Side game

Halve a hole and it grows.

Every hole is worth a skin, and you only take it by being outright lowest. Match each other and nobody wins — the skin rides on to the next hole, and the one after that, until somebody finally settles it. It is the format that keeps a round alive after the round is gone.

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The rules

Five things, start to finish.

  1. 1
    Every hole is worth a skin

    Eighteen holes, eighteen skins to be won. What a skin is worth is between you and the group — a pound, a beer, or nothing but the argument afterwards.

  2. 2
    You have to win it outright

    Lowest score on the hole takes the skin, but only if nobody matches it. Two golfers on the same number and the hole is halved, however well either of them played it.

  3. 3
    A halved hole carries

    Nobody takes a halved hole, so its skin rides on to the next one. Halve that too and both ride on. This is the whole game: three quiet holes early can make the fourth worth four skins.

  4. 4
    Handicap strokes, if you want them

    Strokes can be given per hole length — nothing on the par 3s, one on the par 4s, and so on — and are added before the hole is judged. Played without them it is the lowest raw score that takes the skin.

  5. 5
    What nobody wins stays unwon

    If the eighteenth is halved, everything riding on it is simply never claimed. There is no play-off and no splitting it up. Some rounds end with half the skins still on the table, and that is the game.

Worked example

How a hole gets big.

Four golfers. On the first, Ana makes 4 and everyone else makes 5 or worse — Ana takes one skin and the card moves on.

The second is halved: Bo and Cass both make 4. Nobody takes it, so its skin rides. The third is halved as well. Now two skins are riding, and the fourth hole is worth three.

On that fourth, Dan makes a 5. So does nobody else — everyone else is on 6 or worse. Dan takes three skins with a bogey, having won nothing all day, and has more than Ana who actually played the better golf.

That is the whole appeal. Skins does not reward the best round; it rewards being alone at the bottom of a hole, and it saves up its money for whoever manages it late.

Questions

Before the first tee.

How many golfers should play skins?
Three or four is the classic size. Two works and is perfectly good, but with more than about six a single lowest score becomes rare, so nearly every hole halves and the carries grow enormous before anyone takes them.
Why has the card stopped partway through the round?
Because a hole's value depends on the hole before it, the round is counted strictly in order. If one golfer has not written down the sixth hole, nothing from the sixth onwards can be counted yet — even holes everybody else has finished. The card names whoever it is waiting on.
Does the winner of a skin need a good score?
No. Skins rewards being outright lowest, not being good. A bogey nobody matched takes the hole, and on a hard hole late in the round that bogey can be worth five skins.
Can two groups play separate skins games in one round?
Yes. Four golfers out of a larger field can play their own game, or ten can split into two. Each game is its own pot with its own players, its own strokes and its own carries, and none of it touches the others.
How is this different from stroke play?
Stroke play is decided by the total at the end, so a disastrous hole follows you all the way round. In skins each hole is settled on the spot and forgotten, which means a round that is already gone still has eighteen chances left in it.

Skins is one of three games the card scores for you. Modified Match Play and Honest Score are the others, and the rest are explained alongside them.

Playing this weekend?

Set the round up now, share the link, and the skins settle themselves as the holes go in.

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