Question 1: how many are playing?
Group size removes some games before you start. Match play and Nassau are made for two players or two pairs. Las Vegas and sixes need exactly four. Nines needs three. Wolf plays best with four, and can be played with three or five. Skins, Stableford, quota, bingo bango bongo and the side games such as snake and junk work with almost any number.
If the group is five or six, split into two matches or choose a game that scales, such as skins or Stableford, rather than forcing a four-player game.
Question 2: how close is your ability?
If everyone plays to a similar handicap, almost anything works. If the spread is wide, choose a game that lets handicap strokes do their job. Match play, Stableford and quota are the fairest because every hole or every point is judged on net performance. Bingo bango bongo rewards the order of play, not the score, so a high handicapper can win it by being on the green first.
Skins are exciting but harder to balance. One golfer who receives strokes on a hard hole can win a skin with a net birdie every few holes, so keep the strokes off the low and consider playing skins gross for a tighter group.
Question 3: how much arithmetic?
This is the question that ends friendships on the seventeenth tee. Games sort roughly like this.
| Arithmetic | Games | What you track |
|---|---|---|
| Light | Match play, skins, Stableford, quota, snake | Who won the hole, or points on the hole |
| Medium | Nassau, nines, sixes, rabbit, junk | Three bets and presses, or shifting partners and side points |
| Heavy | Las Vegas, wolf, banker, hammer | Team numbers and flips, a choice each hole, or changing stakes |
A scorekeeper makes the heavier games easy, but you still need to understand them well enough to trust the screen. If nobody in the group does, start light and add one new game a month.
Question 4: how much attention per hole?
Some games ask little of you: you play golf and add it up later. Others ask for a decision on every hole. In wolf, someone chooses a partner after each tee shot. In hammer, someone decides whether to double. In banker, the stakes change. If the group wants a relaxed round and a conversation, pick the quiet games. If they want the game inside the game, pick the busy ones.
Five good starting points
- Two friends, similar ability: match play, with a Nassau if you want three results from one round.
- A regular foursome, mixed ability: skins with strokes off the low, plus a few junk points.
- A foursome that wants teams: Las Vegas, with presses off until everyone is comfortable.
- Three players: nines, which keeps all three in play on every hole.
- A big mixed field: Stableford or quota, so everyone competes against their own handicap.
Agree the house rules before you tee off
Whatever you choose, agree the rules that cause arguments on the first tee: how strokes are given, whether ties carry, when a press can be called, how big the stakes are and what the most anyone can lose is. Most games have only five or six rules like this. Our game pages list them for each game, with the usual defaults.
Write them on the scorecard or in the app. A rule nobody wrote down is a rule that can be remembered differently by four people.
Games to avoid at first
Some games are wonderful once everyone knows them and miserable on the first day. Banker and hammer change the stakes during the round, so the bank or the stake can swing quickly. Wolf asks for a decision on every hole under a little pressure. Las Vegas with flips and doubles can produce big swings from one hole. If any player in the group is new to money games, start with match play, skins or Stableford, and add the busier games when the group is comfortable with the basics.
Change the game over a season
Groups that play every week often rotate. One month it is skins, the next it is Nassau, and a team game for a change. Rotating keeps the format fresh, and it means nobody feels that their style of golf is the one the game always favors. Keep a record of what you played, the stakes and the house rules, so the next month starts from the same agreements instead of from memory.
A simple test for any game: could you explain it to a new player in one minute, on the tee, without a card? If not, it is probably too much for that group today, and that is fine. Save it for another round.
Keep the stakes small and the same
The stake should be the amount nobody will think about after the round. A game that costs more than players are comfortable losing stops being fun for the person who is behind, and a quiet player who stops enjoying it will stop showing up. Agree a stake that suits the least comfortable person in the group, and use points if some players would rather not play for money at all.
Know the most you can lose
Before the round, work out the worst case. In a Nassau with automatic presses it is far larger than the headline stakes, which surprises many players. The Nassau press calculator shows it in seconds, and the exact formula for every game is on how the numbers are worked out.
Still unsure? The game picker asks the four questions above and suggests two or three games that fit.