and a standard 52-card deck, two decks for six or more. Like the outdoor game: nine deals are the nine holes, and low wins.

The deal

Six cards each, dealt face down and arranged in front of you in two rows of three. Turn any two of them face up. The rest is the stock, with the top card turned to start the discard pile. Your other four cards stay secret — even from you — until play turns them up. The deal passes to the left after every hole.

Play

On your turn, draw the top of the stock or the discard pile. Either swap it for any card in your layout — the replaced card goes face up onto the discard pile, and if the swapped-in card replaced a face-down card, it lies face up — or discard it and instead turn one of your face-down cards face up.

A card drawn from the discard pile must be swapped in — throwing back the card you have just taken would be no turn at all. A card from the stock may be swapped in or thrown away, and if you throw it away you must turn a face-down card up. Any card in your layout may be swapped out, seen or unseen; the card you throw away is turned over as it goes.

When any player's six cards are all face up, everyone else gets one more turn and the hole is scored.

Scoring

Ace

1

Low here

Two

−2

The card worth hunting

Three to ten

Face value

The middle of the pack

Jack and queen

10

Court cards

King

0

The card worth keeping

A column pair

0 for both

Two of the same rank, one above the other

Some schools add jokers at −2 each, or score a column pair as −4 rather than 0. Agree the sheet before the first hole.

A column is a card and the card directly beneath it, so a layout has three columns. Only a pair in a column cancels: two fives side by side in a row are ten points. Suits mean nothing. Every card still face down when the hole ends is turned over and counts as it lies.

A worked hole

Four players. Ben has just turned his sixth card face up, so Alice, Cara and Dev each take one more turn and then everything is turned over. Alice's layout reads, top row then bottom row: five, king, two over five, nine, jack.

Left column

0

Five over five, a pair

Middle column

9

King over nine

Right column

8

Two over jack

The hole

17

Alice's six cards

The five under the five wipes both out. The king costs nothing and the nine costs nine. The two takes two off the jack's ten, so the right column is eight. Alice writes down seventeen. Ben, who ended the hole, had a pair of sevens, a king over a three and a two over an ace, a hole of two; Cara was caught with a queen and a jack still face down and takes twenty-six; Dev pairs nothing but holds two kings and a two, for eleven.

Nine holes make the round, and the totals run down the card. Alice's card came out like this:

Hole 1

17

17

Hole 2

21

4

Hole 3

32

11

Hole 4

31

−1

Hole 5

40

9

Hole 6

46

6

Hole 7

59

13

Hole 8

61

2

Hole 9

69

8

Sixty-nine is a fair round; a good one is under fifty, and a hole under zero, like Alice's fourth, needs a two beside kings and pairs. Keeping score on SquareScores, each hole is a row on the score table and the totals run down the card as they do here.

Ending

Nine holes, lowest total wins. The card you never turned up counts whatever it turns out to be — the last turn of a hole is mostly prayer.

The column pair

A pair in a column is the biggest swing in the game: a ten over a ten is twenty points or nothing, depending on whether they are one above the other. So once you have a card showing, the rank underneath it becomes the card you are looking for, and the discard pile is where it will appear. Take a matching card from the discard pile whenever one is offered, even a court card — a queen under your queen is worth more than a two swapped in somewhere else.

When to turn a card up

Turning a face-down card up costs you the card you drew, so do it when the drawn card is worse than what an average hidden card is likely to be: a jack or a queen from the stock is nearly always a throw-away and a turn-up. Turn up early in the hole rather than late, because a card you can see is a card you can plan around, and a card face down at the end is a card you are stuck with. A two or a king from the stock goes straight into your layout, usually over a face-down card.

When to end the hole

Nothing is worth keeping face down for its own sake, but there is a reason not to hurry: turning up your sixth card ends the hole after one more round, and if your total is poor you have ended it against yourself. A player with two hidden cards and a bad showing should be swapping, not turning, so the hole runs on. End it when you are ahead and the others still hold face-down cards, which will count against them at about five apiece. Do not end it just because you can.

Reading the table

Every swap tells you something: a player who takes a seven from the pile has a seven showing or remembered, and one who keeps drawing from the stock has no use for what is on the pile. The card you throw away is the card the next player may pick up, so throw the rank nobody is showing, and never throw a two, a king or a card matching a showing card unless you are ending the hole.

Four-card golf

Four cards each in a square, two rows of two. You look once at the two cards nearest you and lay them face down again, so memory becomes part of the game; nothing is turned face up until it is swapped in or the hole ends. The hole ends when a player knocks instead of drawing, giving everyone else one more turn. Card values and the column pair are as in the six-card game.

Eight-card golf

Two rows of four, so four columns and four chances at a pair, with two cards turned up at the start as in the six-card game. The hole ends when a player has all eight face up and the others have had one more turn. A longer, luckier hole, suited to two or three players.

Jokers

Two jokers are shuffled into the deck and each scores minus two, the same as a two. A joker over a two does not pair, since they are different ranks; a joker over a joker does, and some tables score that pair as minus four rather than nothing.

Jacks worth nothing

Some tables make the jack the zero card and the king ten, rather than the other way round. Nothing else changes, but it changes which court card you hunt and which you throw, so settle it out loud before the deal.

A pair worth minus four

Instead of cancelling to nothing, a column pair scores minus four, so three pairs come to minus twelve. Pairs are then worth far more than a two, and the game turns on the discard pile.

Knocking

Some tables end a hole by knocking rather than by turning the sixth card up: a player happy with their layout knocks instead of taking a turn, and everyone else has one more turn. A stricter version gives nobody a further turn — the knock ends the hole at once — which punishes everyone else's face-down cards. Agree which before the first hole. Eighteen holes, two rounds of nine added together, is the other common change.

How do you play the card game Golf?

Each player has six cards face down in two rows of three and turns two of them face up. On your turn you draw from the stock or the discard pile and either swap the card for any card in your layout, or throw it away and turn one of your face-down cards up. When somebody has all six face up, everyone else takes one more turn and each layout is scored. Low wins, and nine holes make a game.

What are the card values in Golf?

Aces are one, twos are minus two, and threes to tens are their face value. Jacks and queens are ten each and kings are nothing. Two cards of the same rank one above the other in a column cancel and score nothing for the pair. Some tables add jokers at minus two, count a column pair as minus four, or make jacks the zero card instead of kings.

What happens when you get a pair in Golf?

If the two cards are of the same rank and one is directly above the other, the pair cancels and scores nothing, whatever the rank — two queens in a column are worth nothing where two queens side by side are worth twenty. Suits do not matter.

How many cards do you deal in Golf?

Six each, in two rows of three, with two turned face up to start. The four-card version deals four in a square and the eight-card version deals two rows of four. One deck serves up to five players; use two decks shuffled together for six or more.

How does a hole end in Golf?

When any player's six cards are all face up, every other player takes one more turn and the hole is scored, with every card still face down turned over and counted as it lies. Some tables end the hole by a knock instead, with or without a final turn for the others.

Can you take from the discard pile in Golf?

Yes. You may draw either the top card of the stock or the top card of the discard pile. A card taken from the discard pile has to go into your layout, replacing a card that then goes onto the pile face up; you cannot take it and throw it straight back. A card from the stock may be swapped in or thrown away.