The games

The games your group already plays, settled net, with strokes falling on the holes the card says they should. No spreadsheet on the 18th green. Every game states its rules where you pick it, says what a bad day costs before you agree to it, and settles to zero — what one side wins, the other side paid.

The main ones

Nassau is three bets in one: front, back, and the whole eighteen, played as a team match. Four players, paired in the order you picked them. Turn presses on and the side that's down can restart the bet from where they stand to the end of that nine.

Skins goes hole by hole on net scores. Win one outright and it's yours. Tie it and it carries, which is how the 16th ends up worth more than the front nine.

Match play is straight head to head. Wolf hands a captain a new hole each time and makes him decide whether to take a partner or go alone. Left & Right splits the foursome anew on every tee. Bingo Bango Bongo pays three points a hole, for first on, closest once everyone's on, and first in. It's the one game where the guy who hits it 210 off the tee can take your money.

Stableford turns the round into points — two for par, three for birdie, one for bogey, nothing worse — so a blow-up hole costs one hole and no more. Quota hands everyone their own number, thirty-six less their handicap, and the only question is who beat theirs by most: the nine handicapper who shoots his number owes nothing to the scratch man who shot his.

Defender is the threesome's match: one of you holds the hill each hole against the other two's better ball, rotating so every third hole is your watch. Sixes gives a foursome three matches in one round — you partner each of the others for six holes, and a bad day loses all three to three different partners. Wingman remakes the teams on every tee instead of every six holes.

Medal is the oldest bet there is and the one most groups actually make: everybody antes, lowest net card takes the pot, ties split it. Gruesomes is two against two where the other side chooses which of your drives you have to play — settled as a match, and cruel by design.

Who goes first

Wolf, Defender, Sixes and Wingman all turn on the order of play — the Wolf on 1, who defends 1, who partners whom in the first six. The order is set on the first tee, on the stakes step, and can be shuffled with Flip for it. Every game's rules can be read from the picker without choosing it: tap the question mark beside the name.

Side games

These run alongside whatever else you've got on, each with its own stake, each showing live during the round so you know where it stands before the last putt.

Vegas puts you in pairs and jams both scores into one number, low digit first. A 4 and a 5 is 45. The gap between the teams is the hole, and a blow-up turns a 6 and a 5 into 65 in a hurry. Daytona is Vegas with a punishment clause — a pair who both fail bogey read their number backwards, so a 5 and a 7 on a par four is 75.

Nines splits nine points a hole across three players — pick it as 9-Point and it is the whole round rather than a side bet. Scotch pays low ball, low total and birdies. Low Ball · High Ball pays two points a hole — the star takes the first, the anchor man decides the second — while Low Ball · Low Total asks instead whose pair is better together. Banker puts one man against the field and rotates. Snake is one running penalty: three-putt and you're holding it, and whoever's holding it walking off 18 pays everybody.

Rabbit goes to whoever wins a hole outright and holds it — collect at the turn and again at the last, and if every hole since the last capture was tied, the rabbit runs free and nobody pays. Acey Deucey settles every hole twice: the clear low collects from everybody, the clear high pays everybody, and ties void.

Dots counts the junk — greenies, sandies, barkies, poleys — tapped as they happen, because the card can't see any of them. Every dot collects the stake from every other player. Hammer prices nerve: every throw doubles the hole, the app shows what it's worth as it climbs, and a halved hole pays nothing however hard it was hammered.

Playing for nothing

Every game here can be played for nothing, and it's a property of the round rather than a separate game you have to pick. Say you're playing for nothing on the first tee and Wolf is still Wolf, skins still carry, the hole is still won — it just settles in points. The round goes into the record exactly like any other, because a round played for pride is still a round you played.

One pot instead of hole by hole

Wolf and Bingo can settle as a single pot: everybody puts the same in at the start, the game is played for points, and the most points takes it. It's how a lot of groups already play them, because nobody wants to owe three people four different amounts at the turn, and it caps the day at the ante.

Your group's own rules

Every group has amendments — how the snake settles here, whether a push carries, what happens when somebody picks up. Those live in the house rules, written once by whoever runs the group, and they show up underneath every game's rules while you're playing it.

Games only appear when the numbers work. Nines and Defender want exactly three; Vegas, Scotch, Sixes, Wingman and Gruesomes want four; Medal, Stableford and Quota take any number; Banker and Snake run from two to five. Change the roster after you've picked and anything that no longer fits drops out instead of settling wrong.