Golf
A traditional card game, played here in its six-card form. Full rules and history at Pagat.
Score low, like in the sport. Each player tends a small grid of face-down cards, swapping them out one at a time to shrink their score. Nine deals make a game — nine holes of golf. Our built-in scoresheet below also lets you play an 18-hole game if you want.
Setup
The whole deck — all 120 cards. Suits are cosmetic; only rank matters.
Clubs
Spades
Hearts
Diamonds
Caps
Switches
Planets
Stars
Also needed: The scoresheet at the bottom of this page (or pen and paper)
Choose someone to be the dealer however you'd like. You can choose a new dealer every round.
Shuffle the full deck. One ZSA deck covers 2 to 8 players.
The dealer gives each player six cards, one at a time, face down. Players arrange their cards without looking at them, in a face-down grid: three columns, two rows. Place the rest of the deck face down in the middle as the stock, and flip its top card face up beside it to start the discard pile.
Before play begins, each player turns any two of their six cards face up. Don't peek at the other four.
8
3
Your layout after the deal: six cards in three columns of two, with any two turned face up.
Gameplay
The player to the dealer's left goes first, and turns pass clockwise. On your turn, draw one card — either the top of the face-down stock, or the top of the discard pile.
- Swap it in. Place the drawn card face up in your grid, replacing any one of your six cards. You may replace a card whether it's face up or down. If you replace a face-down card, you may not look at it first. The replaced card goes face up onto the discard pile.
- Or discard it — only if you drew from the stock. If you don't want that card in your hand, just discard it face up onto the discard pile and your turn ends. If you took the top discard, you must swap it into your grid; you can't put it straight back.
Opp
9
6A
Draw1007
Youcurrent
85
3
Mid-game with two players. It's your turn: take the 7♦ from the discard, or draw blind from the stock.
The hand ends the moment any player's sixth card is turned face up — everyone's layout is then revealed and scored.
Scoring
Flip all cards face up and score each layout:
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0 |
| A | 1 |
| 2 | −2 |
| 3–9 | Face value |
| X, J, Q | 10 |
| K | 0 |
Pairs cancel. Two cards of equal rank in the same column score zero for that column — even a pair of 2s. Suits don't matter, only card values.
The main skill of the game: build column pairs, and keep your unpaired cards low.
Scoring example
5XQ
524
A finished layout. The first column is a pair of 5s.
Column 1: 5 + 5 = pair, scores 0
Column 2: 10 + (−2) = 8
Column 3: 10 + 4 = 14
0 + 8 + 14 = 22
Play nine deals ("holes"), rotating the dealer each hand. If you want a longer game, you can extend to 18 holes. Lowest total score wins.
Scoresheet
Track your game right here — scores are saved on this device, so you can safely close the page between holes. Tap player names at the top of the table to rename them.
